■ SECURITIES
China to encourage bonds
China will encourage publicly traded companies to issue bonds as a way of diversifying their corporate borrowings, the central bank said yesterday. "Our financial system is immature and one of the main reasons is our corporate bond markets are so small," the People's Bank of China said in a statement posted on its Web site. "We need more forms of corporate financing in order to create a healthy market." Most companies in China rely on bank financing, totaling 2.3 trillion yuan (US$310 billion), while listed companies have raised 1 trillion yuan from the stock markets and only 880 billion yuan from corporate bonds, the central bank said.
■ TRADE TALKS
S Korea, EU work for pact
South Korea's trade minister forecast yesterday that Seoul could agree on a free trade pact with the EU by the end of this year despite a dispute over automotive tariff concessions. Speaking ahead of a fourth round of talks scheduled in Seoul on Oct. 15, South Korean Trade Minister Kim Jong-hoon said both sides had to compromise. A deal with the EU would be the biggest ever for South Korea, surpassing an agreement signed in June with the US, which awaits ratification by the legislatures of both countries.
■ THEME PARKS
Disney in Malaysian talks
Walt Disney Co is holding talks with Malyasian investment company Khazanah Nasional about building a theme park in Johor State that would face Singapore, a business paper reported yesterday. The Edge business weekly said Walt Disney officials met officials from Khazanah last week to discuss developing a park in the Iskandar Development Region. "They [Walt Disney] met Khazanah managing director Azman Mokhtar and had discussions with other top Khazanah executives," it said. But it said Khazanah was also in negotiations with other theme park players including Warner Brothers.
■ COMMUNICATIONS
Japan seeks new standard
A research group will be established in Japan to develop optical technology that could replace the Internet Protocol as the new international standard in communications, a report said yesterday. The group will be established next month by the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, which is backed by the government, and private companies such as NTT Corp, Fujitsu Ltd, KDDI Corp, Hitachi Ltd, Toshiba Corp and NEC Corp, the Nikkei Shimbun said. By 2015, it will aim to develop and commercialize a network that can transfer data at 10 gigabits per second.
■ IPR
French company fined
An court in eastern China has ordered a French electrical company to pay 330 million yuan (US$44 million) for infringing on the copyright of a Chinese firm, the Beijing News reported yesterday. In a ruling issued on Saturday, the Wenzhou intermediate court in Zhejiang Province ordered Schneider Electric to pay 330 million yuan in compensation to the Chint Group for infringing on the patent for its low-voltage electrical equipment, the newspaper reported. The amount of compensation is believed to be the highest in China in an intellectual property rights case, the paper said. "We absolutely disagree with this decision; it is absolutely unreasonable," said Guy Dufraisse, director of China operations for Schneider Electric.
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
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
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
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