■ Aviation
Airbus to reduce suppliers
Airbus is to cut the number of its suppliers by more than 80 percent as part of its restructuring program, a spokeswoman confirmed on Monday, but the European aircraft maker gave no further details of the planned cuts. The number of suppliers will be reduced "from 3,000 to 500," Airbus spokeswoman Marcella Muratore said. No further information was available on which suppliers would be dropped or the timetable for the cuts, she said. Airbus' comment confirmed a report in the German Financial Times Deutschland on Monday that Airbus planned to cut procurement costs by 350 million euros (US$445 million) by 2010 and raise the amount of components made in low-wage by 50 percent.
■ Automobiles
Toyota's profits up 36%
Toyota Motor Corp yesterday said its group net profit for the fiscal half-year surged 36.2 percent, driven by robust sales in North America and Europe. Toyota, on pace to overtake General Motors Corp to become the world's No. 1 automaker, also raised its earnings forecast for the full year through March to ¥1.55 trillion (US$13.14 billion) from an earlier projection of ¥1.31 trillion. Japan's largest automaker said net profit for the April-September period was ¥777.2 billion, up from ¥570.5 billion posted for the same period last year.
■ Mobile devices
NTP sues Palm
NTP, the US firm specializing in licensing patented technology, said on Monday it had filed a patent-infringement suit against Treo-maker Palm. NTP announced that it had filed the complaint in a US court in Virginia and demanded that Palm be stopped from using the technology and be ordered to pay cash damages. NTP claimed it had tried in vain to resolve the situation with Palm to avoid litigation, which it described as a "waste of time and money." In March NTP won a high-profile legal victory over Research In Motion, a Canadian firm it accused of violating its patented technology with its popular BlackBerry handheld devices.
■ Internet
PayPal to offer cash rebates
PayPal, the payment-service company owned by online auction site eBay Inc, said on Monday it would launch an incentive program, allowing customers who subscribe to the service to receive cash rebates of up to US$20 on several thousand merchants' sites in North America. In a release, PayPal said that the cash rebate programs, valued at US$100 million, would be available to consumers from Nov. 23 through May 15. Free shipping promotions will be available beginning Nov. 23. Some of the merchants' sites in addition to eBay that will offer PayPal customers cash rebate offers are cooking.com, starbucks.com, walgreens.com and buy.com, according to Amanda Pires, a PayPal spokeswoman.
■ Semiconductors
Intel's investment approved
Intel Corp, the world's largest chipmaker, has received permission to increase its initial investment in Vietnam from US$300 million to up to US$1 billion, a Vietnamese official said yesterday. Intel is constructing a US$300 million chip assembly and testing plant in Ho Chi Minh City. Its initial investment license, granted in February, gave the firm permission to invest up to US$605 million. The government has amended the license, allowing Intel to invest up to US$1 billion to raise its production capacity, said Nguyen Anh Tuan, director of the Information Technology Industry.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique