■ Tourism
Visits to Eiffel Tower up
A record 6.7 million people visited the Eiffel Tower last year, most of them foreign tourists, the firm that manages the Paris landmark said on Friday. Since the tower was built for the 1889 World's Fair, 230 million people have climbed its 1,665 steps or taken the elevators to admire the views from the 324m high structure, the SETE group said. Visits to the Eiffel Tower rose by 300,000 last year compared with the year before, with up to 30,000 people visiting it daily on busy days, SETE said.
■ Telecoms
ITU head sets limits
Hamadoun Toure, the new head of the UN's International Telecommunication Union (ITU), said on Friday that the agency had no business dealing with freedom of expression on the Internet. Asked about controls on the Internet and repression of dissidents who use the web in countries like China, Toure said: "Freedom of expression is a question of content which exceeds the mandate of the ITU and to which I cannot respond." Toure, who was elected secretary general of the 191-country ITU in November, said the agency's priority was to ensure the proper functioning of the communications infrastructure between countries and of common technical standards.
■ Economy
Japan to raise interest rate
Japan's central bank is likely to raise its key interest rate this week following recent data showing a steady revival in consumption, major newspapers reported yesterday. A majority of the Bank of Japan's policy board members are likely to vote for raising the policy rate to 0.5 percent from 0.25 percent during the meeting scheduled for Jan. 17 to 18, the Mainichi Shimbun and the Asahi Shimbun reported. With recent economic data showing a steady rise in domestic consumption and US economic growth expected to moderate only slightly, board members appeared to be largely convinced that the conditions were right for a tightening in monetary policy, the reports said.
■ Entertainment
EMI heads resign
EMI, the world's third-largest music company, surprised investors on Friday by announcing the departure of EMI Music chief executive Alain Levy and vice chairman David Munns following worse than expected Christmas sales. The company -- home of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Coldplay -- also warned investors that full-year sales will be far below expectations. EMI forecast revenue to be down 6 percent to 10 percent for the full year, while Hitchcock said the total recorded music market is expected to be broadly flat this year. EMI shares dropped 7.3 percent to close at ?245.25 (US$3.17) on the London Stock Exchange, having fallen as much as 10 percent in earlier trading.
■ Economy
Official issues warning
A senior Chinese official has expressed worries over the growing rich-poor gap and environmental damage caused by the country's galloping economic growth. "The price to pay for economic growth is too high," said Ma Kai (馬凱), minister for the national commission for reform and development, official press reports said. With last year's GDP growth at 10.5 percent, preliminary figures showed, disposable income per capita rose 11 percent in the cities, Ma told a meeting of 700 cadres. But he said the growth came at a steep cost to the country.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day