■INTERNET
Chinese users increasing
China’s booming population of Internet users has soared to 221 million, tying the US for the biggest number of people online, the Xinhua news agency said yesterday, citing data from the government’s Internet agency. The percentage of Chinese online stands at 16 percent, below the world average of 19 percent, Xinhua said. China’s February figure for Internet users was a 61 percent jump over the 137 million people online reported by the government at the start of last year. The US had 221 million Internet users last month, said Nielsen/NetRatings, a leading industry measurement service.
■OIL
Gazprom targets TNK-BP
Russian gas giant Gazprom aims to buy a controlling stake in British-Russian oil company TNK-BP by the end of this year, the Vedomosti business daily reported yesterday, quoting sources in both companies. “It’s already been decided that TNK-BP will be sold for 20 billion dollars. The deal will be closed by the end of this year,” the paper quoted a source close to the Gazprom leadership as saying. TNK-BP, co-owned by Britain’s BP and a group of Russian investors, is the country’s third-largest energy company. Last year it produced 69 million tonnes of oil.
■ENTERTAINMENT
Nintendo profits double
Japanese video game giant Nintendo Co said yesterday that its annual operating profit had more than doubled as sales hit a record high on surging demand for its Wii and DS consoles. The company predicted another year of record net profits but said the pace of growth would slow as a stronger yen curbs overseas revenues. Net profit rose 47.7 percent to an all-time high of ¥257.34 billion (US$2.48 billion) in the fiscal year to last month, a company statement said. Nintendo said it had sold 18.61 million Wii consoles in the fiscal year, lifting total sales since the launch in December 2006 to 24.45 million units.
■BANKING
Barclays Q1 earnings to drop
Barclays PLC will report lower first-quarter earnings compared with the same period a year earlier, after a particularly tough time last month, group chief executive John Varley said yesterday. Varley said in a statement prepared for the company’s annual general meeting that profits in global retail and commercial banking were ahead of last year’s results in the first quarter, but profits of Barclays Capital and Barclays Global Investors were “well below” last year’s results. “But I believe that the same resilience of financial performance that we saw in 2007 is observable again in our first quarter results of 2008,” Varley said.
■COMMODITIES
Brazil stops rice exports
Brazil said on Wednesday it has temporarily halted rice exports to ensure domestic supply amid rising world prices for the grain. Brazil grows more rice than it consumes and has a reserve that will safeguard its supply, Agriculture Minister Reinhold Stephanes said in a statement. Sales abroad will nevertheless be blocked to make sure the country has enough of the grain for the next six to eight months. Several Asian countries recently suspended rice exports to guarantee their own supplies, causing an imbalance in world markets, Stephanes said. “We will follow the movement of the principal world producers,” he said. “With the favorable price, it’s possible that there will be an increase in production and that the supply situation will be resolved next year.”
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
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
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