■ ELECTRONICS
Toshiba sells building
Toshiba said yesterday it is selling its building in Tokyo's plush Ginza district for ?161 billion (US$1.4 million) to concentrate on its core electronics businesses. Japanese electronics maker Toshiba Corp, which has been trying to strengthen its computer chips and gadget operations, said the sale of the building to Tokyo Land Corp will be completed next month. "This sale will increase the corporate value of Toshiba through realization of a fair value for the Ginza Toshiba Building and allowing concentration of resources in core businesses," it said.
■ AUTOMOBILES
Chery sees exports doubling
China's Chery Automobile Co (奇瑞汽車), a fast-growing private company, expects to double its exports this year from last year to 100,000 cars, a senior executive said yesterday. The rapid expansion of overseas shipments will help the nimble auto maker toward the ambitious goal of selling 1 million cars annually by 2010, company vice president Zhou Biren (周必仁) said. Chery, which was established just a decade ago, said its main markets abroad included the former Soviet republics, the Middle East and South America. Zhou confirmed that Chery intends to sell shares to the public, but gave few other details.
■ SINGAPORE
New berths to be built
A consortium led by Hyundai Engineering & Construction Co will build 16 new berths in Singapore to enable the island state to handle growing demand for container capacity, the Maritime and Port Authority (MPA) of Singapore said yesterday. In a statement, the MPA said the project will add 14 million twenty foot equivalent units (TEU) to Pasir Panjang terminal's container handling capacity. The authority said work on the new berths will commence in the last quarter of this year and will take about six years to complete.
■ AVIATION
Qantas adds green tax
Australia's flagship Qantas Airways Ltd and its popular budget carrier Jetstar launched a program yesterday allowing passengers to pay extra to offset the greenhouse emissions their flights cause. The scheme allows travelers to calculate the per-passenger emissions of their flights and buy carbon dioxide credits that would be paid to a variety of environmental projects, the airline said in a statement. A flight from Australia to Los Angeles generates around 1.4 tonnes of greenhouse gases per passenger, which the airline says can be offset by paying just A$17 (US$14.50) per flight. The money would be spent on government-approved carbon dioxide abatement schemes.
■ INDUSTRY
Mitsubishi eyes partnership
Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd plans to enter the market for power plant facilities in Russia under a tie-up with conglomerate Renova Group, a newspaper said yesterday. The partnership, which is expected to be announced in the next few days, will make Mitsubishi Heavy the first Japanese heavy electric machinery manufacturer to enter the Russian power systems market, the Nikkei Shimbun said. Under the plan, Mitsubishi will transfer its latest gas turbine technology to Ural Turbine Works, a unit of the Renova Group, the report said, without revealing sources. Ural Turbine intends to double or triple output capacity from five turbines a year.
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