■ TRANSPORT
Alstom slams Beijing
Alstom Transport, the world’s second-largest train maker, is calling on nations not to buy Chinese-made trains, accusing the country of shutting foreign firms out of domestic bids, a report said yesterday. Alstom chief executive Philippe Mellier told the Financial Times that China is also exporting trains with some foreign technology that was supplied on condition that it not be used outside China. “The [Chinese] market is gradually shutting down to let the Chinese companies prosper,” Mellier said. “We don’t think it’s a good idea for other countries to open their markets to such a technology, because there’s no reciprocity any more.”
■ELECTRONICS
Creative posts a loss
Creative Technology Ltd, the Singaporean maker of accessories for Apple Inc’s iPod, eliminated 2,700 jobs, almost half its workforce, last fiscal year after demand for its own music players tumbled. The company had 3,100 full-time workers at the end of June, down 47 percent from a year earlier, Creative said in an annual report filed to Singapore’s stock exchange on Dec. 31. “The markets that Creative targets are highly competitive,” the company said in the report. “Many of Creative’s current and potential competitors have substantially greater financial, manufacturing, marketing, distribution and other resources.” Creative posted a net loss of US$19.7 million on sales of US$736.8 million for the year ended June 30. That’s the lowest revenue in five years as sales of its music players slumped.
■AUTOMAKERS
Hyundai leads sales decline
Hyundai Motor Co, South Korea’s biggest automaker, led a decline in the country’s automobile sales last month, marking the second straight monthly decline, as a global recession sapped demand for new vehicles. Hyundai, Kia Motors Corp, GM Daewoo Auto & Technology Co, Renault Samsung Motors Co and Ssangyong Motor Co sold a combined 406,051 vehicles last month, 13 percent less than a year earlier, Bloomberg calculations based on company data released yesterday showed. Sales last year gained 2.4 percent to 5.35 million units, as sales in emerging markets offset sluggish sales in the US, Europe and at home. “This year, the impact from the global economic crisis is expected to deepen and we’re standing in the middle of cut-throat competition for survival,” Hyundai chairman Chung Mong-koo told employees yesterday in Seoul. Last year, their local sales dropped 5.1 percent to 1.15 million units and overseas sales rose 4.7 percent to 4.2 million, the firms’ data showed.
■MEDIA
Subscribers keep shows
Millions of subscribers to the Time Warner Cable television network kept their favorite shows into the new year on Thursday after an agreement in principle on rights fees was reached in a bitter dispute with entertainment giant Viacom Inc. Viacom had threatened to pull Nickelodeon, MTV, Comedy Central, VH1 and 15 other channels from Time Warner and its 13.3 million subscribers at 12:01am on Thursday if a deal had not been reached. The companies said they expect to finalize the agreement details over the next several days.
■BEVERAGES
Pepsi to invest in India
India’s government approved a plan by PepsiCo Inc, the world’s second-biggest beverage maker, to invest an additional US$50 million in its local unit, Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal said. Sibal was speaking to reporters after a Cabinet meeting in New Delhi.
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