■INDONESIA
Jakarta to spend more
Jakarta plans to spend an extra 50 trillion rupiah (US$4.5 billion) to help sustain economic growth this year and counter the impact of a global financial crisis, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said. Southeast Asia’s largest economy will outlay 38 trillion rupiah this year from unrealized spending planned last year and the other 12 trillion rupiah for this year, the president said. The additional spending may help Indonesia’s US$433 billion economic growth exceed 5 percent this year, from an estimated 6.1 percent last year, central bank governor Boediono said. The budget deficit is estimated to have narrowed to 0.1 percent of GDP last year, the lowest since the Asian financial crisis a decade earlier, Yudhoyono said.
■JAPAN
Tuna fetches top yen
The Japanese passion for sushi is apparently immune to the global economic crisis. A plump tuna yesterday fetched ¥9.6 million (US$104,000) at Tokyo’s Tsukiji fish market, the second-highest price ever. This year’s first auction took place before dawn at the world’s largest fish market, with 730 tunas lined up for bidding. The top-priced fish was a blue-fin tuna weighing 128kg. “I just wanted to bid on the best tuna of the day,” the winning buyer said, according to Jiji Press. He said he planned to sell the tuna to high-end sushi bars in Japan and China. The highest price ever paid for a tuna at the market was ¥20 million in 2001. Tsukiji market, the source of fresh sushi and sashimi flown daily to top restaurants the world over, has long topped must-see lists for foreign visitors to Tokyo. But the auction was closed to tourists last month after fishmongers complained that visitors were bad mannered.
■ELECTRONICS
Samsung unveils slim TV
South Korea’s Samsung Electronics yesterday unveiled what it says is the world’s slimmest liquid-crystal-display (LCD) TV. The new product, measuring only 6.5mm thick, is thinner than any other existing TV set, and even slimmer than most mobile handsets, Samsung said in a statement. Its thickness is one-seventh of Samsung’s “Bordeaux 850” LCD TV, which is currently the thinnest on the market.
■PHARMACEUTICALS
Pfizer exercises option
Pfizer Inc, the world’s largest drugmaker, exercised an option to buy commercial licenses on vaccines developed by Switzerland’s Cytos Biotechnology AG. The options were based on an agreement the companies signed in August that gave Pfizer access to experimental vaccines using immune-response technology, Schlieren, Switzerland-based Cytos said yesterday in an e-mailed statement. Cytos did not disclose the size of the payments or say which diseases the vaccines target.
■ECONOMY
No Great Depression: Sachs
The world is facing a serious recession but should avoid a repeat of the Great Depression it experienced in the 1930s, a top US economist said on Sunday. This recession would be more serious than others, but not as hard as the Great Depression, Jeffrey Sachs, a special advisor to the UN secretary general, told the Spanish daily El Pais. Sachs said he also believed Asia should be able to maintain positive economic growth levels. Allowing Lehman Brothers to collapse had been a “huge mistake” that had worsened the economic crisis, he said. Any other errors of that magnitude — such as letting troubled US automakers to go under — would lead to a depression.
RETHINK? The defense ministry and Navy Command Headquarters could take over the indigenous submarine project and change its production timeline, a source said Admiral Huang Shu-kuang’s (黃曙光) resignation as head of the Indigenous Submarine Program and as a member of the National Security Council could affect the production of submarines, a source said yesterday. Huang in a statement last night said he had decided to resign due to national security concerns while expressing the hope that it would put a stop to political wrangling that only undermines the advancement of the nation’s defense capabilities. Taiwan People’s Party Legislator Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) yesterday said that the admiral, her older brother, felt it was time for him to step down and that he had completed what he
Taiwan has experienced its most significant improvement in the QS World University Rankings by Subject, data provided on Sunday by international higher education analyst Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) showed. Compared with last year’s edition of the rankings, which measure academic excellence and influence, Taiwanese universities made great improvements in the H Index metric, which evaluates research productivity and its impact, with a notable 30 percent increase overall, QS said. Taiwanese universities also made notable progress in the Citations per Paper metric, which measures the impact of research, achieving a 13 percent increase. Taiwanese universities gained 10 percent in Academic Reputation, but declined 18 percent
BULLY TACTICS: Beijing has continued its incursions into Taiwan’s airspace even as Xi Jinping talked about Taiwan being part of the Chinese family and nation China should stop its coercion of Taiwan and respect mainstream public opinion in Taiwan about sovereignty if its expression of goodwill is genuine, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday. Ministry spokesman Jeff Liu (劉永健) made the comment in response to media queries about a meeting between former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) the previous day. Ma voiced support for the so-called “1992 consensus,” while Xi said that although the two sides of the Taiwan Strait have “different systems,” this does not change the fact that they are “part of the same country,” and that “external
UNDER DISCUSSION: The combatant command would integrate fast attack boat and anti-ship missile groups to defend waters closest to the coastline, a source said The military could establish a new combatant command as early as 2026, which would be tasked with defending Taiwan’s territorial waters 24 nautical miles (44.4km) from the nation’s coastline, a source familiar with the matter said yesterday. The new command, which would fall under the Naval Command Headquarters, would be led by a vice admiral and integrate existing fast attack boat and anti-ship missile groups, along with the Naval Maritime Surveillance and Reconnaissance Command, said the source, who asked to remain anonymous. It could be launched by 2026, but details are being discussed and no final timetable has been announced, the source