■AUTOMOBILES
Government targets investors
The British government is taking legal action to bar four investors involved in the collapse of automaker MG Rover from any company management positions, British Business Secretary Peter Mandelson said yesterday. The businessmen, known as the Phoenix Four, reportedly collected millions in pay and pensions from the company before its collapse, a report released by Mandelson’s department said. Former Rover executives John Towers, Peter Beale, John Edwards and Nick Stephenson responded angrily, calling the report a “witch hunt” and a “whitewash for the government.” MG Rover went into administration in 2005 and its assets were later sold to China’s Nanjing Automobile Group (南京汽車).
■CHINA
Dollar advises diversity
It makes sense for China to diversify its huge stockpile of foreign exchange reserves, the US Treasury’s economic and financial emissary to China said yesterday. China’s forex reserves, the world’s biggest stockpile, stood at US$2.13 trillion at the end of June. China has expressed concerns in the past about the value of its holdings of US Treasuries, as massive US debt offerings pose the risk of eroding the value of dollar assets. “The general issue is that China has a huge amount of reserves and it makes some sense to diversify what you put these reserves [into],” David Dollar told a meeting of the World Economic Forum in the Chinese city of Dalian. “It’s healthy to have a wide and different type of reserve currencies,” he said.
■BANKING
Banks deny Myanmar links
Two Singapore banks have rejected a report by a US-based rights group that said Myanmar’s ruling junta deposited billions of dollars with them. DBS Group Holdings and Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp (OCBC) said in separate statements late on Thursday that there was no truth in the report by EarthRights International (ERI). ER had said in a report released on Thursday that energy giants Total and Chevron were propping up the Myanmar military regime with a gas project that allowed the junta to stash almost US$5 billion in the two Singaporean banks.
■AVIATION
Pilots, management to meet
Pilots of India’s Jet Airways were scheduled to hold a meeting yesterday with the airline management and the government’s chief labor commissioner to resolve a four-day strike that has led to the cancelation of more than 800 flights. Operations at India’s second-largest private airline remained disrupted as more than 150 flights across the country were canceled yesterday, the airline’s Web site said. At least 400 pilots have been on mass sick leave since Tuesday to protest the sacking of two pilots by the airline.
■ELECTRONICS
Console price cuts work
Sony and Microsoft sold more game consoles last month after they cut prices, helping ease the overall decline in the US video-game market. Last month sales of Sony’s PlayStation 3 console gained 13 percent from a year earlier, the first increase in 10 months, and those of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 rose 10 percent, researcher NPD Group said on Thursday. Nintendo’s Wii console, the industry leader, slumped 39 percent to 277,400 units, NPD said. Sony cut the price of the PS3 by 25 percent on Aug. 19 and Microsoft lowered the price of its most powerful console, the Xbox 360 Elite, by a similar proportion to US$300 on Aug. 27.
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