■INTERNET
Yahoo buys news provider
Yahoo Inc is buying freelance news site Associated Content in a deal that will add a more folksy touch to one of the world’s biggest Web sites. Financial terms weren’t disclosed. The acquisition announced on Tuesday will enable Yahoo to supplement its regular lineup of stories by full-time reporters with independently produced material that typically isn’t covered by traditional media outlets. Associated Content, launched in 2005, has developed a low-cost news model that relies on about 380,000 freelancers who share their expertise on a variety of subjects.
■OIL
CNPC buys stake in SSPD
China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC, 中石油), China’s top oil producer, said yesterday it had acquired part of a Shell subsidiary in Syria, the latest move in its global quest to secure energy resources. The deal gives CNPC a 35 percent stake in Syria Shell Petroleum Development (SSPD), which was wholly owned by Royal Dutch Shell, the Chinese company said in a statement. SSPD has interests in three production licences — Deir-Ez-Zor, Fourth Annex and Ash Sham, which are operated by the Al Furat Petroleum Company. Shell has a 31.25 percent stake in AFPC, it said.
■SOFTWARE
Kindle heading for phones
Amazon.com Inc is hoping to snag even more customers for the electronic books it sells by releasing a version of its Kindle e-reader software for phones that use Google Inc’s increasingly popular Android operating system. The free Kindle for Android software will be out this summer and will join a growing roster of programs for such products as Apple Inc’s iPhone and iPad and Research In Motion Ltd’s BlackBerry smart phones. The software lets users read books they have bought from Amazon’s online Kindle store. As with other versions of the online retailer’s Kindle software, Kindle for Android keeps track of where you are in a book. That means you can start reading on an Android phone and continue at the same place on a Kindle e-reader or another gadget with Kindle software.
■TELECOMS
Smartphone sales soaring
Smartphone makers sold 49 percent more handsets in the first quarter as Research in Motion, Apple and manufacturers of Android phones extended gains, Gartner Inc said. Global sales of all cellphone models gained 17 percent to 314.7 million units as manufacturers expanded market share with price cuts, Gartner said in a statement. Google’s Android software leapt past Microsoft Corp’s Windows Mobile and Linux to run almost 10 percent of smartphones shipped, compared with 1.6 percent last year. Nokia Oyj’s main smartphone system, Symbian, declined to a 44.3 percent market share. Nokia remained the largest maker of cellphones overall, with its market share falling by 1.2 percentage points to 35 percent.
■ECONOMY
Volcker warns on deficit
Europe’s debt crisis shows the risks for the US if it does not get its budget deficits under control, former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker said on Tuesday. “If we need any further illustration of the potential threats to our own economy from uncontrolled borrowing, we have only to look to the struggle to maintain the common European currency, to rebalance the European economy, and to sustain political cohesion of Europe,” he said in a speech at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research in California.
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