■ Tourism
Fewer visitors to Indonesia
Tourist arrivals to Indonesia during the first 11 months of last year were down 8.79 percent compared with the same period in 2004, government officials said yesterday. During those 11 months 3.76 million foreign tourists visited Indonesia, compared with 4.12 million the same period in 2004, said Choiril Maksum, head of the National Statistics Agency (BPS). Indonesia will miss its tourist arrivals target of 6 million this year, largely because of the second suicide bombings on the resort island of Bali on Oct. 1, which left at least 23 people dead, other officials said. In the wake of the blasts, several Western embassies in Jakarta, including the Australian, British, Canadian and US missions, issued travel warnings concerning Indonesia.
■ Retail
Wal-Mart sales at low end
Wal-Mart Stores Inc, which made a big push this holiday season to woo customers with aggressive discounts and marketing, estimated that sales for last month will meet only the low end of its forecast. The world's largest retailer said on Saturday that sales at stores open for at least a year, known as same-store sales, are expected to be up 2.2 percent last month. The forecast was for a 2 percent to 4 percent gain. Same-store sales are considered the best indicator of a retailers' health. The company said that general merchandise sales outpaced demand for food. Wal-Mart, which stumbled during the holiday 2004 shopping season, came out with a holiday campaign two weeks earlier than last year.
■ Auto industry
S Korean firms do well
South Korean auto manufacturers enjoyed brisk sales last year thanks to strong demand at home and abroad, data showed yesterday. Hyundai Motor, the country's largest automaker, said it sold 2.53 million vehicles last year, up 11 percent from a year earlier. Sister firm Kia Motors said its total sales increased 13.9 percent year-on-year to 1.27 million. GM Daewoo Auto and Technology, the third-largest automaker in South Korea, said its sales gained 28.6 percent year-on-year to number 1.15 million units last year. Its sales first topped the 1 million unit mark after General Motors took over Daewoo Motor to launch the merged firm in 2002. Ssangyong Motor, South Korea's fourth-largest carmaker purchased last year by China's Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp (上海汽車工業), said its sales for last year totaled 141,306 units, up 4.2 percent from a year earlier.
■ Corruption
China sets up Web blacklist
China's prosecutors have set up an online blacklist of people convicted of bribing officials, in the country's latest attempt to fight rampant corruption, state media said yesterday. The list includes individuals and organizations convicted of bribery or bribery-related crimes since 1997 in the sectors of construction, finance, education, health and government procurement, the Beijing News said. The paper quoted China's top prosecution office, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, as saying the public can search for information on the list but only after applying in writing to the prosecutors' offices. Officials in China are notorious for using their time in their posts to rake in as much money as possible, as they earn low salaries.
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
DEFENDING DEMOCRACY: Taiwan shares the same values as those that fought in WWII, and nations must unite to halt the expansion of a new authoritarian bloc, Lai said The government yesterday held a commemoration ceremony for Victory in Europe (V-E) Day, joining the rest of the world for the first time to mark the anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. Taiwan honoring V-E Day signifies “our growing connections with the international community,” President William Lai (賴清德) said at a reception in Taipei on the 80th anniversary of V-E Day. One of the major lessons of World War II is that “authoritarianism and aggression lead only to slaughter, tragedy and greater inequality,” Lai said. Even more importantly, the war also taught people that “those who cherish peace cannot
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
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