■INVESTMENT
Russia benefits on US woes
Investments in the bonds of struggling US home-loan financers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have earned Russia more than US$1 billion in the past six months, press reports said on Tuesday. “The bonds in which we have invested have not incurred losses, but instead have made us more than a billion dollars in the last six months,” Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin was quoted as saying by Ria Novosti news agency. The report gave no further details nor an explanation of how the investment had been able to produce a return worth some 670 million euros (US$988.4 million) at a time when Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shares have tumbled.
■COMPUTERS
IBM bets on uncertainty
In a sign that political instability and natural disasters can fuel technology spending, IBM Corp said it would invest US$300 million building new centers that can store companies’ sensitive data and deliver it remotely in the event of a meltdown. Called “cloud computing,” the technology that Armonk, New York-based IBM is employing in 13 new facilities lets companies access backups of their critical computer files over secured Internet connections — instead of housing all the data internally. IBM says its initiative is drawing attention from customers especially concerned about severe weather and global instability, including war between Russia and Georgia, said Michael Riegel, vice president of IBM’s Business Continuity and Resiliency Services unit.
■RETAIL
UK online sales up
Online retail sales in the UK rose by 11.3 percent last month compared with the previous month, as wet weather boosted online clothing sales while electrical sales also soared, a report said yesterday. The IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index showed Britons spent more than £4.8 billion (US$8.97 billion) online last month, the equivalent of £79 for every person in the UK. The survey showed shoppers continued to shop online despite pressures on disposable income. The figures were in sharp contrast to recent data from the British Retail Consortium, showing high street sales last month were down 0.9 percent on June.
■OIL
Petrobras invests in Ceara
Brazil’s state-run oil company Petrobras on Tuesday announced it would invest US$11.1 billion in building a refinery in the northeast state of Ceara. The facility, which is scheduled to begin operation in 2014, would have a capacity to process 300,000 barrels of crude per day. Most of the output will be for export diesel, although gasoline and gas will also be produced for domestic consumption. Petrobras also has another refinery planned, the financial newspaper Valor said, adding that its capacity — about half of the Ceara plant — would be for export. Valor said the company is aiming to double refined output to 3.2 million barrels per day by 2020.
■CELLPHONES
S Koreans love their mobiles
South Korea now has 45 million mobile phones, equivalent to 91 percent of the total population, the Korea Communications Commission said yesterday. The data meant that each of the country’s 15.8 million households has almost three mobiles on average, it said. About 43 million of the mobile phones had an Internet connection. The number of landline phone users continued to fall, with 23 million subscribers reported last month. South Korea is one of the world’s most wired societies, with nearly all households connected to the Internet.
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 Xinyi A13 Department Store 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 at
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
‘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)