■PHARMACEUTICALS
Novartis profits down 10%
Drug maker Novartis AG yesterday reported a 10 percent drop in second-quarter net profit owing to currency fluctuations and higher financing costs, but said underlying growth was helped markedly by advances in its pharmaceuticals division. Its after-tax profit in the second quarter dropped to US$2 billion from US$2.3 billion during the same period last year. Profit for the first six months was US$4 billion, down 12 percent from the year-earlier figure because of the currency fluctuations and the costs of financing the takeover of Alcon, the eye care company, Novartis said.
■TELECOMS
BT to recall jobs
British telecoms operator BT is to recall to the UK at least 2,000 call-center jobs based in India, the Times reported yesterday. The newspaper said BT chief executive Ian Livingston had revealed the plan on Wednesday in response to a question asked by a shareholder at the group’s annual general meeting. In recent years, big British companies have outsourced thousands of call-center jobs to India to cut costs but have faced criticism from Britain-based customers unhappy at the level of service received. BT’s move to repatriate some of its jobs was not “about customer service,” said a group spokesman, quoted by the Times. “It is about the effective deployment of our resources,” he said.
■MINING
Rio Tinto pulls analysts
Mining giant Rio Tinto Ltd has pulled researchers who follow China’s steel industry out of the country after four employees were detained on spying allegations during iron ore price talks, news reports said yesterday. The employees left on Wednesday, the Australian Financial Review and China’s 21st Century Business Herald said. The Herald said they went to Singapore or Australia. Neither said how many people were involved or gave other details. A Rio spokeswoman in Melbourne, Amanda Buckley, declined to comment. The Herald, citing an unidentified member of China’s negotiating team, said the Chinese had switched to talking with Brazil’s Vale about prices because “there is no one at Rio that we can talk to.”
■AVIATION
Lufthansa plans cost cuts
Lufthansa, the leading German airline, announced plans to cut costs to save 1 billion euros (US$1.4 billion) per year from 2011, a spokeswoman said yesterday. “We confirm” a report earlier in the day by the business daily Handelsblatt, which said the plan, dubbed “Climb 2011,” would focus on passenger transport activities, spokeswoman Claudia Lange said. “Our passenger costs must fall,” and details will be released in the coming weeks, she said. A letter sent by Lufthansa chief executive Christoph Franz to the airline’s staff warned that “air traffic is mired in the worst crisis in its history.”
■BANKING
MUFG to raise US$3.9bn
Japan’s biggest lender, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), said yesterday that it would tap investors for ¥370 billion (US$3.9 billion) in capital to strengthen its financial base. The group plans to issue preferred stock on July 29 that cannot be converted into common shares, a statement said. Including the latest sale, MUFG will have raised about ¥1.46 trillion in new capital since the global financial crisis erupted last year. Late last year the group issued ¥990 billion in shares. In March this year it sold ¥97.4 billion in preferred securities.
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