■ Telecoms
Orascom may boost stake
Orascom Telecom Holding SAE, the Middle East's largest mobile-phone operator by subscriptions, may boost its stake in Hutchison Telecommunications International Ltd (和記電訊) by 3.3 percent, chief executive officer Naguib Sawiris said on Saturday. Orascom, which agreed last December to buy a 19.3 percent stake in Hutchison for US$1.3 billion, wants to merge with the Asian telecommunications company, Sawiris said. Hutchison is a unit of Hutchison Whampoa Ltd (和記黃埔), which is owned by Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing (李嘉誠). Sawiris is seeking to expand in Asia and Africa to make Orascom one of the world's 10 largest telecommunications companies.
■ Automobiles
VW `planning price cut'
Volkswagen, which is at odds with unions over high labor costs and over-staffing, is planning to cut the price of one of its volume cars and introduce a Brazilian-made model, an industry newspaper, Automobilwoche, said on Saturday. It said the company's head of brands, Wolfgang Bernhard, proposed to cut the cost of manufacturing the Polo, by 2,000 euros (US$2,500) per vehicle from 2008. The weekly said he also wanted to offer Europeans a no-frills model, the Fox, which is currently produced in Brazil. Volkswagen declined to respond, saying it did not comment on speculation about models. The company also partly denied a report in a news weekly, Der Spiegel, that 30,000, not 20,000 jobs in Germany, might be eliminated as Volkswagen raises productivity. VW's head of personnel, Horst Neumann, said through a spokesman he had not spoken of any specific number. The spokesman declined to say which number was correct.
■ Banking
Lawmakers urge revisions
Japanese ruling and opposition lawmakers urged the Bank of Japan yesterday to introduce asset disclosure rules after the central bank chief admitted having kept a scandal-tainted investment. "They should revise their internal regulations" on asset disclosure, said Toranosuke Katayama, a senior official of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's Liberal Democratic Party. "I think at least assets held by a governor of the Bank of Japan must be disclosed," Katayama said. Embattled central bank chief Toshihiko Fukui said on Friday he made millions of yen in profits from an investment in a scandal-tainted fund that has triggered calls for his resignation. Fukui, who first made the investment just before taking office, pledged to report precise figures by tomorrow. Fukui, who was then in the private sector, had invested in the fund of Yoshiaki Murakami, a former bureaucrat who became an activist for shareholder rights.
■ Banking
Japanese looking to Islam
Japan will study Islamic financial practices in a bid to attract Middle Eastern oil money, a daily said yesterday. The government-backed Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) has formed a four-man advisory board of Islamic legal scholars the Nihon Keizai Shimbun said. JBIC will also study Islamic-style finance in a tie-up with Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp, Mizuho Corporate Bank and Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, the business daily said. The aim is to help Japanese private financial institutions enter the Islamic financial market, Nihon Keizai said.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)
EYE ON STRAIT: The US spending bill ‘doubles security cooperation funding for Taiwan,’ while also seeking to counter the influence of China US President Joe Biden on Saturday signed into law a US$1.2 trillion spending package that includes US$300 million in foreign military financing to Taiwan, as well as funding for Taipei-Washington cooperative projects. The US Congress early on Saturday overwhelmingly passed the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act 2024 to avoid a partial shutdown and fund the government through September for a fiscal year that began six months ago. Under the package, the Defense Appropriations Act would provide a US$27 billion increase from the previous fiscal year to fund “critical national defense efforts, including countering the PRC [People’s Republic of China],” according to a summary