■ ENERGY
Hitachi, GE to team up
Japan’s Hitachi and US giant General Electric will team up to sell midsize nuclear reactors to meet growing demand for power facilities in Southeast Asia, a Hitachi spokesman said yesterday. The move comes as soaring crude oil prices and worries about global warming spur interest in nuclear power. The move is aimed at tapping into the markets in countries such as Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand, where demand for reactors with output of one million kilowatts or less is expected to grow, spokesman Masayuki Takeuchi said.
■ AUTOMOBILES
Toyota 2Q sales up
Toyota Motor Corp, challenging General Motors Corp’s 77-year reign as the global auto leader, said preliminary second-quarter sales rose about 2 percent on higher demand in China and other emerging markets. The company sold about 2.406 million vehicles in the three months ended June 30, compared with 2.36 million a year earlier, Hideaki Homma, a spokesman, said by phone today. The company didn’t give a breakdown for regional sales. Toyota’s expansion to China, Brazil and other new markets made up for a drop in US sales in the period.
■ INTERNET
Joost opens in China
Internet TV service provider Joost said it launched a Chinese service yesterday with local portal TOM Online to tap the world’s largest online market. The company has also set up a joint venture with Hong Kong-listed TOM Group, parent of TOM Online, to bring a full Joost offering to China, Joost said in a statement posted on its Web site. “There’s a great market opportunity in China: content producers who are making high-quality content, advertisers eager to reach consumers online, and an active online community,” CEO Mike Volpi said. “Collaborating with TOM, which operates one of the most popular online portals in China, positions us strongly in the region,” he said in the statement.
■ TAKEOVERS
Tokio Marine buys US firm
Japanese non-life insurance giant Tokio Marine Holdings announced yesterday that it would buy US counterpart Philadelphia Consolidated Holdings Corp for about US$4.7 billion. The US firm’s board members agreed unanimously to a friendly takeover, Tokio Marine Holdings said in a statement. “Through the acquisition, our company aims to put a foot in a major non-life insurance market and realise a significant gain in income from overseas,” Tokio Marine, Japan’s largest non-life insurer, said in a statement. Under the deal, Tokio Marine Nichido, an affiliate of the Japanese non-insurance group, would form a new company in Pennsylvania that will merge with the US firm by December, subject to regulatory approval.
■ RETAIL
Costco earnings miss target
Costco Wholesale Corp, the largest US warehouse-club chain, said earnings will be “well below” analysts’ estimates after surging energy prices increased the retailer’s costs and made selling gasoline less profitable. Fourth-quarter earnings per share are expected to miss the US$1 consensus estimate of analysts surveyed by First Call, Costco said in a statement. The retailer also said it plans to buy back an extra US$1 billion of shares. Chief financial officer Richard Galanti said the company kept prices lower than planned to retain customers amid record fuel prices and the worst housing market since the Great Depression.
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