■ FINANCE
British bank to raise capital
Royal Bank of Scotland investors on Thursday backed plans to raise £20 billion (US$29.5 billion) in fresh capital as part of a state rescue deal for Britain’s banking sector. RBS shareholders, holding an extraordinary general meeting in Edinburgh, Scotland, voted by more than 99 percent in favor of the plan, the bank said in a statement. Under the recapitalization plan, RBS will ask for £5 billion from the British government in return for preference shares. The embattled group will also seek £15 billion from shareholders in a share placing underwritten by the Treasury. That means that the British government could end up owning a 60 percent stake in the bank. Three major British banks — HBOS, Lloyds TSB and RBS — were bailed out last month after they were hit by the global credit crunch and resulting financial crisis.
■ TECHNOLOGY
Zune offers subscription
Microsoft, seeking to boost the popularity of its Zune music player, announced a new subscription offer on Thursday that will allow users to keep 10 tracks a month permanently. A Zune Pass subscription currently gives Zune owners access to millions of tracks for US$14.99 a month but they are not allowed to keep them. The new offer would allow them to keep 10 tracks a month, a US$10 value, at no extra cost. The tracks can be burned to a CD or moved to other devices even if the Zune Pass subscription expires. The offer is aimed at boosting interest in music subscription.
■ AUTOMOBILES
Opel ‘not for sale’: GM
General Motors (GM) said on Thursday its German Opel nameplate is “not for sale” despite the perilous situation of the US auto giant. Tom Wilkinson, a GM spokesman said that some global brands like Opel “are so integrated into GM’s global operations, we would not or could not sell them. Opel is not for sale.” Any talk of a sale of the German unit “is just purely speculative,” he added. The comments came after a news report in Germany that car dealers could make an offer to buy the company. The regional parliament in the German state of Hesse voted unanimously to provide Opel with up to 500 million euros (US$626 million) in loan guarantees in the event that GM declared bankruptcy.
■ SINGAPORE
Bail-out plan unveiled
Singapore announced a US$1.5 billion package yesterday to help businesses gain access to credit amid a recession in the city-state and a global financial crisis. The government “is enhancing its business financing schemes to support an additional US$1.5 billion in loans to help local firms gain access to credit in this current economic slowdown,” the Ministry of Trade and Industry said. Up to 124,000 local companies will be eligible to benefit from the various schemes, which take effect on Dec. 1, it said.
■ TECHNOLOGY
Google chooses site
Google has bought a 75 hectare property in the north of Austria to erect a new European server farm within two years, the US Internet search engine giant said on Thursday. In a statement, Google spokeswoman Kay Oberbeck said the company looked at sites in a dozen European countries before settling on Kronstorf — population 3,000 — near the city of Linz. Still in the design stage, the server farm will employ 50 to 100 people, in an area chosen for its economic environment, qualified manpower, and ample electricity and water. Server farms house powerful computers that handle Internet requests for data.
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