■BANKING
Lloyds agrees to pay penalty
British-based Lloyds TSB Bank agreed on Friday to pay a US$350 million penalty to settle a probe that it illegally handled financial transfers for Iran and Sudan in violation of US sanctions. A Justice Department statement said Lloyd’s “has accepted and acknowledged responsibility for its criminal conduct” in a criminal complain filed in US District Court in New York. “Lloyds agreed to forfeit the funds as part of deferred prosecution agreements with the Department of Justice and the New York County District Attorney’s Office,” the statement said. Prosecutors alleged that from 1995 until 2007, Lloyds agents in Britain and Dubai “falsified outgoing US wire transfers that involved countries or persons on US sanctions lists.”
■ECONOMY
Harper vows ‘big actions’
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper vowed on Friday his government would initiate major measures in an upcoming budget and possibly over the next three to five years to stimulate the economy. “We’ll take big, comprehensive actions,” Harper told a press conference. “We’ll assume that we’re probably going to look at a period of three to five years of such actions,” he added. “It won’t necessarily be that long, but we’re not going to underestimate the situation.” Earlier, Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said extra government spending or tax cuts or both to prop up the economy would mean this year “the deficit will be substantial.” The budget is to be unveiled on Jan. 27, marking the nation’s first budget deficit in more than a decade.
■REAL ESTATE
PRC property prices drop
Chinese property prices fell last month for the first time since 2005, state media reported yesterday, quoting official figures. The price of housing in 70 major cities fell 0.4 percent year-on-year, Xinhua reported, quoting from a statement issued by the National Development and Reform Commission, the country’s top economic planning agency, and the National Bureau of Statistics. The southern boom town of Shenzhen saw the largest fall, with prices down 18.1 percent.
■PETROLEUM
PDVSA denies layoffs
Venezuela’s state oil company on Friday denied 4,000 contract workers have been laid off as the nation moves to comply with new OPEC production cuts. State oil company Petroleos de Venezuela, SA (PDVSA), dismissed reports that at least eight oil rigs have been halted and thousands of contract workers laid off. Vice President Eulogio Del Pino said in a statement that union leaders who made the allegations were lying for political reasons.
■ENGINEERING
IT flirting course on offer
Even the most quirky of computer nerds can learn to flirt with finesse thanks to a new “flirting course” being offered to budding IT engineers at Potsdam University south of Berlin. The 440 students enrolled in the master’s degree course will learn how to write flirtatious text messages and e-mails, impress people at parties and cope with rejection. Philip von Senftleben, an author and radio presenter who will teach the course, summed up his job as teaching how to “get someone else’s heart beating fast while yours stays calm.” The course, which starts next Monday, is part of the social skills section of the IT course and is designed to ease entry into the world of work. Students also learn body language, public speaking, stress management and presentation skills.
Rainfall is expected to become more widespread and persistent across central and southern Taiwan over the next few days, with the effects of the weather patterns becoming most prominent between last night and tomorrow, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Independent meteorologist Daniel Wu (吳德榮) said that based on the latest forecast models of the combination of a low-pressure system and southwesterly winds, rainfall and flooding are expected to continue in central and southern Taiwan from today to Sunday. The CWA also warned of flash floods, thunder and lightning, and strong gusts in these areas, as well as landslides and fallen
WAITING GAME: The US has so far only offered a ‘best rate tariff,’ which officials assume is about 15 percent, the same as Japan, a person familiar with the matter said Taiwan and the US have completed “technical consultations” regarding tariffs and a finalized rate is expected to be released soon, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) told a news conference yesterday, as a 90-day pause on US President Donald Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs is set to expire today. The two countries have reached a “certain degree of consensus” on issues such as tariffs, nontariff trade barriers, trade facilitation, supply chain resilience and economic security, Lee said. They also discussed opportunities for cooperation, investment and procurement, she said. A joint statement is still being negotiated and would be released once the US government has made
SOUTH CHINA SEA? The Philippine president spoke of adding more classrooms and power plants, while skipping tensions with China over disputed areas Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday blasted “useless and crumbling” flood control projects in a state of the nation address that focused on domestic issues after a months-long feud with his vice president. Addressing a joint session of congress after days of rain that left at least 31 dead, Marcos repeated his recent warning that the nation faced a climate change-driven “new normal,” while pledging to investigate publicly funded projects that had failed. “Let’s not pretend, the people know that these projects can breed corruption. Kickbacks ... for the boys,” he said, citing houses that were “swept away” by the floods. “Someone has
‘CRUDE’: The potential countermeasure is in response to South Africa renaming Taiwan’s representative offices and the insistence that it move out of Pretoria Taiwan is considering banning exports of semiconductors to South Africa after the latter unilaterally downgraded and changed the names of Taiwan’s two representative offices, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday. On Monday last week, the South African Department of International Relations and Cooperation unilaterally released a statement saying that, as of April 1, the Taipei Liaison Offices in Pretoria and Cape Town had been renamed the “Taipei Commercial Office in Johannesburg” and the “Taipei Commercial Office in Cape Town.” Citing UN General Assembly Resolution 2758, it said that South Africa “recognizes the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the sole
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