■ ENERGY
Oil at near-record in Asia
World oil traded near record levels yesterday in Asia after OPEC’s president talked of uncertainty surrounding future investment in energy facilities to boost crude output. In afternoon trade, New York’s main oil futures contract, light sweet crude for delivery next month, was US$1.33 higher at US$142.30 a barrel from a record close of US$140.97 on Tuesday at the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent North Sea oil for delivery next month was US$1.51 higher at US$142.18 after an all-time settlement high of US$140.67 in London on Tuesday.
■VENEZUELA
Inflation may hit 30%
Inflation could hit 30 percent this year and requires a joint effort by the private and public sectors to curb it, the country’s top business leader said on Tuesday. “Inflation has gotten out of hand. Either we all agree to sit down to see how we can control it or it will be the people who pay all the consequences,” Federation of Chambers of Commerce president Jose Manuel Gonzalez told Union Radio. Inflation in Venezuela hit 22.5 percent last year, the highest in Latin America, and this year could top 30 percent, Gonzales said.
■FINANCe
IRS hunts tax evaders
A US federal judge cleared the way for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) on Tuesday to order information from Switzerland-based bank UBS AG about US taxpayers who may be using Swiss bank accounts to evade federal income taxes. The IRC summons directs UBS to produce records revealing US taxpayers with accounts that have been kept from the IRS. The Department of Justice said that a statement submitted to the court by former UBS banker Bradley Birkenfeld indicated that UBS employees helped US clients conceal their assets by creating “sham entities” and falsely filing IRS forms claiming the entities as the owners of the accounts. Birkenfeld’s court statement said UBS had approximately US$20 billion in assets under management in undeclared accounts for US taxpayers.
■ENERGY
Biofuel crop growers fined
Brazil has slapped multimillion-dollar fines on 24 ethanol producers accused of environmental crimes in the country’s dwindling Atlantic rain forest, Brazilian Environment Minister Carlos Minc said on Tuesday. The companies together face US$75 million in fines for operating without licenses and planting sugarcane in illegally deforested parts of one of Brazil’s most threatened ecosystems, Minc said. They will also be required to restore 58,000 hectares of degraded rain forest. “We will not let companies that destroy the Atlantic rain forest have any peace,” Minc told reporters. “If these environmental crimes continue, they will provide ammunition for those who want to slap trade barriers on the export of Brazilian ethanol.” The companies fined this week were mostly small Brazilian producers.
■RETAIL
Marks & Spencer sales fall
Marks & Spencer Group Plc, the UK’s biggest clothes retailer, said sales at British stores open at least a year fell 5.3 percent in the 13 weeks to last week. Clothing and home furnishing revenue dropped 6.2 percent on that basis and same-store sales of food dropped 4.5 percent, the company said in a Regulatory News Service statement. Steve Esom, the company’s director of food, will leave with immediate effect, the statement said.
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
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