European stocks posted their first weekly drop in more than a month, after disappointing US housing data and a surge in the cost to protect from a Greek default reignited concern about the global economic recovery.
BP PLC led energy companies lower, tumbling 15 percent to a 14-year low. Piraeus Bank SA and Alpha Bank AE paced a retreat by bank stocks, both dropping 10 percent in Athens. BHP Billiton Ltd and Rio Tinto Group lost more than 3 percent after the appointment of a new Australian prime minister failed to allay concerns about the government’s proposed mining tax.
The STOXX Europe 600 Index dropped 2.8 percent to 248.33, snapping four straight weeks of gains, as all 19 industry groups fell. The gauge has fallen 8.8 percent from this year’s high on April 15 amid concern about the impact of Europe’s debt crisis.
“It is possible that the market situation will worsen as the sovereign debt crisis spreads to other asset classes,” said Franck Dixmier, chief investment officer for Allianz Global Investors Investments Europe, which oversees about 110 billion euros (US$136 billion).
The Federal Reserve this week repeated its pledge to keep interest rates near zero for an “extended period,” while signaling that European indebtedness may harm US growth.
National benchmark indexes declined in all 18 western European markets this week except Iceland. Germany’s DAX dropped 2.4 percent and France’s CAC 40 retreated 4.5 percent.
The UK’s FTSE 100 retreated 3.9 percent as British Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne unveiled a levy on banks and an increase in sales tax in an emergency budget that seeks to guard the country’s top credit rating without strangling the economic recovery.
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