■ ENERGY
Australia to use resources
Australia will push oil companies to quickly develop the nation’s known energy-resource deposits after an explosion cut natural gas supplies in Western Australia by 30 percent, Australian Resources and Energy Minister Martin Ferguson said. “In the minds of some companies we can basically leave our oil and gas capacity sitting there despite the fact it’s commercially available for development now,” Ferguson said in Perth yesterday after a meeting with Western Australia Premier Alan Carpenter, held to discuss the impact of the June 3 Apache Corp pipeline fire. “Whoever has energy security has a guaranteed economic future.” While the Apache plant provides only one-third of the state’s gas supplies, the June 3 explosion will cost “hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars,” Carpenter said.
■AGRICULTURE
Food scarce in Argentina
Argentina once again faced food shortages on Friday due to highway blockages by protesting workers. Grain transporters — angry at a lack of work because of a three-month standoff between the government and thousands of farmers — have set up roadblocks that have prevented others from getting their products to market. Soy, wheat and corn farmers have suspended exports three times since March 11, leaving grain exporters without cargo. Supermarket associations said milk products, fruit, vegetables and beef are in short supply, especially in the interior, since the blockades began last week.
■ECONOMY
Venezuela to ‘heat up again’
Venezuela’s economy will grow faster in the rest of the year following a first-quarter slowdown as new tax cuts and subsidies take effect, the country’s planning minister said on Friday. The oil-exporting country’s economy “will heat up again,” after growth slowed to a four-year low of 4.8 percent in the first quarter over the year-ago period, Planning Minister Haiman El Troudi said. Venezuela’s government is aiming for 6 percent growth this year, down from last year’s 8.4 percent expansion. El Troudi predicted gains would average 5 to 6 percent a year for the next decade.
■FOOD PRICES
Ecuador introduces tax cuts
Ecuador’s president is unveiling a US$256 million package of subsidies and tax cuts to ease soaring food costs. Consumer prices rose at an annual rate of 9.3 percent last month as food prices climbed and the US dollar fell. Ecuador uses the US dollar as its currency, linking the country’s economic fate to the weakening greenback. President Rafael Correa announced plans on Friday to repeal a 12 percent tax on fertilizer, seeds and other farm tools, and to provide additional subsidies on those products to lower the cost of food production.
■AGRICULTURE
US floods may boost prices
Floods that have inundated the US Midwest could reduce world corn supplies and drive food prices higher at a time when some countries have witnessed rioting over rising food costs. The US government will report later this month on how many acres of corn were lost to flooding. But farmers and agriculture experts say the toll appears grim, with thousands of hectares probably destroyed in the region that grows most of the world’s corn. The most recent floods have sent corn prices soaring past US$7 a bushel for the first time, up from about US$4 a year ago. Prices shot to a record for a seventh straight day on Friday, climbing as high as US$7.37 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade.
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