■ COMPUTERS
Makers issue battery recall
Computer makers are recalling 100,000 laptop battery packs made by Sony Corp after 40 reports of overheating, a US Consumer Product Safety Commission notice said on Thursday. The recall applies to certain Sony 2.15Ah lithium-ion cell batteries made in Japan and sold around the world in laptops made by Hewlett-Packard Co, Dell Inc and Toshiba Corp. Twenty-one of the reports claimed minor property damage, and small burns were reported in four cases. Sony blamed two factors for the defects: adjustments on its manufacturing line from October 2004 to June 2005, which may have affected the quality of cells in certain production lots, and a possible flaw in the metal foil for electrodes.
■ BANKING
Barclays seeking capital
Barclays PLC said yesterday it was seeking up to £7.3 billion (US$11.8 billion) from Middle Eastern investors to avoid resorting to a British government bailout. The money would come from investment funds and royal families in Qatar and Abu Dhabi. Yesterday’s announcement follows an earlier £4.5 billion cash call by the bank in June. Barclays said the investment would enable it to meet new rules on banks’ capitalization ordered by Britain’s financial regulators. “The board believes that this maintains Barclays as a strong, independent and well capitalized bank,” chairman Marcus Agius said.
■ BANKING
Mizuho halves profit target
Japan’s second-largest bank, Mizuho Financial Group, said yesterday it had slashed its net profit target for this year by more than half in the face of global financial turmoil. Mizuho forecast a 19.7 percent drop in net profit to ¥250 billion (US$2.5 billion) in the fiscal year to March, well short of a previous forecast of ¥560 billion. It blamed the falling stock market, rising corporate bankruptcies and the collapse of Wall Street bank Lehman Brothers. The bank said it made a net profit of about ¥94 billion in the six months to September, down sharply from ¥327.06 billion a year earlier, missing its target of ¥250 billion. Mizuho, one of Japan’s three megabanks, saw its profits roughly halved last year amid heavy losses from the subprime loan crisis in the US.
■ ICELAND
PM warns of huge deficit
Prime Minister Geir Haarde said on Thursday the total cost of the nation’s banking crisis could amount to 1.1 trillion Icelandic crowns (US$9.4 billion), or 85 percent of last year’s GDP. According to a statement released by the prime minister’s office, Haarde told parliament the budget deficit next year could be as high as 10 percent of economic output, pushing gross debt — which stood at 29 percent of GDP at the end of last year — above 100 percent by the end of next year. Its GDP last year was around US$11 billion.
■ AUTOMOBILES
Toyota to reopen US plants
Toyota Motor Corp said yesterday it would reopen three US factories after a three-month suspension in the face of falling US demand, using them to produce exports for the Middle East and Latin America. The factories in Texas, Indiana and Alabama will resume producing Sequoia sports utility vehicles and Tundra pick-up trucks by the middle of this month, Japan’s largest automaker said. Toyota’s sales are expected to fall this year for the first time in a decade amid the global slowdown. Toyota’s sales in the US plunged 29.5 percent in September.
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