■Interest rates
Bond firms look for rise
The Federal Reserve will raise interest rates in the second half next year as fiscal stimulus and 12 interest-rate reductions spur economic growth in the US, Wall Street's biggest bond-trading firms said. The central bank will lift its target rate for overnight loans between banks, or federal funds, from a 44-year low of 1.25 percent by the end of September 2003, according to a majority of economists at the 22 firms that trade with the Fed, known as primary dealers. The last time the central bank raised rates was in May 2000. Policy makers meet today, less than a week after the US unemployment rate rose to 6 percent in November, matching an eight-year high reached in April.
■ Transistors
IBM thinks really small
International Business Machines Corp scientists have built the world's smallest working silicon transistor, which may help reduce the size of computers and other electronic devices. The transistor is six nanometers in length, which are about 20,000 times smaller than a human hair. It's 10 times smaller than state-of-the-art transistors in production today, IBM said. A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter. Researchers are trying to shrink computing to microscopic levels to speed processors, cut power consumption and handle more complex problems. Details of the transistor will be published in a technical paper to be presented next week at the International Electron Devices Meeting in San Francisco. "The ability to build working transistors at these dimensions could allow us to put 100 times more transistors into a computer chip than is currently possible," said Randy Isaac, IBM Research vice president of science and technology, in a statement.
Agencies
Taiwan aims to open 18 representative offices and seven Taiwan Tourism Information Centers worldwide by next year to attract international visitors, the Tourism Administration said on Saturday. The agency has so far opened three representative offices abroad this year and would open two more before the end of the year, it said. It has also already opened information centers in Jakarta, Mumbai and Paris, and is to open one in Vancouver next month and in Manila in December, it said. Next year, it would also open offices in Amsterdam, Dubai and Sydney, it added. While the Cabinet did not mention international tourists in its
EYES AT SEA: Many marine enthusiasts have expressed interest in volunteering for coastal patrols, which would help identify stowaways and illegal fishing, the CGA said Six thousand coastal patrol volunteers are to be recruited for 159 inspection offices to enhance the nation’s response to “gray zone” conflicts, Coast Guard Administration (CGA) sources said yesterday. Volunteer teams would be established to increase the resilience of coastal defense systems in the wake of two unlawful entries attempted by Chinese over the past three months, Ocean Affairs Council Minister Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said. A former Chinese navy captain drove a motorboat into the Tamsui River (淡水河) in Taipei on the eve of the Dragon Boat Festival in June, while another Chinese man sailed in a rubber boat into the Houkeng
NEXT LEVEL: The defense ministry confirmed that a video released last month featured personnel piloting new FPV drone systems being developed by the Armaments Bureau Taipei and Washington are pushing for their drone companies to work together to establish a China-free supply chain, the Financial Times reported on Friday. A delegation of high-level executives and US government officials were yesterday to arrive in Taipei to discuss with their Taiwanese counterparts collaboration on drone technology procurement and development, the report said. The executives represent 26 US manufacturers of drone and counter-drone systems, while the officials are from the US Department of Commerce and the US Department of Defense’s Defense Innovation Unit, along with Dev Shenoy, principal director for microelectronics in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense
‘ANONYMOUS 64’: A national security official said that it is an attempt by China to increase domestic anti-Taiwanese sentiment and inflame cross-strait tensions The Ministry of National Defense’s (MND) Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM) yesterday denied accusations by China that it had undermined regional security by carrying out cyberattacks against targets in China, adding instead that Beijing was responsible for raising tensions and undermining regional peace. The Chinese Ministry of State Security on WeChat accused a hacker group called “Anonymous 64” of targeting China, Hong Kong and Macau starting earlier this year through frequent cyberattacks. The group carried out cyberattacks to seize control of Web sites, outdoor electronic billboards and video-on-demand platforms in China, Hong Kong and Macau, it said, adding the hackers’