■ Fraud
Fugitive bexecutive indicted
The former chairman of collapsed South Korean conglomerate Daewoo Group was indicted yesterday on fraud charges amounting to US$71 billion after living nearly six years abroad on the run. Kim Woo-choong, who returned to South Korea last month after fleeing the country in 1999, is accused of having falsified Daewoo's accounts to draw billions of dollars in illegal bank loans before diverting them overseas. Kim was indicted on charges of 40 trillion won (US$39 billion) in accounting fraud, obtaining 9.8 trillion won in illegal financing and diverting 23 trillion won out of the country, the Supreme Public Prosecutors's Office said in a statement.
■ Internet
Buffett lunch sold on EBay
A lunch for eight with billionaire investor Warren Buffett sold for US$351,100 in bidding on EBay Inc's Web site that benefited a San Francisco charity serving the homeless. A bidder going by the EBay screen name hanka3153 won the week-long auction that attracted 105 bids. Buffett, who is chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc and ranks as the world's second-richest person, has hosted the lunch for as many as eight people since 2000. The auction concluded at 10pm New York time and set a record price, topping the US$250,100 paid by Greenlight Capital LLC founder David Einhorn in 2003. The proceeds benefit San Francisco-based Glide Memorial Church's work to help the homeless. The winner will share a meal with Buffett in New York or Omaha, Nebraska, where Berkshire Hathaway is based.
■ Mobile Phones
Samsung, Motorola ink pact
Samsung Electronics Co and Motorola Inc, two of the world's top three makers of mobile phones, signed a preliminary agreement to share each other's technology for wireless communication. Suwon, South Korea-based Samsung and US-based Motorola signed the agreement yesterday, Samsung said in a regulatory filing after the market's 3pm close in Seoul. Samsung spokeswoman Cho Sung In declined to comment further on the statement, which didn't provide financial or technical details because of a confidentiality pact. Motorola, the second-largest handset maker, and No. 3 Samsung may be partnering in handsets based on more advanced technologies than those on sale now to help them gain ground on industry leader Nokia Oyj, said Michael Min, a Seoul-based analyst at Korea Investment & Securities Co.
■ Manufacturing
Japan's outlook improves
Japanese manufacturers' economic sentiment about the world's second-largest economy has improved, the Japanese central bank said yesterday in its April-June Tankan survey, which strongly influences the bank's monetary policy. The latest quarterly survey by the Bank of Japan showed the diffusion index of business sentiment among big manufacturers stood at positive 18 in the June survey. The figure was 14 in the March survey. A positive number means optimists outnumber pessimists. It hit a 13-year-high of 26 in September last year. The index of major non-manufacturers was also up to positive 15 from the March survey at positive 11. The central bank's index gauges the percentage of companies reporting a pickup in business conditions, minus the percentage of companies reporting otherwise.
A subsidiary of a Hong Kong-based company that has lost control of two critical ports on the Panama Canal said it is seeking US$2 billion of compensation in damages from Panama over its “illegal” takeover of the ports. Panama Ports Co, a unit of Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison Holdings (長江和記實業), on Friday said in a statement that it is demanding the sum under international arbitration proceedings that it had already started. The Panamanian government last week seized control of the Balboa and Cristobal ports on each end of the Panama Canal, after the country’s Supreme Court declared earlier that a concession allowing
DETERRENCE: With 1,000 indigenous Hsiung Feng II and III missiles and 400 Harpoon missiles, the nation would boast the highest anti-ship missile density in the world With Taiwan wrapping up mass production of Hsiung Feng II and III missiles by December and an influx of Harpoon missiles from the US, Taiwan would have the highest density of anti-ship missiles in the world, a source said yesterday. Taiwan is to wrap up mass production of the indigenous anti-ship missiles by the end of year, as the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology has been meeting production targets ahead of schedule, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said. Combined with the 400 Harpoon anti-ship missiles Taiwan expects to receive from the US by 2028, the nation would have
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
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