■ Banking
Travel fraud exposed
Japanese central bank employees have allegedly padded travel costs by ¥100 million (US$870,000), Kyodo News agency reported. The practice among some Bank of Japan staff members has been conducted over the last seven years, according to Dow Jones Newswires, which also reported the scandal, quoting unidentified sources close to the bank. The revelation is part of an ongoing investigation that began in January, when government auditors first discovered that Bank of Japan staff at two branches had charged too much for domestic business trips in recent years, Dow Jones said.
■ Aviation
HK to run Zhuhai airport
Hong Kong's airport has received approval from Beijing to manage Zhuhai Airport in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong under a joint venture agreement, in a move that aims to foster an integrated southern China aviation hub. The Hong Kong airport paid 198 million yuan (US$24.8 million) for a 55 percent stake in the joint venture, the Airport Authority said in a statement late on Wednesday. The Zhuhai municipal government contributed 162 million yuan. The new company, Zhuhai-Hong Kong Airport Management Co, will pay a franchise fee for the right to manage and operate Zhuhai Airport for 20 years.
■ Electronics
Ladies love gadgets: survey
A survey has found that women prefer tech gadgets like plasma televisions and iPods to more traditional luxuries like designer footwear and diamond jewelery. The Girls Gone Wired survey by women's cable television channel Oxygen Network found that 77 percent of women surveyed would prefer a new plasma television to a diamond solitaire necklace and 56 percent would opt for a new plasma TV over a weekend vacation in Florida. Oxygen CEO Geraldine Laybourne said the results showed that women have largely closed the technology gender gap with men.
■ Automobiles
Ford reports higher losses
Ford Motor Co said that its second-quarter loss was more than double what the automaker previously reported due to higher-than-expected pension costs, and added that its luxury car division will not turn a profit this year. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday, Ford said it revised its loss to US$254 million, or US$0.14 per share, from the previously announced loss of US$123 million, or US$0.07 per share. That contrasts with a profit of US$946 million, or US$0.47 per share, posted in the second quarter of last year. Ford attributed the revision to an increase in full-year pension curtailment expenses to US$1.2 billion, up from its previous projection of US$1 billion.
■ Automobiles
Toyota to improve recalls
Toyota Motor Corp yesterday submitted a report to the government, pledging to improve its information system on vehicle claims and its defect-checking system. In a report, Toyota said it would keep the records on defects for 10 years, instead of the current five years, while it would keep records on defects that have led the manufacturer to consider recalls for 20 years, instead of 10 years. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport issued an instruction demanding improvement of Toyota's recall-related operations. The ministry is expected to inspect the company by the end of the year.
NO RECIPROCITY: Taipei has called for cross-strait group travel to resume fully, but Beijing is only allowing people from its Fujian Province to travel to Matsu, the MAC said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday criticized an announcement by the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism that it would lift a travel ban to Taiwan only for residents of China’s Fujian Province, saying that the policy does not meet the principles of reciprocity and openness. Chinese Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism Rao Quan (饒權) yesterday morning told a delegation of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers in a meeting in Beijing that the ministry would first allow Fujian residents to visit Lienchiang County (Matsu), adding that they would be able to travel to Taiwan proper directly once express ferry
FAST RELEASE: The council lauded the developer for completing model testing in only four days and releasing a commercial version for use by academia and industry The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) yesterday released the latest artificial intelligence (AI) language model in traditional Chinese embedded with Taiwanese cultural values. The council launched the Trustworthy AI Dialogue Engine (TAIDE) program in April last year to develop and train traditional Chinese-language models based on LLaMA, the open-source AI language model released by Meta. The program aims to tackle the information bias that is often present in international large-scale language models and take Taiwanese culture and values into consideration, it said. Llama 3-TAIDE-LX-8B-Chat-Alpha1, released yesterday, is the latest large language model in traditional Chinese. It was trained based on Meta’s Llama-3-8B
STUMPED: KMT and TPP lawmakers approved a resolution to suspend the rate hike, which the government said was unavoidable in view of rising global energy costs The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday said it has a mandate to raise electricity prices as planned after the legislature passed a non-binding resolution along partisan lines to freeze rates. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers proposed the resolution to suspend the price hike, which passed by a 59-50 vote. The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) voted with the KMT. Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) of the KMT said the resolution is a mandate for the “immediate suspension of electricity price hikes” and for the Executive Yuan to review its energy policy and propose supplementary measures. A government-organized electricity price evaluation board in March
NOVEL METHODS: The PLA has adopted new approaches and recently conducted three combat readiness drills at night which included aircraft and ships, an official said Taiwan is monitoring China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) exercises for changes in their size or pattern as the nation prepares for president-elect William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. Tsai made the comment at a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, in response to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Ting-yu’s (王定宇) questions. China continues to employ a carrot-and-stick approach, in which it applies pressure with “gray zone” tactics, while attempting to entice Taiwanese with perks, Tsai said. These actions aim to help Beijing look like it has