■ OIL
Prices mixed after report
Oil prices were mixed in Asian trade yesterday ahead of a weekly US government report on the country's energy stockpiles, dealers said. Trading interest was largely muted after OPEC rejected calls from the US for the cartel to raise output, they said. In afternoon trading New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery next month, gained US$0.02 to US$94.11 a barrel from US$94.09 in late US trades on Wednesday. Brent North Sea crude for delivery next month fell US$0.06 to US$91.30. OPEC chief Abdallah al-Badri on Wednesday rejected US calls for increased oil output to cool record prices, saying the market is already well supplied.
■ TECHNOLOGY
Dell to use Solaris system
Dell Inc has agreed to install Sun Microsystems Inc's Solaris operating system in some of its servers, the companies announced, signaling Sun's latest truce with a former rival. The chief executives of both firms announced the multi-year partnership together on stage on Wednesday at the Oracle OpenWorld conference in San Francisco. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Sun commands 13 percent of the worldwide server market, while Dell commands about 12 percent, according to the latest data from market research firm IDC.
■ MEDIA
CNN to increase staff
CNN Worldwide plans to boost its correspondent staff by 10 percent as part of a multimillion-dollar investment to increase CNN's ability to generate original news content, the network said on Wednesday. CNN Worldwide, a unit of media conglomerate Time Warner Inc, said it will invest just under US$10 million to add 15 or 16 correspondents to its existing staff of 150. The announcement comes two months after CNN said it would not renew its contract to receive news from Reuters Group PLC and instead bolster its own news resources.
■ PHARMACEUTICALS
L'Oreal sells some stock
Cosmetics leader L'Oreal has sold 1.8 percent of its stock in pharmaceutical group Sanofi-Aventis for some 1.5 billion euros (US$2.2 billion), the company said on Wednesday. The transfer took the form of private placement, with the shares sold at 60.50 euros each, it said. The "transaction was completed within a few hours and will yield proceeds of approximately [1.5 billion euros] to L'Oreal," it said in a statement. L'Oreal's stake in Sanofi-Aventis was cut to 8.7 percent as a result of the sale. It said it would use the proceeds of the sale to fund "development and strategic projects."
■ TECHNOLOGY
Going.com to sell tickets
Social networking Web site Going.com said on Wednesday its users will be able to buy event tickets on the site, starting with a Moby concert this week. Going.com allows users to check who else plans to go to a concert or party to help decide whether to attend, and they can see how many people are interested in an event like the Moby concert. The Web site features mostly user-organized events for the 20-something crowd in Boston, San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. It plans to launch in Miami and Atlanta in the next couple weeks and 10 other cities early next year. The site seeks to tap the changing market for ticketing, which has been largely dominated by sellers like Ticketmaster.
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
RETHINK? The defense ministry and Navy Command Headquarters could take over the indigenous submarine project and change its production timeline, a source said Admiral Huang Shu-kuang’s (黃曙光) resignation as head of the Indigenous Submarine Program and as a member of the National Security Council could affect the production of submarines, a source said yesterday. Huang in a statement last night said he had decided to resign due to national security concerns while expressing the hope that it would put a stop to political wrangling that only undermines the advancement of the nation’s defense capabilities. Taiwan People’s Party Legislator Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) yesterday said that the admiral, her older brother, felt it was time for him to step down and that he had completed what he
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
CHINA REACTS: The patrol and reconnaissance plane ‘transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,’ the 7th Fleet said, while Taipei said it saw nothing unusual The US 7th Fleet yesterday said that a US Navy P-8A Poseidon flew through the Taiwan Strait, a day after US and Chinese defense heads held their first talks since November 2022 in an effort to reduce regional tensions. The patrol and reconnaissance plane “transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,” the 7th Fleet said in a news release. “By operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law, the United States upholds the navigational rights and freedoms of all nations.” In a separate statement, the Ministry of National Defense said that it monitored nearby waters and airspace as the aircraft