■ Semiconductors
EU tariffs sought on Hynix
The European Commission plans to bring punitive tariffs against South Korean semiconductor maker Hynix Semiconductor Inc for selling chips below production cost, German business daily Handelsblatt said, citing unidentified people from Trade Commis-sioner Pascal Lamy's office. Hynix has received "bil-lions" worth of subsidies from the South Korean government, allowing the world's third-largest chip maker to sell direct random access memory, or DRAM, semiconductors below production cost, the paper said. A spokesman for Lamy declined to comment, the report said. Industry experts expect a tariff of as much as 30 percent on Hynix's chips, the paper said.
■ Asia
Domestic focus urged
Asia will have to rethink its export-oriented growth formula and look more at domestic consumption if it wants to continue climbing up the economic ladder, a regional economist said yesterday. Against the backdrop of a volatile global economy, Asia will have to rely less on exports which have been the mainstay of the region's economic growth over the past decade, said Yuwa Hedrick-Wong. "The way forward I think is we have to ignite our own consumption revolution in the region," said Hedrick-Wong, an economic advisor to credit card giant MasterCard International. "We must create a much more balanced structure platform for growth in the Asia-Pacific," he said at a briefing in Singapore outlining the challenges facing the region. Citing South Korea, he said the surge in domestic demand had generated positive spin-offs for the economy, particularly in developing the services sector.
■ Telecoms
FCC to let states decide
The US Federal Communi-cations Commission approved new rules to give states more authority over the US$125 billion US local-telephone market, dealing a setback to the Baby Bells and FCC chairman Michael Powell. The FCC voted 3 to 2 for guidelines giving state regulators final say over what parts of local carriers' phone networks must be leased to rivals at discounts. The Bells, whose shares fell, won't have to share new fiber-optic lines for Internet access. The vote undercuts Powell's attempt to enact the biggest changes in phone regulations since the 1996 Telecommunications Act. He wanted the FCC to relax rules forcing the big local carriers to lease equip-ment at discounts, saying they discourage investment. But state regulators argued the low rates spur compe-tition and help companies such as AT&T Corp enter the local market.
■ China
Anti-gum lotion sought
China is developing a chemical weapon, under a project dubbed the "863 Program" by the Ministry of Science and Technology, for deployment in the war on a scourge that blights its public squares -- chewing gum. Eight research insti-tutions have applied for the 1 million yuan (US$120,000) project to come up with a lotion over the next 18 months that will dissolve discarded chewing gum stuck to the ground, the China Daily reported yesterday. The Chinese chew some 2 billion pieces of gum per year, the paper quoted experts as saying, noting that nearly 600,000 globules of gum were discarded in Tiananmen Square during the seven-day National Day holiday last October.
PEACE AT LAST? UN experts had warned of threats and attacks ahead of the voting, but after a turbulent period, Bangladesh has seemingly reacted to the result with calm The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) yesterday celebrated a landslide victory in the first elections held since a deadly 2024 uprising, with party leader Tarique Rahman to become prime minister. Bangladesh Election Commission figures showed that the BNP alliance had won 212 seats, compared with 77 for the Islamist-led Jamaat-e-Islami alliance. The US embassy congratulated Rahman and the BNP for a “historic victory,” while India praised Rahman’s “decisive win” in a significant step after recent rocky relations with Bangladesh. China and Pakistan, which grew closer to Bangladesh since the uprising and the souring of ties with India, where ousted Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina
FAST-TRACK: The deal is to be sent to the legislature, but time is of the essence, as Trump had raised tariffs on Seoul when it failed to quickly ratify a similar pact Taiwan and the US on Thursday signed a trade agreement that caps US tariffs on Taiwanese goods at 15 percent and provides preferential market access for US industrial and agricultural exports, including cars, and beef and pork products. The Taiwan-US Agreement on Reciprocal Trade confirms a 15 percent US tariff for Taiwanese goods, and grants Taiwanese semiconductors and related products the most-favorable-treatment under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, the Executive Yuan said. In addition, 2,072 items — representing nearly 20 percent of Taiwan’s total exports to the US — would be exempt from additional tariffs and be subject only to
The Taiwan Space Agency (TASA) yesterday released the first images from its Formosat-8A satellite, featuring high-resolution views of Hsinchu Science Park (新竹科學園區), Tainan’s Anping District (安平), Kaohsiung’s Singda Harbor (興達港), Japan’s National Stadium in Tokyo and Barcelona airport. Formosat-8A, named the “Chi Po-lin Satellite” after the late Taiwanese documentary filmmaker Chi Po-lin (齊柏林), was launched on Nov. 29 last year. It is designed to capture images at a 1m resolution, which can be sharpened to 0.7m after processing, surpassing the capabilities of its predecessor, Formosat-5, the agency said. It is the first of TASA’s eight-satellite Formosat-8 constellation to be sent into orbit and
President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday approved a special pardon exempting a woman in her 80s convicted of killing her disabled son from imprisonment. After carefully reviewing the case, Lai pardoned Lin Liu Lung-tzu (林劉龍子) from the prison sentence while acknowledging her conviction, citing the extreme circumstances she faced, Presidential Office spokeswoman Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) said in a statement. Under Article 3 of the Amnesty Act (赦免法), the two kinds of pardons are exempting an offender from the execution of a punishment or declaring the punishment to be invalid. Kuo said Lin Liu had spent more than 50 years caring for her son, before
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