■TELECOMS
Fujitsu, Toshiba may merge
Japanese electronics giants Fujitsu and Toshiba are in talks toward integrating their mobile businesses to create the country’s second-largest cellphone maker, the Nikkei Shimbun reported yesterday. The firms are likely to set up a joint venture later this year to combine their handset operations, which would be the largest cellphone maker only after industry leader Sharp, it said. Fujitsu is expected to hold a majority stake, the paper said without citing sources. Fujitsu manufactures handsets for the nation’s top mobile carrier, NTT DoCoMo, while Toshiba mainly supplies phones to the second-leading carrier, KDDI.
■INTERNET
Twitter buys Smallthought
Twitter said on Thursday it had bought Smallthought Systems, a small Web analytics firm. “As we grow, analytics becomes an increasingly crucial part of improving our service,” Kevin Weil, the head of analytics at the micro-blogging service, said in a blog post. Weil said the San Francisco-based Twitter was particularly interested in a tool from Smallthought called Trendly, which allows users to sort through analytics data from Google. The four-member team at Smallthought “will focus on integrating ideas from Trendly into our current tools and building innovative realtime products for our future commercial partners,” Weil said. Financial terms of the acquisition were not released.
■INDIA
April output rose 17.6%
Industrial output grew by a better-than-expected 17.6 percent in April from a year earlier, the eighth straight month of double-digit expansion, official data showed yesterday. Production by factories jumped 19.4 percent, while mines grew by 11.4 percent and utilities 6 percent. Analysts had forecast monthly growth at near 13 percent, close to the March output growth figure. Growth in recent months has been led by manufacturing and services as consumer demand continues to improve. In April, the central bank hiked key interest rates for the second time in a month as inflation, being driven by spiralling food prices, spilled over into the wider economy.
■ITALY
Austerity plan may cut GDP
The’s central bank warned on Thursday that an austerity plan approved by the government for the next two years may reduce growth. “Over the years 2011-2012, GDP growth may be reduced overall by a bit more than half a percentage point under the effects of less consumption and investment,” said Salvatore Rossi, the Bank of Italy’s director for economic research. The measures, worth nearly 25 billion euros (US$30 billion), appear “adequate” to achieve the goal of reducing the public deficit to 2.7 percent of GDP in 2012, Rossi told a Senate hearing on the plan approved last month.
■UNITED STATES
May budget deficit falls
The budget deficit fell last month from a year earlier but remains on track to easily exceed US$1 trillion, a Treasury Department report showed on Thursday. As Washington debates ways to cut government spending, the Treasury said the deficit so far this fiscal year, starting in October 2009, was US$935.61 billion, down from about US$992 billion in the same period last year. The total deficit for the last fiscal year was US$1.42 trillion. Last month, the budget gap was US$135.93 billion, slightly smaller than forecast, following a US$82.69 billion shortfall in April. The May deficit stood at US$189.65 billion last year.
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