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BANKING
All deposits guaranteed
Hong Kong Financial Secretary John Tsang (曾俊華) said yesterday that all bank deposits in the territory would be fully guaranteed until 2010, following turmoil in the international banking system. “[We will] use the exchange fund to guarantee the repayment of all customer deposits held in authorized institutions in Hong Kong,” Tsang told reporters. Previously the first HK$100,000 (US$12,800) were guaranteed.
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SEMICONDUCTORS
Elpida upgrades production
Elpida Memory Inc, Japan’s largest maker of computer-memory chips, is raising ¥160 billion (US$1.56 billion) to upgrade memory-chip production and cut costs as prices decline. Tokyo-based Elpida will sell ¥50 billion in convertible bonds to Nomura Asia Ltd, and use a ¥110 billion credit line, the company said in statements to the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
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FOREX
Chinese reserves up
China’s foreign exchange reserves, already the world’s largest, rose to US$1.9056 trillion at the end of last month, the central bank said yesterday. The figure was up 32.9 percent from a year earlier and about 25 percent higher than at the end of last year, data posted on the People’s Bank of China Web site showed. The year-on-year growth showed a continued easing from the nearly 40 percent increase recorded in the first quarter of this year, amid the slowing global economy.
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BANKING
Fortis resumes trading
Fortis, which was forced to sell its main business to the Belgian, Dutch and Luxembourg governments, said it would start trading its shares again yesterday as a stripped-down insurer. Shares of Fortis, once the biggest Belgian and Dutch bank, have been suspended for a week after dropping about 90 percent since the start of the year. That happened on fears that it could not get credit on frozen markets to cover the debt it built up buying part of Dutch bank ABN Amro. It sought state rescue, with the three governments agreeing first to partly nationalize the bank and then to split it, with the Dutch government taking control of its Dutch operations, and Belgium and Luxembourg selling most of the bank’s activities to France’s BNP Paribas, the largest euro-zone bank by assets.
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TRADING
Exchange gets new player
Dubai’s fledgling oil exchange is getting another big-name investor with the addition of US banking giant JPMorgan Chase. The company, which recently acquired fallen investment house Bear Sterns and US bank Washington Mutual, joins Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell and three energy trading firms as minority shareholders of the exchange.
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TELECOMS
Making cellphones safer
A Canadian company on Monday unveiled software crafted to prevent people, particularly mobile device-loving teenagers, from making telephone calls or text-messaging while driving. Aegis Mobility describes DriveAssist as “advanced call management technology” that essentially creates virtual personal secretaries to intercept calls or text messages intended for mobile telephones in moving cars. DriveAssist software detects when phones are moving at automobile speeds and then tells callers that the person they are trying to reach is driving. Callers are invited to leave messages or call-back numbers.
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