■ Electronics
Berlin fair exhibitors rise
The worldwide boom in flat-screen televisions, DVD recorders and MP3 players has helped to boost the number of exhibitors at the world's biggest consumer electronics trade fair (IFA) to be held in Berlin next month. Organizers said yesterday they are expecting a 15 percent jump in exhibitors to 1,500 at the fair, which opens its doors on Sept. 2. About 37 countries are expected to be represented at the fair. In particular, this year's fair is to emphasize the convergence between different electronic media as the digital age takes hold.
■ Chemicals
Ex-Bayer staff charged
A US jury on Wednesday indicted two former executives of Bayer AG, the German chemicals producer, over an international conspiracy to fix the price of rubber chemicals, officials said. The US Justice Department said charges of conspiring with other firms and individuals "to suppress competition" and fix prices in the US and other countries were filed against Germans Jurgen Ick and Gunter Monn in the US District Court in San Francisco. Bayer and other companies have already paid US$200 million in fines for price fixing and some executives face jail terms. Ick was former head of Bayer's Rubber Business Group. Monn, who was head of marketing for the company, was said to have joined the plot from 1997.
■ Tourism
Macau woos thrill-seekers
Visitors are being offered the chance to jump 233m to the ground from the top of the Macau Tower, tourism officials in the southern Chinese enclave announced yesterday. The "Sky Jump," which opens on Wednesday, will give visitors the chance to fly through the air at 75km an hour for 20 seconds before decelerating to a safe landing speed. A spokesman for the Macau government's tourism department said yesterday that the attraction would be the highest adventure of its kind and would attract thrill-seekers from across the region. The jump will be 41m higher than the only other Sky Jump in the world, which is at the Sky Tower in Auckland, New Zealand, where the world's highest bungy jump record was created. Macau government officials are this week holding a week-long Macau Week in Las Vegas to try to attract more North American visitors to the territory.
■ Airlines
Thai suspends president
The president of Thai Airways International has been suspended for three months amid warnings that the national carrier was suffering the worst financial crisis in its history, officials said yesterday. The airline's board suspended Kanok Abhiradee late on Wednesday, and named former permanent secretary of the finance ministry Somchainuk Engtrakul as interim president to overhaul the company. Somchainuk told reporters that he would take full control of all important decision making, while Kanok would keep the title as president and focus on marketing for the three-month period. Somchainuk warned that the airline had registered huge losses in its third quarter, which ended June 30, due largely to steep world oil prices, after posting 10.4 billion baht (US$250.6 million) in profit in the two previous quarters. Kanok vowed not to quit, and said Somchainuk's leadership would help revive the airline's fortunes.
NATIONAL SECURITY: The Chinese influencer shared multiple videos on social media in which she claimed Taiwan is a part of China and supported its annexation Freedom of speech does not allow comments by Chinese residents in Taiwan that compromise national security or social stability, the nation’s top officials said yesterday, after the National Immigration Agency (NIA) revoked the residency permit of a Chinese influencer who published videos advocating China annexing Taiwan by force. Taiwan welcomes all foreigners to settle here and make families so long as they “love the land and people of Taiwan,” Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) told lawmakers during a plenary session at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei. The public power of the government must be asserted when necessary and the Ministry of
Proposed amendments would forbid the use of all personal electronic devices during school hours in high schools and below, starting from the next school year in August, the Ministry of Education said on Monday. The Regulations on the Use of Mobile Devices at Educational Facilities up to High Schools (高級中等以下學校校園行動載具使用原則) state that mobile devices — defined as mobile phones, laptops, tablets, smartwatches or other wearables — should be turned off at school. The changes would stipulate that use of such devices during class is forbidden, and the devices should be handed to a teacher or the school for safekeeping. The amendments also say
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
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