■FINANCE
Credit Suisse to pay clients
Credit Suisse Group AG agreed to pay 1,700 additional clients with capital-protected products from Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc a total of 50 million Swiss francs (US$42.8 million) in compensation. Under the agreement with consumer organization, Federation Romande des Consommateurs, clients that invested more than 20 percent of assets of as much as SF500,000 in 100 percent capital-protected Lehman products will receive compensation, the Zurich-based bank said yesterday. “We are pleased to be in a position to announce an extensive agreement today,” said Walter Berchtold, chief executive officer of Credit Suisse’s private banking unit.
■AUSTRALIA
Economy likely in recession
The country’s central bank chief said yesterday the country was probably already in recession, but predicted that “dynamic” Asian markets would help it weather the economic downturn. “I think the reasonable person, looking at all the information available now, would come to the conclusion that the Australian economy, too, is in recession,” Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens said. Australia’s last recession was in the early 1990s but the economy posted its first negative growth figures for eight years in the final quarter of last year, with a similar result expected in the first three months of this year. That would officially tip Australia into recession.
■ELECTRONICS
TI's Q1 profits tumble
Texas Instruments (TI) says first-quarter profit and revenue tumbled, but the results aren’t as bad as what the company and Wall Street expected. In its earnings statement on Monday, the Dallas-based company is posting a profit of US$17 million, or US$0.01 a share. That’s down 97 percent from a profit of US$662 million, or US$0.49 a share, in the same period last year. Excluding a restructuring charge, TI says it earned US$0.7 a share during the latest period. That’s better than the US$0.3 a share analysts polled by Thomson Reuters have expected. Revenue tumbled 36 percent to US$2.09 billion from US$3.27 billion. That’s still better than analysts’ expectations of US$1.9 billion.
■AUTOMAKERS
Toyota production to fall
Toyota Motor’s domestic production is likely to fall below 3 million vehicles for the first time in three decades in the current business year as demand slumps, a report said yesterday. Toyota’s output in Japan is seen dropping to about 2.8 million units in the fiscal year which began this month, down more than 30 percent from a record high two years earlier, the Yomiuri Shimbun said without naming its sources. The last time the company’s output was less than 3 million was in fiscal 1978, when Toyota produced 2.89 million vehicles. Toyota sees the 3 million production level as the minimum necessary to maintain its 69,000 regular employees in Japan, the newspaper said.
■ENERGY
Pipeline deal in the works
China and Russia signed a multibillion-dollar deal yesterday, bringing into play a series of agreements on constructing an oil pipeline and supplying fuel to Chinese markets, state media reported. Russian news reports said the sides agreed to a 23-year deal to pump Russian oil to the energy hungry Chinese market, in return for US$25 billion in loans from China to Russian oil firms to finance a pipeline. Russia will supply China with 15 million tonnes of crude during the period of the deal, Interfax news agency said.
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