■OIL
Petrobas finds new source
Petrobras on Monday announced a new find of light crude oil in the huge Campos basin area in the southeast, potentially as much as 25 million barrels. Brazil’s state oil giant said the find is located in shallow waters, north of the Campo de Marimba. “Recoverable volume is estimated at 25 million barrels,” Petrobras said in a statement. Because there is operational infrastructure nearby, the new reserves should begin to be extracted by next August, Petrobras said.
■SECURITIES
LSE fines Regal Petroleum
The London Stock Exchange (LSE) has fined oil explorer Regal Petroleum £600,000 (US$1 million) for releasing misleading information to investors but none of the individuals involved were censured. The LSE said statements Regal released between 2003 and 2005 presented an overly rosy picture of oil reserves at a Greek prospect and the company was slow in telling investors when drilling revealed an absence of oil. The news of the dry Greek wells prompted an 80 percent drop in Regal shares and led investors to force founder and major shareholder Frank Timis to resign as chairman.
■FINANCE
Lagarde calls for probe
France’s finance minister has called on global regulators to probe potential competition abuses in the financial sector following huge government bailouts and consolidation, the Financial Times reported yesterday. Christine Lagarde said some institutions had become too powerful in the financial sector, which has been consolidated in the wake of the global economic crisis by banking failures and mergers. “We need to make sure that we do not create institutions that have a competitive advantage,” Lagarde told the Financial Times in an interview.
■AVIATION
EasyJet profit falls 14%
British low-cost airline EasyJet yesterday reported a 14 percent drop in annual profit to £71.2 million. The company’s pre-tax profit was down 65 percent to £43.7 million compared with the previous year. EasyJet said total revenue was up 13 percent to £2.667 billion thanks to a reduction in its competitors’ capacity, the strength of its own network and strong ancillary revenue such as in-flight food sales.
■FOOD
Tokyo overtakes Paris
Tokyo has overtaken Paris as the city with the world’s most Michelin three-star restaurants, the publisher of the renowned culinary guide said yesterday. The latest edition of the Michelin guide awarded 11 Tokyo eateries the coveted three stars — one more than Paris. The Japanese capital also kept its title as the world’s most-starred city with 261 stars in total — 34 more than last year — awarded to 197 restaurants.
■CURRENCY
IMF favors new exchange
The imperative of greater global currency stability means the world can no longer rely, as it has done since the end of the gold standard, on a currency issued by a single country, IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said. He restated his view that a new global currency might evolve out of the Special Drawing Right, the IMF’s in-house unit of account. “That probably has to be a basket,” Strauss-Kahn said of the eventual replacement for the dollar. “In a globalized world there is no domestic solution.”
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