■AUSTRALIA
Banks pass on profits
Minister for Small Business Craig Emerson said banks have agreed to pass on any cut in international wholesale borrowing costs to the nation’s small businesses. “We got a commitment from the banks that they must pass on to the maximum extent possible any future reductions,” he said in an interview with the Sunday Agenda program on Sky News yesterday. “They agreed to that in writing in a communique,” Emerson said. The banks, at a meeting on Friday with small-business organizations, also undertook to increase the level of funding available to companies struggling to stay viable amid the worsening global economic crisis.
■THAILAND
‘Year of Investment’
Faced with falling exports, rising unemployment and negative growth, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva yesterday named this year the “Year of Investment.” Addressing the nation on his weekly TV show yesterday morning, Abhisit vowed to facilitate corporate investments this year, the Thai News Agency reported. Abhisit, 44, vowed to set up a “one-start, one-stop” center, gathering with personnel from all government agencies under the prime minister’s office to speed up investments. He also pledged to promote the country’s ailing automotive industry, without providing details. In January, total exports tumbled 26 percent year-on-year, the sharpest fall in a decade.
■AUTOMObiles
Opportunities abound
Guangzhou Automobile Group Co (廣州汽車工業集團) is talking to Chinese and foreign companies about buying assets and brand names, general manager Zeng Qinghong (曾慶洪) told reporters in Beijing on Saturday during a meeting of the National People’s Congress. “The ongoing global financial crisis poses an opportunity” for Chinese automakers “to expand at low costs,” Zeng said. “We are talking to a lot of companies, both local and foreign ones.” Guangzhou Auto would consider buying foreign automakers’ technology, factories or brand names, Zeng said.
■STEEL
ArcelorMittal to cut 700 jobs
Steel maker ArcelorMittal plans to suspend operations at its Cleveland site in early May amid a declining market for steel and lay off about 700 more workers for an undetermined length of time, a local union official said on Saturday. About 450 of the roughly 1,400 members of the United Steelworkers of America Local 979 already have been laid off in the past three months, Local 979 vice president Dan Boone said. Luxembourg-based ArcelorMittal, the world’s largest steel maker, said it was responding to poor market conditions and collapsing demand. The company idled the two blast furnaces in Cleveland in October as it cut worldwide production by 45 percent and it posted a fourth-quarter loss of US$2.6 billion, its first-ever quarterly loss.
■INTERNET
Firefox breaks explorer
Firefox is eroding Internet Explorer’s reign as the most popular Internet browser. An online study conducted by marketing research firm Fittkau & Maass showed that 38.4 percent of German-speaking Internet users browse either with Firefox version 3.x or 2.x. The Internet Explorer 7.x version accounted for 37.2 percent of the same group, while the previous version, 6.x, had 16 percent. Apple’s Safari is used by 3.2 percent of the 105,000 survey participants. It was followed by Opera with 2.3 percent and Google Chrome with 0.8 percent.
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