■PHARMACEUTICS
Merck net profit improves
German drug maker Merck KGaA says its net profit improved from a loss a year ago as revenue rose sharply. The year-ago results also saw charges related to a divestment. Merck said it earned 56.7 million euros (US$78 million) for the fourth quarter, compared with a loss of 280 million euros in 2008. Revenue for the October-to-December period rose nearly 6 percent to more than 2 billion euros, from 1.92 billion euros in 2008. Merck said it expects revenue for the full year to increase between 3 percent and 7 percent. Revenue last year was 7.7 billion euros.
■BEVERAGES
Heineken profit up fivefold
The Dutch brewer Heineken NV said yesterday full year profit last year rose fivefold as it had fewer impairment charges than last year and it cut costs and raised prices despite the global economic downturn. Full year net profit was 1.02 billion euros, up sharply from 209 million euros in 2008, when it wrote 475 million euros off of the value of its operations in Russia and India. Sales rose 2 percent to 14.7 billion euros. Heineken does not publish quarterly figures.
■BANKS
Commerzbank loss widens
Germany’s Commerzbank AG said its fourth-quarter loss widened because of writedowns related to bond insurer investments and as it set aside funds to make up for bad loans. Commerzbank said yesterday it lost nearly 1.9 billion euros in the final three months of last year and reported an annual loss of 4.5 billion euros, which was less than the 6.5 billion euros it lost in 2008. The bank, based in Frankfurt, cited write-downs related to bond insurers for the decline, along with a 561 million euro loss in fourth-quarter trading profit.
■SOFTWARE
Microsoft, Amazon sign deal
Microsoft on Monday said it has sign a deal with Amazon.com that lets each company tap into the other’s patented technology, including that for hot-selling Kindle electronic readers. Microsoft said Amazon would be paying the software giant as part of the agreement, but declined to specify the amount. Microsoft said it has struck 600 such licensing deals since December 2003 with companies including Apple, Hewlett-Packard, LG Electronics, Novell, and Samsung Electronics.
■INTERNET
Millions of tweets every day
Twitter users are creating 50 million messages of 140 characters or less each per day, the micro-blogging service said on Monday. Kevin Weil, a member of Twitter’s analytics team, said in a blog post that Twitter users were writing 5,000 “tweets” per day in 2007, 300,000 per day in 2008 and 2.5 million per day last year. “Tweets grew 1,400 percent last year to 35 million per day,” Weil said. “Today, we are seeing 50 million tweets per day — that’s an average of 600 tweets per second.”
■ENERGY
Myanmar gas deal signed
Hyundai Heavy Industries said it signed a US$1.4 billion deal yesterday with another South Korean firm to develop a huge natural gas field in Myanmar. Hyundai Heavy, the world’s largest shipyard, signed the contract with trading company Daewoo International to build offshore and onshore plant at the Shwe project off northwest Myanmar by March 2013. Daewoo International has agreed to supply gas from the field from May of the same year through a pipeline to China.
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