■FINANCE
Deutsche Bank may cut jobs
The biggest German bank, Deutsche Bank, wants to eliminate or farm out 1,300 German jobs, but without resorting to outright redundancy, the daily Die Welt said yesterday. Late last year, Deutsche Bank employed 80,000 people worldwide, including almost 28,000 in Germany. It warned in March that some jobs might be cut. In both the first and second quarters of this year, the bank has posted net profit of more than 1 billion euros (US$1.46 billion).
■AVIATION
Air India pilots end strike
Pilots at the ailing state-run carrier Air India ended a five-day strike yesterday, saying the government had provided assurances that their salaries would not be cut. Senior pilots representative V.K. Bhalla told reporters in New Delhi the stoppage was “immediately and absolutely called off” and that they would return to work at once. The airline has canceled hundreds of flights since Saturday, when non-unionized senior pilots called in sick to protest against a slash of between 25 percent to 50 percent in incentive-based pay for more than 7,000 employees.
■ACCOUNTING
Ernst & Young raided
The Hong Kong offices of accounting giant Ernst & Young were raided by police as part of a fraud investigation linked to the city’s biggest corporate collapse, media said yesterday. The search, which occurred on Tuesday, came after Ernst & Young was accused in court earlier this month of falsifying documents to shield itself from a negligence claim brought by the liquidators of electronics company Akai Holdings, the South China Morning Post reported. The lawsuit ended last week with an out-of-court settlement, with Ernst & Young paying the liquidators, Borrelli Walsh, hundreds of millions of Hong Kong dollars, the Post said.
■APPAREL
Nike profits unchanged
Nike Inc said on Tuesday that as consumers around the globe limited their spending, its first-quarter profit was nearly unchanged from a year ago, but it beat expectations. The world’s largest athletic shoe and apparel company reported that it earned US$513 million, or US$1.04 per share, for the quarter that ended Aug. 31. In the same quarter last year, Nike earned US$510.5 million, or US$1.03 per share. Revenue fell 12 percent to US$4.8 billion from US$5.4 billion a year earlier, due in part to the negative impact of the stronger dollar.
■SOFTWARE
Google Wave to be released
Google was to release a new product yesterday aimed at making e-mail obsolete, the company said in a blog posting on Tuesday. Google Wave combines the best features of e-mail, instant messaging, social networking and collaborative document editing and was to be released to 100,000 developers and corporate users, the company said. The application was developed by Jens and Lars Rasmussen, brothers who had a key role in developing Google Maps.
■SOFTWARE
CNN iPhone App launched
US cable network CNN launched a news application for the Apple iPhone on Tuesday, which costs US$1.99 and includes advertising, features news headlines and stories, photos and live breaking news video. The CNN iPhone App is available through Apple’s App Store and can also run on the iPod Touch. The CNN App allows for personalization of weather, traffic and news.
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