■UTILITIES
E.ON, GDF Suez fined by EU
EU antitrust regulators imposed a combined fine of more than 1.1 billion euros (US$1.54 billion) on E.ON and GDF Suez yesterday for secretly carving up gas markets. The European Commission fined each company 553 million euros for agreeing in 1975 not to compete with one another in their respective national gas markets when they jointly built a pipeline to import Russian gas. “This decision sends a strong signal to energy incumbents that the Commission will not tolerate any form of anticompetitive behavior,” EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Confidence on the rise
Consumer confidence rose last month as more people said they expected better times by the end of the year, a finance company said yesterday, but a drop in a closely watched house price survey tempered optimism about a recovery. The Nationwide Building Society’s Consumer Confidence Index, based on opinion polling, rose to 58 last month, up from 54 in May, its highest level since October. A third of the sample believed the economy would be better in six months, the highest figure in a year, though 42 percent expect no difference and 23 percent thought it would be worse.
■JAPAN
Bankruptcies top 8,000
Corporate bankruptcies topped 8,000 in the six months to last month, the highest first-half level in six years, as the global economic downturn deepened, a survey showed yesterday. The number of companies that failed with debts of ¥10 million (US$105,000) or more totaled 8,169 in the January to last month period, up 8.2 percent from a year earlier, Tokyo Shoko Research reported. Their combined debts jumped 47.3 percent from a year earlier to ¥4.69 trillion. Last month alone, 1,422 firms went under, up 18.2 percent from May and the highest in a month since June 2002, the research firm said.
■COMMODITIES
Mitsui wins lithium contract
Japan’s Mitsui & Co Ltd said yesterday it had won exclusive rights from a Canadian firm to sell lithium in Asia to meet rising demand for lithium-ion batteries for eco-friendly products such as hybrid vehicles. Mitsui said it will import 2,000 tonnes of lithium per year from Canada Lithium Corp. The quantity of Mitsui’s imports would be equal to around 80 percent of Japan’s annual demand for lithium. Mitsui said it would also sell lithium in China, Japan and South Korea.
■FINANCE
Two plead guilty to charges
A former investment banker at brokerage CLSA and a former fund manager have pleaded guilty to charges of insider dealing, Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) said late on Tuesday. Allen Lam (林嘉輝), a former investment banking director at Hong Kong-based CLSA, and Ryan Fong (方仁宏), a former hedge fund manager at HSZ Ltd, pleaded guilty at the District Court to two charges involving shares in Media Partners International Holdings, the SFC said.
■PETROCHEMICALS
S Korean firms win orders
Three South Korean construction firms said yesterday they had won orders totaling US$2.8 billion to build part of a refinery and petrochemical plant in eastern Saudi Arabia. Daelim Industrial, SK Engineering and Construction and Samsung Engineering said they had signed the deal for the Jubail project with Saudi Aramco Total Refining and Petrochemical.
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