■ Labor
Musicians continue strike
Musicians on strike against the use of taped music on Broadway kept New York theaters in the dark for a third day Sunday in a costly standoff dealing the local tourist industry yet another blow. Among the shows affected were long-running hits like The Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables, The Lion King and Rent. "Who wants to sing karaoke?" asked Lucille Decristofaro, who sang in a Broadway production of Les Miserables. "The whole point of Broadway is live music, a sound you can only get live." The stoppage shuttered 18 musicals and three more in rehearsals after actors and stagehands surprised producers by observing the musicians' picket line on Friday night. Cabaret is the only Broadway musical still on stage, due to its separate arrangement with the union.
■ E-government
Giants target Asia-Pacific
An alliance between Intel, Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft is targeting the burgeoning Asia-Pacific e-government market, a spokesman said in a published report yesterday. The Keystone Alliance is seeking to enter the e-government domain in a big way in the region, said Jason Fedder, Intel Asia-Pacific's director. He told the Business Times the alliance, set up in December 2001 by the IT giants, plans to deliver affordable e-government solutions. The trio initially targeted the financial industry, offering solutions to leading banking and capital markets in the Asia-Pacific area. Ambitious e-government strategies have been launched with China, Australia and Singapore.
■ Employment
EADS to cut 1,700 jobs
European Aeronautic Defense & Space Co, the primary owner of Airbus SAS, plans to cut an additional 1,700 jobs by 2005 as it reorganizes its space operations, La Tribune said, citing unidentified union officials. The job cuts will be shared between France, Germany and the UK, the French daily said. Seven hundred people will leave the company this year and next year, while the departures of a further 1,000, scheduled for 2005, will be announced in three months, the newspaper said. The French company will cut 1,600 jobs in 2002-2003.
■ Matchmaking
Resumes of females sold
Businesses in Shandong, China, have been caught selling the resumes of attractive female job applicants to a matchmaking agency, a news report said yesterday. The dating agency paid between 30 and 100 yuan (US$3.60 to US$12) for each resume and passed them on to clients seeking marriageable girls. A police investigation was launched after several girls reported receiving pestering phone calls from strangers, the South China Morning Post reported.
■ Crude oil
OPEC pumping at capacity
UAE oil minister Obaid Al-Nasseri said yesterday that it would be difficult for OPEC to increase production as the 11-nation group is already at almost full capacity. "I think everybody is producing almost about" full capacity, Al-Nasseri told reporters when he arrived in Vienna for a meeting today of the OPEC. Key oil producers Venezuela and Algeria said here Sunday they believed OPEC had enough room for manoeuvre to avoid a supply shortage in the event of a US-led war on Iraq. Al-Nasseri said: "We have to consider the fundamentals of the market before we think about the war."
UPDATED (3:40pm): A suspected gas explosion at a shopping mall in Taichung this morning has killed four people and injured 20 others, as emergency responders continue to investigate. The explosion occurred on the 12th floor of the Shin Kong Mitsukoshi in Situn District (西屯) at 11:33am. One person was declared dead at the scene, while three people were declared deceased later after receiving emergency treatment. Another 20 people sustained major or minor injuries. The Taichung Fire Bureau said it received a report of the explosion at 11:33am and sent rescuers to respond. The cause of the explosion is still under investigation, it said. The National Fire
ACCOUNTABILITY: The incident, which occured at a Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Department Store in Taichung, was allegedly caused by a gas explosion on the 12th floor Shin Kong Group (新光集團) president Richard Wu (吳昕陽) yesterday said the company would take responsibility for an apparent gas explosion that resulted in four deaths and 26 injuries at Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Zhonggang Store in Taichung yesterday. The Taichung Fire Bureau at 11:33am yesterday received a report saying that people were injured after an explosion at the department store on Section 3 of Taiwan Boulevard in Taichung’s Situn District (西屯). It sent 56 ambulances and 136 paramedics to the site, with the people injured sent to Cheng Ching Hospital’s Chung Kang Branch, Wuri Lin Shin Hospital, Taichung Veterans General Hospital or Chung
‘LAWFUL USE’: The last time a US warship transited the Taiwan Strait was on Oct. 20 last year, and this week’s transit is the first of US President Donald Trump’s second term Two US military vessels transited the Taiwan Strait from Sunday through early yesterday, the Ministry of National Defense said in a statement, the first such mission since US President Donald Trump took office last month. The two vessels sailed south through the Strait, the ministry said, adding that it closely monitored nearby airspace and waters at the time and observed nothing unusual. The ministry did not name the two vessels, but the US Navy identified them as the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Ralph Johnson and the Pathfinder-class survey ship USNS Bowditch. The ships carried out a north-to-south transit from
‘TAIWAN-FRIENDLY’: The last time the Web site fact sheet removed the lines on the US not supporting Taiwanese independence was during the Biden administration in 2022 The US Department of State has removed a statement on its Web site that it does not support Taiwanese independence, among changes that the Taiwanese government praised yesterday as supporting Taiwan. The Taiwan-US relations fact sheet, produced by the department’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, previously stated that the US opposes “any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side; we do not support Taiwan independence; and we expect cross-strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means.” In the updated version published on Thursday, the line stating that the US does not support Taiwanese independence had been removed. The updated
RSS