■ INVESTMENT
Russia ranks No. 3
A decade and a half after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia has become a powerhouse of overseas investment, a study released yesterday showed. The study by the Skolkovo Moscow School of Management and New York's Columbia University found that the top 25 Russian companies in terms of foreign assets have a total of US$59 billion in foreign assets. That makes Russia the third-largest direct foreign investor among emerging markets, after Hong Kong and Brazil and "reveals a dramatic transnationalization of Russian firms," the study said.
■ INVESTMENT
Loan obligations rising
Sales of collateralized loan obligations, the source of funding that helped drive leveraged buyouts to a record earlier this year, rose 17 percent last month, Morgan Stanley analysts said. Banks increased sales of securities for making leveraged loans to US$10.1 billion from 16 deals, compared with US$8.6 billion from 13 transactions in October, analysts led by New York-based Vishwanath Tirupattur said in a research note on Sunday. Sales of the repackaged bank loans all but froze in July as rising defaults on subprime mortgages led investors to flee all but the safest of assets.
■ TELECOMS
AT&T unveils faster network
AT&T Inc said on Monday it had switched on its high-speed backbone network, which is designed to ferry data traffic across the US four times faster. AT&T has begun placing traffic on its so-called "ultra-long haul" network, which boasts a capacity of 40 gigabits per second, meaning consumers will be able to download large files quicker and more easily stream online videos to their computers. Carriers have been upgrading the backbone network -- the underlying pipes needed to move data across extremely long distances -- to meet the increasing demand in bandwidth-intensive programs and videos.
■ OIL
Prices are `suitable': OPEC
Oil prices, which have declined more than 10 percent from a record, are "controlled by speculators," OPEC secretary-general Abdalla el-Badri said. Current prices are "suitable," el-Badri said in an interview in Bali, Indonesia. OPEC supplies more than 40 percent of the world's oil. At its Dec. 5 meeting in Abu Dhabi, OPEC decided to leave production targets unchanged after ministers from the group said high prices weren't caused by a lack of crude oil supply. OPEC president Mohamed al-Hamli said that speculation, refining bottlenecks and political events are partly to blame for high oil prices, not a lack of OPEC crude.
■ AVIATION
Alitalia promised help
Air France-KLM pledged on Monday to return Italy's struggling airline Alitalia SpA to profitability, while a rival bidder attacked its planned takeover. The world's largest airline by revenue said in a statement that it planned to develop Rome's Leonardo da Vinci airport hub and offer a wide range of European and intercontinental flights from the Italian capital. Earlier, the chief executive of Intesa Sanpaolo SpA, the main bank backing airline Air One SpA's rival bid to buy Alitalia, likened selling Italy's state-controlled airline to Air France-KLM to throwing it away. Alitalia is expected to choose between Air France or Air One to continue exclusive talks to sell the government's 49.9 percent stake.
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