■AIRLINES
ANA warns of bigger loss
Japan’s All Nippon Airways (ANA) yesterday warned of a deeper net loss for the year to March but promised to surpass its ailing rival — Japan Airlines — and become Asia’s largest airline. ANA said its net loss would more than double to ¥65 billion (US$719 million) from its earlier estimate of ¥28 billion for this fiscal year given weak demand. The airline also downgraded its revenue forecast for the year to ¥1.22 trillion from the ¥1.26 trillion projected earlier and its operating loss to ¥61 billion from ¥20 billion.
■BANKING
Lloyds expects profits
Bailed out British lender Lloyds Banking Group said it would return to profitability this year after two years of heavy losses, helped by lower-than-expected bad debts and tight cost controls. Lloyds, which sank to a £6.3 billion (US$9.63 billion) loss last year after being hit by a steep rise in bad loans, “believes that it will be profitable on a combined basis in 2010,” it said yesterday in an unscheduled trading statement. The bank said its overall performance in the first 10 weeks of the year was “good,” buoyed by a faster-than-expected drop in bad loans, while costs were lower than in the same period a year earlier.
■OIL
Pemex projects rich yield
Mexico’s state-owned Pemex oil company said on Thursday that the new oil fields it discovered two years ago in the Gulf of Mexico could yield more than two billion barrels of oil. Pemex director Juan Jose Suarez said the Ayatzil-Tekel reserves consisted of heavy crude oil, while those of Tsimin-Xux were light sweet crude. The oil fields, located in Campeche Sound in southeastern Mexico, “each contain more than one billion barrels of 3P oil reserves,” he said on the 72nd anniversary of Pemex’s nationalization.
■MULTIMEDIA
‘Kindle for Mac’ released
Amazon released a free program on Thursday that allows Kindle electronic books to be read on Apple’s Mac computers and said it will also be compatible with the upcoming iPad. Amazon, in a statement, said the “Kindle for Mac” application can be downloaded in more than 100 countries from amazon.com/kindleformac. Amazon has already released free applications that allow Kindle e-books to be read on the iPhone, the iPod Touch, the Blackberry from Research in Motion and PCs running Microsoft’s Windows operating system.
■COMPUTERS
Desktop sales up 30%: NPD
Sales of desktop computers soared 30 percent last month, defying talk that desktops were being made obsolete by laptops, smartphones and other mobile devices. “Desktops have been the surprise consumer technology growth category of 2010,” NPD vice president of industry analysis Stephen Baker said. Microsoft’s release of its latest Windows 7 operating system software in October was credited with propelling sales of desktop PCs.
■COMPUTERS
HP flaws found: China
China’s product-quality watchdog said US computer maker Hewlett-Packard violated Chinese consumer rights rules, after an investigation into complaints about faulty laptops from dozens of customers. The General Administration for Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine has ordered HP to “strictly abide by” Chinese rules concerning repair, replacement and return of faulty products.
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
CHINA REACTS: The patrol and reconnaissance plane ‘transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,’ the 7th Fleet said, while Taipei said it saw nothing unusual The US 7th Fleet yesterday said that a US Navy P-8A Poseidon flew through the Taiwan Strait, a day after US and Chinese defense heads held their first talks since November 2022 in an effort to reduce regional tensions. The patrol and reconnaissance plane “transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,” the 7th Fleet said in a news release. “By operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law, the United States upholds the navigational rights and freedoms of all nations.” In a separate statement, the Ministry of National Defense said that it monitored nearby waters and airspace as the aircraft
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