Japanese police said yesterday they had arrested three employees of Yamaha Motor Corp, the world's second-largest motorcycle maker, for allegedly attempting to export to China a helicopter with potential military uses.
The three employees, who include Kazuo Uchiyama, senior general manager of aeronautic operations, are suspected of attempting to export an unmanned helicopter to a Chinese aerial photography company in December 2005 without approval from the trade ministry, a police spokesman said.
Ban
Japan bans the unapproved export of remote-controlled aircraft that can carry more than 20l of liquid or aerosol for spraying, according to Japan's trade ministry.
"We are deeply sorry for causing troubles and concerns to our customers, business partners and shareholders," Yamaha president Takashi Kajikawa said in a release yesterday. "All we can do now is to monitor developments in the investigation."
Yamaha, based in Iwata City, southwest of Tokyo, has sold nine helicopters to Beijing BVE Technology Co (北京必威易科技), a film company, since 2002, the company said last January.
The Beijing-based company used them to shoot footage for commercials and television drama, according to Yamaha. At the time, Kajikawa said the helicopters were for civilian use and the company didn't violate any law.
The police suspect the Chinese company has links with the People's Liberation Army, the Kyodo News agency reported without naming its sources.
The trade ministry in December 2005 conducted an on-site inspection of Yamaha Motor and spotted the alleged attempted export of the unmanned helicopter to Beijing BVE Technology.
Unlikely
The choppers, which cost ¥16 million (US$132,000) apiece, are sold mainly to farmers in Japan for spraying pesticides. The helicopters only have a range of 200m from the person who is controlling it and are therefore unlikely to be used to carry weapons of mass destruction, the company said last year.
The employees would be fined up to ¥80 million or imprisoned for as long as five years, if proven guilty, according to the government. The company may be also punished.
Yamaha sold about 300 remote-controlled helicopters in 2005 worth about ¥3 billion. That's less than 1 percent of Yamaha's annual sales of ¥1.38 trillion in 2005.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the