■BANKING
Santander makes RBS offer
Spanish bank Santander said yesterday that it had made an offer to Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) to buy about 300 banking branches in Britain. Santander, the biggest Spanish bank, revealed its offer in a statement to the Spanish stock market authority CNMV, but did not give the value of the bid. “Banco Santander announces that its affiliate Santander UK has submitted an offer in the tender process of approximately 300 branches of Royal Bank of Scotland that is taking place in the United Kingdom,” it said.
■ELECTRONICS
Sony discloses CEO’s pay
Sony Corp, which has posted two consecutive annual losses, said yesterday its chief executive has received around ¥800 million (US$8.8 million) in annual pay. Nearly half of Welsh-born Howard Stringer’s pay came from stock options, Sony spokeswoman Mami Imada said. Sony is the first major company to reveal executive pay under a new rule requiring Japanese corporations to disclose the compensation packages of executives earning more than ¥100 million.
■ELECTRONICS
LG to invest in solar cells
LG Electronics Inc, South Korea’s second-largest electronics maker, plans to invest 1 trillion won (US$828 million) by 2015 in its solar cell business. The Seoul-based company aims to generate revenue of 3 trillion won by 2015 and boost production capacity to almost 1 gigawatt within three years, from 240 megawatts at the end of this year, according to a statement yesterday.
■TRADE
Thailand’s exports up
Thai exports rose for a seventh straight month last month from a year earlier, hitting the highest level in almost two years in a welcome boost to the protest-hit economy, official data showed yesterday. Shipments soared 42.1 percent in the month to US$16.6 billion, the most since July 2008, as exports of key commodities such as rubber gained significantly, while imports rose 55.1 percent by value, lifted by increased demand for fuel and higher energy costs, the Thai Ministry of Commerce said.
■PETROLEUM
S&P downgrades BP
Standard & Poor’s became the latest rating agency to downgrade BP’s credit score on Thursday, as it warned the British oil giant faced soaring costs from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. “The downgrade reflects our opinion of the challenges and uncertainties that BP continues to face in the aftermath of the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig,” it said in a statement.
■INTERNET
Criterion purchases Bebo
Criterion Capital Partners, a private investment firm based in California, said Thursday that it has bought social network Bebo from AOL. Criterion did not say how much it paid for Bebo, which AOL acquired in March 2008 for US$850 million. The company said in a statement that it was taking over Bebo immediately and planned to retain a San Francisco-based headquarters for the company.
■INTERNET
YouTube adds online editing
YouTube users can now edit their own videos online. The video-sharing site added an online editing tool this week that allows its users to combine multiple videos, shorten a video or add soundtracks from songs in the AudioSwap library. The newly created video can be published to YouTube directly from the editing site.
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