■ FINANCE
Aegon to tap Dutch funds
Aegon NV, the owner of US insurer Transamerica Corp, received a 3 billion euro (US$3.8 billion) lifeline from the Netherlands, making it the second Dutch financial company to draw on the government’s bailout program. Aegon will issue 750 million non-voting securities at 4 euros apiece to Vereniging Aegon, its largest shareholder, The Hague-based insurer said in a statement distributed yesterday through PRNewswire. Vereniging Aegon will in turn be funded by the Dutch State, it said. Aegon follows ING Groep NV in making use of the 20 billion euros that the Netherlands set aside for financial firms on Oct. 10. ING, the biggest Dutch financial-services firm, will receive half of the pool by selling non-voting preferred shares to the government.
■ FINANCE
Visa, MasterCard to pay up
Credit card issuers Visa Inc and MasterCard Inc said on Monday they would pay up to US$2.75 billion to Discover Financial Services LLC to settle an antitrust suit. Visa of San Francisco will pay US$1.89 billion, and MasterCard of Purchase, New York, will pay US$862.5 million. Morgan Stanley, the former parent of Discover, will refund US$100 million to Visa and MasterCard under separate agreements. In 2004, Riverwoods, Illinois-based Discover filed a lawsuit against MasterCard and Visa saying they had harmed its business by preventing their member banks from issuing credit cards for Discover’s network. Discover said it would receive about US$862 million of the settlement in the current fiscal quarter and up to about US$472 million per quarter next year. MasterCard settled a similar suit with American Express in June for a maximum of US$1.8 billion.
■ AVIATION
Citigroup pushes airlines
Citigroup Inc recommended investors should buy airline shares, including Air France-KLM Group, citing the “strong financial position” of Europe’s largest carrier. “With 5.5 billion euros [US$6.9 billion] of cash and 1.5 billion euros on undrawn facilities, Air France has no need to raise new debt for over three years and is well within covenants,” London-based analyst Andrew Light wrote in a note to clients. Citigroup upgraded Air France, Ryanair Holdings PLC, Europe’s largest discount airline, and SAS Group, owner of Scandinavian Airlines, to “buy” from “hold.”
■ FINLAND
Retail sales pick up
The nation’s retail sales growth rebounded last month after slowing the month before as wage increases boosted spending. The value of retail sales at market prices rose an annual 6 percent, compared with 3.7 percent the month before and 2.9 percent in September last year, Helsinki-based Statistics Finland said on its Web site yesterday, citing preliminary figures. Wage increases that unions agreed to last year lifted pay by 5 percent in the third quarter compared with a year earlier, the statistics office said on Oct. 15.
■ ECONOMY
‘Anti-crisis’ menu offered
A restaurant in Gijon in northern Spain has started offering a lunch time “anti-crisis” menu for just one euro to help its customers in the industrial port face up to the sharp economic slowdown. Waiting times for a seat were long last Thursday as the 49-seat establishment served nearly 200 people. For one euro, customers were served seafood soup, ribs with rice, chicken or anchovies with salad, along with bread, a drink and dessert. Lunch time menus in Spain usually cost around 10 euros.
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