■FINANCE
Four banks seized in day
Banks in four US states with more than US$1 billion in assets were closed in a single day, boosting the toll of seized lenders to 13 this year and further draining a deposit insurance fund amid record home foreclosures. Florida, Nebraska, Illinois and Oregon regulators took over the banks on Friday and, with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC), sold US$807.5 million in deposits and arranged to open the branches under new names tomorrow. The FDIC said the shutdowns, the most on one day since 1992, will cost it US$341.6 million.
■FINANCE
Darling plays down rumors
British Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling said UK banks were best run privately as he tried to calm speculation the government was about to take a majority state in Lloyds Banking Group Plc. Darling said on Saturday the government has already put in place a program to help banks. The Treasury played down talk that Darling would hold discussions with Lloyds executives over the weekend. The UK owns 43 percent of the company after overseeing a bailout last year that brought the two lenders together. The value of Lloyds’ shares plummeted by a third on Friday after it emerged that HBOS, the unit it took over last year, was heading for heavy losses.
■SOUTH KOREA
Import price rates down
Import prices rose at the slowest pace in 13 months last month, adding to signs that inflation is easing as the economy heads for its first recession in a decade. Prices of imported goods advanced 16.7 percent from a year earlier, cooling from December’s 22.4 percent increase, the Bank of Korea said yesterday in Seoul. Prices fell 1.8 percent from the previous month. Prices of imported raw materials fell 3.5 percent last month from a year earlier.
■AGRICULTURE
Sanyuan to bid for Sanlu
Beijing Sanyuan Foods Co (北京三元食品), a Beijing-based dairy, said it would bid for the assets of the Chinese company at the heart of a tainted milk scandal that sickened hundreds of thousands of children and was blamed for killing six. The listed arm of the company said in a notice to the Shanghai Stock Exchange on Saturday that it would bid for the assets of Sanlu Group Co (三鹿集團), which was declared bankrupt last week. Sanyuan said it hoped to expand outside of Beijing and into Sanlu’s old markets in neighboring Hebei and Shandong provinces.
■HONG KONG
Slump costs 10,000 jobs
The economic slump has cost the territory around 10,000 jobs so far and unemployment will continue to rise in the months ahead, Labor Secretary Matthew Cheung (張建宗) said on Saturday. He said it was “difficult to predict” when the territory’s unemployment rate would peak.
■FINANCE
EU may inject more cash
The head of the European Central Bank said on Saturday he would not rule out further exceptional monetary moves to ease the lending crisis afflicting the eurozone. “I do not exclude additional non-standard actions” to ease monetary conditions in the recession-hit eurozone,” Jean-Claude Trichet told a news conference after a meeting of finance leaders from the G7 nations. Trichet hinted last month at the possible use in the eurozone of so-called quantitative easing — injecting cash to increase the money supply and stimulate activity.
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