■JAPAN
Unhealthy products targeted
Tokyo will follow a policy of increasing taxes on products it deems unhealthy, Vice Finance Minister Naoki Minezaki said. “We will stick to our policy to tax things that are bad for health,” including tobacco, Minezaki said on NHK’s Sunday Debate program. “We will seek ways to achieve this after discussions with tobacco farmers and Japan Tobacco Inc.” Lawmakers told a government tax panel on Friday that Japan could consider incremental increases in its tax on tobacco. The average price of a pack of cigarettes in Japan is ¥300 (US$3.30), including ¥174.9 in tax.
■FINANCE
KDB eyes Southeast banks
South Korea’s state-funded KDB Financial Group Inc is seeking to buy Southeast Asian banks, instead of merging with Korea Exchange Bank (KEB) as observers had expected, the group’s chief said yesterday. “KDB Financial is interested in the Asian market and currently watching two or three banks in Southeast Asia,” KDB Financial Group chairman Min Euoo-sung was quoted as telling Yonhap news agency. “Basically, KDB Financial is more interested in overseas banks than KEB,” he said. Min also said the group would seek to enter developing Asian markets in need of financing services for infrastructure, including railroads or ports.
■AVIATION
BA staff to vote on action
Thousands of British Airways (BA) cabin crew are to vote on whether to take industrial action, the Unite trade union said on Saturday, in a row over job cuts and new contracts. The ballot will open next Monday and close on Dec. 14. Unite would have to give seven days’ notice before the start of any action, so strikes could begin just before the Christmas holiday season. More than 13,300 cabin crew staff will be balloted, with union leaders predicting a strong vote in favor of action. On Friday, BA revealed a quadrupling of net losses in its first half and axed 1,200 jobs in an “essential” cost-reduction program.
■METALS
PRC copper imports to drop
China’s imports of refined copper will “sharply decline” next year from this year as demand growth slows amid high stockpiles, an analyst at Beijing Antaike Information Development Co (安泰科信息開發公司) said. Imports are likely to fall from an estimated 3 million tonnes this year, Yang Changhua (楊長華) said at a conference in Wuhan, China. Copper use in the world’s largest consumer will grow 8 percent to 5.8 million tonnes, slowing from this year’s 10 percent gain, Yang said. “China has over-imported this year as can be seen from current high stocks, partly due to a sharp decline of scrap copper” availability, Yang said.
■FINANCE
SocGen repays state aid
Societe Generale SA, France’s second-largest bank by market value, earlier this week repaid the 3.4 billion euros (US$5 billion) in state aid it received in the financial crisis, the national market regulator said. On Wednesday, SocGen refunded Societe de Prise de Participation de l’Etat, the arm of the French state that had injected capital into the nation’s banks, the regulator said on its web site on Saturday. SocGen, led by chief executive officer Frederic Oudea, raised 4.8 billion euros in a capital increase last month to pay back state funds and bolster its capital position.
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