■FINANCE
Cuts to 65 S Korean firms
South Korean banks have selected 65 financially troubled firms for sweeping restructuring or liquidation, financial authorities said yesterday. The firms were picked by six creditor banks, which since April have reviewed the credit risk of hundreds of indebted big firms, the Financial Services Commission and Financial Supervisory Service said in a joint statement. Of the 65 selected for action, 38 will undergo a restructuring program while the remainder face liquidation or court management, it said. The 65 include 15 construction firms, three shipbuilders and one shipping company, it said without identifying them.
■BANKING
Mizuho to issue shares
Japan’s second-biggest bank Mizuho Financial Group plans to boost its capital through a share issue worth ¥857.6 billion (US$9.6 billion) next month, the company said yesterday. It said the issue would replace an earlier plan announced last month to raise ¥800 billion. The massive planned offer comes in anticipation of new rules on bank capital levels from the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision.
■JAPAN
CPI falls 1.2% from last year
Consumer prices fell for the 15th straight month last month as deflation kept its grip on the world’s second biggest economy, the government said. The country’s core consumer price index (CPI), which excludes fresh food, fell 1.2 percent from a year earlier. Core CPI for Tokyo fell 1.3 percent this month. The reading is considered a barometer of price trends nationwide.
■MANUFACTURING
Singapore sees output surge
Singapore said yesterday that manufacturing output surged a record 58.6 percent year on year last month as factories raced to meet robust foreign orders for electronics and pharmaceuticals. Last month’s factory production, which eclipsed the previous record high of 49.7 percent posted in April, was almost double the 32.1 percent forecast in a Dow Jones Newswires’ poll of analysts.
■FRANCE
Q1 economy grew 0.1%
The country saw growth of 0.1 percent in the first quarter, the state statistics agency said yesterday, while upgrading its figure for growth in the final quarter of last year to 0.6 percent. The 0.1 percent rise in GNP was in line with its earlier estimate. Meanwhile, the number of unemployed actively looking for work rose by 22,600 last month, an increase of 0.8 percent, the labor and finance ministries said in a statement. The total number of jobseekers was 2.7 million, the highest since May 2005.
■AUTOMAKERS
VW to name Porsche head
European auto giant Volkswagen (VW) intends to name the top aide of one of its bosses as head of luxury sports carmaker Porsche, which VW is in the process of taking over, press reports said yesterday. The head of VW’s supervisory board, Ferdinand Piech, has decided to make Matthias Mueller Porsche’s chief executive in a move that would cement control over the maker of iconic 911 sports cars, the daily Handelsblatt reported. Mueller is “a close confident of Martin Winterkorn,” the VW chief executive, the newspaper said. His nomination should be formally announced next month, Handelsblatt and the Financial Times said.
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