■ Computers
Connors departs Microsoft
Microsoft Corp chief finan-cial officer John Connors is leaving to join venture capi-tal firm Ignition Partners LLC. Microsoft has yet to name a replacement, the company said in a statement on Tuesday. Connors, a 16-year Microsoft veteran and finance chief for five years, orchestrated last year's US$75 billion payment to shareholders through a one-time payment, stock buy-backs and a higher divi-dend. On his watch, annual sales almost doubled to US$36.8 billion in the year ended in June and cash and short-term investments surged to US$64.4 billion.
■ Finances
HK floats sales tax idea
Hong Kong's government plans to propose a new sales tax in the next few months as a way to raise revenues to help plug its budget deficit, the Hong Kong Economic Journal newspaper reported yes-terday. Financial Secretary Henry Tang (唐英年) will reveal details of the new tax in his March budget and the government will begin consulting the public in April or May, the paper said. Last fiscal year, the territory recorded a budget deficit of HK$40.1 billion (US$5.2 billion). Activists and small businesses have already voiced opposition to a new sales tax, which they said would mostly affect the poor and drive up costs.
■ IPR
Web-site operators cleared
A South Korean appeals court yesterday acquitted the operators of a Korean-language Web site that allows users to share songs free of charge. Yang Jung-hwan, 31, and his bother, Il-hwan, 35, created Soribada, South Korea's most popular music-swapping Web site, in 2000. Prosecutors indicted them in 2001 on charges of aiding and condoning copy-right violations, a crime punishable by up to five years in jail. An appeals panel at the Seoul Central District Court said those who download songs through Web sites such as Soribada violate copy rights but the Yangs should not be held responsible for copy right infringements that took place on Soribada.
■ Accounting
Chinese audit finds errors
An official audit of 181 Chinese state-owned enter-prises (SOEs) found that 120 submitted incomplete financial information, while 13 falsified records outright, state press reported yester-day. "The key trouble-makers are financial intermediaries," Xinhua news quoted Meng Jianmin, an official with the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Com-mission, as saying. "The 181 SOEs have hired more than 300 such institutions to operate their financial busi-nesses and a great propor-tion of these intermediaries are actually not [meeting] their duties," Meng said at a recent accountancy asso-ciation meeting. "Some are even helping the SOEs to conceal facts."
■ Entertainment
Disney eyes video games
Walt Disney Co said it's considering an expansion in the video-game business. "A growth business we need to look at is video games," Dis-ney president Robert Iger said on Tuesday at a confer-ence in Phoenix. Disney is developing games that carry Disney, ESPN and non-Disney brands for current game consoles. It's also targeting portable handheld devices and online games, he said. "I'm not suggesting a major acquisition of a publisher is imminent," Iger said. "But we're looking at a variety of opportunities, primarily at the developer level."
LONG FLIGHT: The jets would be flown by US pilots, with Taiwanese copilots in the two-seat F-16D variant to help familiarize them with the aircraft, the source said The US is expected to fly 10 Lockheed Martin F-16C/D Block 70/72 jets to Taiwan over the coming months to fulfill a long-awaited order of 66 aircraft, a defense official said yesterday. Word that the first batch of the jets would be delivered soon was welcome news to Taiwan, which has become concerned about delays in the delivery of US arms amid rising military tensions with China. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said the initial tranche of the nation’s F-16s are rolling off assembly lines in the US and would be flown under their own power to Taiwan by way
CHIP WAR: The new restrictions are expected to cut off China’s access to Taiwan’s technologies, materials and equipment essential to building AI semiconductors Taiwan has blacklisted Huawei Technologies Co (華為) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯), dealing another major blow to the two companies spearheading China’s efforts to develop cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) chip technologies. The Ministry of Economic Affairs’ International Trade Administration has included Huawei, SMIC and several of their subsidiaries in an update of its so-called strategic high-tech commodities entity list, the latest version on its Web site showed on Saturday. It did not publicly announce the change. Other entities on the list include organizations such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda, as well as companies in China, Iran and elsewhere. Local companies need
CRITICISM: It is generally accepted that the Straits Forum is a CCP ‘united front’ platform, and anyone attending should maintain Taiwan’s dignity, the council said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it deeply regrets that former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) echoed the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “one China” principle and “united front” tactics by telling the Straits Forum that Taiwanese yearn for both sides of the Taiwan Strait to move toward “peace” and “integration.” The 17th annual Straits Forum yesterday opened in Xiamen, China, and while the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) local government heads were absent for the first time in 17 years, Ma attended the forum as “former KMT chairperson” and met with Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Chairman Wang Huning (王滬寧). Wang
CROSS-STRAIT: The MAC said it barred the Chinese officials from attending an event, because they failed to provide guarantees that Taiwan would be treated with respect The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Friday night defended its decision to bar Chinese officials and tourism representatives from attending a tourism event in Taipei next month, citing the unsafe conditions for Taiwanese in China. The Taipei International Summer Travel Expo, organized by the Taiwan Tourism Exchange Association, is to run from July 18 to 21. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian (朱鳳蓮) on Friday said that representatives from China’s travel industry were excluded from the expo. The Democratic Progressive Party government is obstructing cross-strait tourism exchange in a vain attempt to ignore the mainstream support for peaceful development
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