■ Real Estate
HK luxury sales revive
A luxury house has sold for HK$170 million (US$21.8 million), making big headlines yesterday and suggesting the upper end of the real estate market might be back. Hong Kong newspapers said the 740m2 house in the exclusive Peak residential area includes a wide array of amenities, including one bathroom larger than many local apartments -- at 67.5m2.) The European-style property is also complete with a swimming pool and massive garden and was snapped up over the weekend by "an entrepreneur" who has not been publicly named. Two other houses in the same development have gone for high prices over the past two months from the real estate company controlled by billionaire Richard Li (李澤楷), a son of Hong Kong's richest man, Li Ka-shing (李嘉誠), newspapers said.
■ Wage reform
Singapore gives incentives
Companies in Singapore should move to restructure wages and increase variable pay to take advantage of state-backed incentives, Manpower Minister Ng Eng Hen said. The city's government is encouraging companies to pay variable wages linked to productivity, rather than seniority, to avoid mass retrenchments during economic recessions and compete with cheaper labor in other Southeast Asian countries. Under an ongoing campaign, companies get much of their wage-restructuring costs paid for by the state, and the government also helps arrange union, training and human resources support. The government is promoting wage restructuring as it predicts the economy may register double-digit growth this year for the first time in a decade, making Singapore the fastest-growing of Asia's 12 biggest economies.
■ Electronics
Toshiba sets sales target
Toshiba Corp aims to triple sales of DVD recorders, flat-panel televisions and other audio-visual products, making the category the next "pillar" business for Japan's second-biggest chipmaker. "With the full implementation of digital broadcasting by 2011, we will see a new wave of demand," Tadashi Okamura, Toshiba's president, said at a news conference in Tokyo. "We are now focusing on audio visual products." Sales from the division are expected to reach ¥1.5 trillion (US$13.4 billion) in the year ending March 31, 2011, up from this year's estimate of ¥490 billion, the company said. Tokyo-based Toshiba targets taking a fifth of the domestic television market and 13 percent of the overseas market by fiscal 2010. Toshiba last month began selling notebook computers with visual and audio capabilities it says are equal to or better than that of televisions.
■ Security
Encryption advance made
It's a hacker's nightmare but a dream for bankers and spies: A computer network so secure that even the simplest attempts to eavesdrop will interrupt the flow of data and alert administrators to the snooping. The work by researchers at Harvard University, Boston University and BBN Technologies is the closest scientists have come to a real-world quantum encryption system that uses light particles called photons to lock and unlock information instead of random-number ``keys.'' Using the technology, the scientists can swap data, send e-mail and visit one another's Web sites as their data is protected.
Taiwan’s Lee Chia-hao (李佳豪) on Sunday won a silver medal at the All England Open Badminton Championships in Birmingham, England, a career best. Lee, 25, took silver in the final of the men’s singles against world No. 1 Shi Yuqi (石宇奇) of China, who won 21-17, 21-19 in a tough match that lasted 51 minutes. After the match, the Taiwanese player, who ranks No. 22 in the world, said it felt unreal to be challenging an opponent of Shi’s caliber. “I had to be in peak form, and constantly switch my rhythm and tactics in order to score points effectively,” he said. Lee got
EMBRACING TAIWAN: US lawmakers have introduced an act aiming to replace the use of ‘Chinese Taipei’ with ‘Taiwan’ across all Washington’s federal agencies A group of US House of Representatives lawmakers has introduced legislation to replace the term “Chinese Taipei” with “Taiwan” across all federal agencies. US Representative Byron Donalds announced the introduction of the “America supports Taiwan act,” which would mandate federal agencies adopt “Taiwan” in place of “Chinese Taipei,” a news release on his page on the US House of Representatives’ Web site said. US representatives Mike Collins, Barry Moore and Tom Tiffany are cosponsors of the legislation, US political newspaper The Hill reported yesterday. “The legislation is a push to normalize the position of Taiwan as an autonomous country, although the official US
CHANGE OF TONE: G7 foreign ministers dropped past reassurances that there is no change in the position of the G7 members on Taiwan, including ‘one China’ policies G7 foreign ministers on Friday took a tough stance on China, stepping up their language on Taiwan and omitting some conciliatory references from past statements, including to “one China” policies. A statement by ministers meeting in Canada mirrored last month’s Japan-US statement in condemning “coercion” toward Taiwan. Compared with a G7 foreign ministers’ statement in November last year, the statement added members’ concerns over China’s nuclear buildup, although it omitted references to their concerns about Beijing’s human rights abuses in Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong. Also missing were references stressing the desire for “constructive and stable relations with China” and
Foreign ministers of leading Western democracies sought to show a united front in Canada yesterday after seven weeks of rising tensions between US allies and US President Donald Trump over his upending of foreign policy on Ukraine and imposing of tariffs. The G7 ministers from the UK, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the US, along with the EU, convened in the remote tourist town of La Malbaie, nestled in the Quebec hills, for two days of meetings that in the past have broadly been consensual on the issues they face. Top of the agenda for Washington’s partners would be getting a
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