■ Banking
UFJ bankers sentenced
Three former executives of a major Japanese bank received suspended sentences yesterday in a scandal centered around hiding information about mounting bad debts from government inspectors. Former UFJ Bank Vice President Kazuyoshi Okazaki was sentenced to 10 months in prison, suspended for three years, and two other former executives, Sen Hayakawa and Masayuki Inaba, were each sentenced to eight months, suspended for three years, by the Tokyo District Court, a court official said on customary condition of anonymity. UFJ Bank also was ordered to pay ?90 million (US$854,000) as a penalty, the court said. Authorities say the executives lied, hid documents about corporate borrowers and transferred thousands of electronic files between August and October 2003 to try to obstruct an inspection by financial regulators into the bank's debts.
■ Economy
Arroyo urges higher taxes
President Gloria Arroyo told the Philippines on Thursday to "bite the bullet" of higher electricity tariffs and potentially higher taxes saying they were preferable to the "nightmare" of an economic meltdown. Regulators on Friday authorized the debt-stricken state utility National Power Corp (Napocor) to raise its basic rates by an average 5.56 centavos per kilowatt-hour, on top of a 98-centavo raise granted in September. The utility said the rate increase of 1.04 pesos (US$0.19), which was still less than the 1.87-pesos adjustment it sought, would reflect on monthly billings from the middle of this year. "We have to bite the bullet to gain a better economic footing through the VAT bill and the Napocor rate hike," Arroyo spokesman Ignacio Bunye said in a statement. "Our worst nightmare would come from failure to act to protect the public interest in the long run. If we lose market confidence, we will lose the strength to [attract] investment which will create the jobs and livelihood opportunities."
■ Internet
Google changes ads
Hoping to boost its already rapidly rising profits, online search engine leader Google Inc is offering to place ads on specific Web sites instead of distributing them throughout its marketing network. The Mountain View, California-based company is hoping the approach, announced yesterday on a test basis, appeals to advertisers who are particular about where their brand appears or are aiming for a certain demographic. Google makes most of its money by placing text-based advertising links on its own home page and thousands of other Web sites in its marketing network. Last year, Google also started distributing banner ads to other sites. Until now, the participating advertisers had no control over where their commercial links or banner ads appeared.
■ Internet
Carrier gives up `WiBro'
South Korea's second-largest Internet broadband carrier, Hanarotelecom, said yesterday it would give up its license for new wireless Internet services. Hanarote-lecom, SK Telecom and KT Corp were allowed to provide services of the new technology, dubbed "WiBro," from next year that would allow broadband Internet access through mobile phones and other portable devices. However, Hanarotelecom, now controlled by US investors, said its board agreed to give up the WiBro service and focus instead on its broadband Internet business.
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
WHAT WAS ALL THAT FOR? Jaw Shaw-kong said that Cheng Li-wen had pushed for more drastic cuts and attacked him, just for the outcome to be nearly identical to his bill The legislature yesterday passed a supplementary budget bill to fund the purchase of separate packages of US military equipment, with the combined amount of spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.8 billion). The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their legislative majority to pass the bill, which runs until 2033 and has two main funding provisions. One was for NT$300 billion of arms sales already approved by the US for Taiwan on Dec. 17 last year, the other was for NT$480 billion for another arms package expected to be announced by Washington. The bill, which fell short of the NT$1.25
‘CLEAR MESSAGE’: The bill would set up an interagency ‘tiger team’ to review sanctions tools and other economic options to help deter any Chinese aggression toward Taiwan US Representative Young Kim has introduced a bill to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan, calling for an interagency “tiger team” to preplan coordinated sanctions and economic measures in response to possible Chinese military or political action against Taiwan. “[Chinese President] Xi Jinping [習近平] has directed the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. China has a plan. America should have one too,” Kim said in a news release on Thursday last week. She introduced the “Deter PRC [People’s Republic of China] aggression against Taiwan act” to “ensure the US has a coordinated sanctions strategy ready should
A former television news host and six military personnel — active and retired — have been indicted on espionage charges, Kaohsiung prosecutors said yesterday. Lin Chen-you (林宸佑), a former CTi News host and YouTuber, last year allegedly made videos at the direction of a Chinese agent criticizing the Democratic Progressive Party’s recall campaign, the Ciaotou District Prosecutors’ Office told a news conference in Kaohsiung. He allegedly received 4,325 tether coins for the videos from an unidentified person surnamed Huang (黃), believed to be an agent of a hostile foreign power, they said. Lin, also known as Ma Te (馬德), has a show named
RSS