■ CHINA
Inflation rate climbing
The inflation rate this year is likely to exceed the government's 3 percent target, Su Ning (蘇寧), a vice governor of the People's Bank of China, said yesterday at a news conference in Beijing. Inflation in the January to last month period hit 3.5 percent, driven by the sizzling economy and a 15.4 percent surge in politically sensitive prices for pork and other food items over the year-earlier period. Prices soared 5.6 percent last month over the same month last year -- the highest monthly inflation rate since February 1997.
■ ELECTRONICS
Hacker trades secret for car
The teenage hacker who managed to unlock the iPhone so that it can be used with cellular networks other than AT&T will be trading his reworked gadget for a new car. George Hotz, of Glen Rock, New Jersey, said he had reached the deal with CertiCell, a Kentucky-based mobile phone repair company. Hotz posted on his blog that he traded his modified iPhone for "a sweet Nissan 350Z and 3 8GB iPhones." The 17-year-old Hotz said he will be sending the three new iPhones to the three online collaborators who helped him divorce Apple Inc's popular product from AT&T's network. The job took 500 hours.
■ ENERGY
SK Energy sells Peru stake
South Korea's biggest refiner, SK Energy, said yesterday it had reached a US$100 million deal to sell 10 percent of its stake in a Peruvian energy project. The firm said in a statement it would sell a stake in Peru LNG to Marubeni LNG Development BV, a wholly owned subsidiary of Japan's Marubeni Corp, in a bid to concentrate on oil and gas exploration and production. The Peru LNG consortium was formed in 2003 and now groups US-based Hunt Oil, Spain's Repsol-YPF, SK Energy and Marubeni Corp. SK Energy has been producing and exporting natural gas and petroleum from two fields in Peru since 2000.
■ INVESTMENT
China issues bonds
China was to sell nearly US$80 billion in government bonds yesterday in the first batch of a planned special issue to fund a new foreign exchange investment agency, state media reported. The Ministry of Finance was to issue 600 billion yuan (US$79.4 billion) as part of the planned special treasury bonds sale totalling 1.55 trillion yuan, the China Securities Journal said. Proceeds of the bond issue will be injected into the new state forex investment agency, tasked with diversifying and maximizing returns on part of the country's huge forex reserves. The bonds carried yields of 4.3 percent with maturities of 10 years.
■ BUSINESS
Director earnings revealed
The directors of the companies that make up the FTSE-100 index of leading firms earned a combined £1 billion (US$2 billion) in wages in the last financial year, a survey conducted by the Guardian published yesterday showed. The newspaper said that the average total pay for a chief executive of a FTSE-100 firm was £2.88 million, with Bob Diamond, who heads Barclays Plc's investment banking arm, topping the list with £23 million in wages. Bart Becht, chief executive of cosmetics group Reckitt Benckiser, and Giles Thorley, head of pub operator Punch Taverns, were second and third with overall pay of £22 million and ?11 million respectively.
AGENCIES
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