■ ELECTRONICS
TI profits up 13 percent
Texas Instruments Inc (TI), the largest maker of chips for mobile phones, said on Tuesday its fourth-quarter profit rose 13 percent on strong sales of analog and digital signal processing chips. The company posted net income of US$756 million, or US$0.54 per share, compared with US$668 million, or US$0.45 per share,in the last quarter last year. Revenue rose 3 percent to US$3.56 billion from US$3.46 billion last year. Analysts polled by Thomson Financial, on average, expected earnings of US$0.52 per share on sales of US$3.58 billion. TI forecast first-quarter earnings of US$0.43 to US$0.49 per share on revenue of US$3.27 billion to US$3.55 billion.
■ CIGARETTES
New tobacco giant emerges
A new tobacco giant incorporating well-known brands Regal cigarettes and Montecristo cigars emerged on Tuesday as Britain's Imperial Tobacco won control of Franco-Spanish peer Altadis. Imperial said in a statement that Altadis shareholders overwhelmingly backed its takeover bid for Altadis worth 12.8 billion euros (US$18.8 billion). The takeover will create Europe's second-largest tobacco company, behind Altria Group's Philip Morris, making about 312 billion cigarettes a year. The combination of the world's fourth and fifth-biggest tobacco groups will bring together Imperial Tobacco brands Regal, Embassy and Davidoff, with Altadis' Montecristo and Gauloises.
■ BANKING
China monitors US crisis
China has established a taskforce to monitor the US subprime exposure held by domestic lenders as worries over the impact of the mortgage crisis intensifies, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The China Banking Regulatory Commission, the main industry watchdog, will send a team to examine the subprime holdings of China's major banks and report on a monthly basis, the newspaper said. A spokesman of the agency declined to comment on the report.
■ TOURISM
Record arrivals in Singapore
Singapore's tourism industry enjoyed a banner year last year as a record 10.3 million visitors came to the city-state, the government said yesterday. Last year's visitor arrivals was up 5.4 percent over 2006 and surpassed the Singapore Tourism Board's target of 10.2 million, the government agency said. "This is the highest annual visitor arrivals recorded for the Singapore tourism sector," the tourism board said in a statement. Tourism receipts last year also set a new milestone of S$13.8 billion (US$9.7 billion), up 11.3 percent from the year before, it said.
■ AUTOMOBILES
Ford could make more cuts
Struggling Ford Motor Co could undergo further cuts if it cannot drive more customers into its showrooms, the US automaker's chief said on Tuesday. "If demand goes down substantially more than what we are predicting, then we'll continue to restructure our business to that new demand," Ford chief executive officer Alan Mulally said. Ford, which lost US$10 billion in 2006, is in the midst of a massive restructuring plan aimed at cutting some US$5 billion in operating costs in order to return to profitability by next year. It has slashed unpopular models, announced plans to lay off some 40,000 workers and is shuttering 16 plants.
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