■INVESTMENT
Integration terms reached
Japan’s Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG) and Wall Street giant Morgan Stanley have agreed on basic terms to integrate their securities units in Japan late this year, a report said yesterday. As part of efforts to strengthen its own domestic brokerage operations, MUFG, Japan’s largest financial group, had proposed the integration, the Nikkei Shimbun said without naming sources. Once combined, Mitsubishi UFJ Securities Co and Morgan Stanley Japan Securities Co would be the third-largest securities house in Japan, it said. MUFG has bought a 21 percent stake in Morgan Stanley for US$9 billion.
■TELECOMS
Nokia shutting R&D plant
Nokia Corp said yesterday that it would close the Jyvaskyla research and development plant in southern Finland and ax up to 320 jobs there in a move to save costs. Nokia said it would close the Jyvaskyla plant by year’s end. It also announced temporary layoffs of some 2,500 workers at another plant in Salo. The announcements follow last month’s earnings report which showed Nokia’s fourth-quarter net profit plunge by 69 percent to 576 million euros (US$744 million) from 1.8 billion euros and a loss of market share to 37 percent, from 40 percent in the fourth quarter of 2007.
■STEEL
ArcelorMittal posts loss
ArcelorMittal, the world’s biggest steelmaker, posted an unexpected fourth-quarter loss after taking one-off charges of US$4.4 billion that included writedowns on inventories and raw-material contracts. The net loss was US$2.63 billion, compared with net income of US$2.44 billion a year earlier, the Luxembourg-based company said yesterday in a statement. The annual dividend was cut to US$0.75 a share, from US$1.50. “Whilst the operating climate is likely to remain challenging for the first quarter, we are starting to see some signs of improvement,” chief executive officer Lakshmi Mittal said in the statement.
■AUTOMOBILES
Peugeot-Citroen posts loss
France’s biggest carmaker, PSA Peugeot-Citroen, said yesterday that it lost 343 million euros (US$433 million) last year and expects to keep losing money this year as it deals with an “unprecedented collapse” in auto sales amid the world financial crisis. The loss compares with a net profit of 885 million euros a year earlier. Sales fell 7.4 percent to 54.4 billion euros. CEO Christian Streiff predicts auto sales would fall 20 percent in Western Europe this year, before leveling out in 2010. He said he expects the first half of this year to be “particularly difficult.”
■TOURISM
New Singapore plan starts
The Singapore Tourism Board yesterday announced a S$90 million (US$59.71 million) initiative to help the tourism sector ride out the global economic downturn as the city-state was expecting a drop in tourism arrivals. The board said the year-long program would include a global marketing campaign with its main focus on attracting tourists from China, India, Indonesia and Malaysia. It also wants to woo visitors from emerging markets, such as Vietnam, and Changi Airport stopover travelers from Australia, Germany and Britain. The board projected that tourists this year would number 9 million to 9.5 million with tourism receipts forecast at S$12 billion to S$12.5 billions, down from last year’s 10.1 million tourist arrivals and S$14.8 billion in tourism receipts.
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