■ Airlines
Pilot contract talks fail
Two of the US' largest airlines, Delta and Northwest, failed to reach new contract terms with their pilots on Wednesday after marathon negotiations. Without a deal, Northwest's pilots waited for a judge to rule on whether that carrier could throw out their union contract and impose its own terms. In Delta's case, arbitrators will decide that issue after a hearing set to begin March 13. Northwest Airlines Corp did reach a tentative agreement with flight attendants on Wednesday, the day a New York bankruptcy court had set as a deadline.
■ Monetary policy
Japan mulls `reference rate'
The Bank of Japan is considering setting a "reference rate" on inflation to guide markets on its monetary policy intentions, reports said yesterday. The central bank has been wary of introducing a formal inflation target but is mulling a softer goal to improve transparency after it returns to a conventional interest rate policy, Jiji Press and other media reported. The reference rate would be the rate of consumer price inflation deemed desirable to help achieve sustainable economic growth, Jiji quoted anonymous sources as saying.
■ Electronics
Samsung bullish on LCD TVs
Samsung Electronics Co, the world's biggest maker of liquid-crystal displays (LCDs), said it expects to increase its share in Asia's LCD television market. "We have seen explosive growth in the demand for LCD TVs in the region," led by Singapore and Australia, Park Sang-jin, president of Samsung's Southeast Asian business, which includes Australia, said in a statement before a media lunch in Singapore. "I envision that every home in Asia will own a Samsung flat panel," Park said, without giving numbers or a timeframe. Samsung projects that Southeast Asia's LCD TV market sales will rise to US$2.4 billion by 2008, according to the statement.
■ Software
Oracle offers search product
Oracle Corp, the world's third-biggest software maker, began selling software that allows users to search only personal data on their work computers such as e-mail, word documents and calendar appointments. Chief executive Larry Ellison said the company's new search program "is one of the biggest products in years," and may help draw users away from Google Inc, which also offers software for searching content on computers and operates the world's most-used Internet search site. "Google's always had a good search, but it was the security side that they're not good at," Ellison told reporters after speaking at the annual Oracle OpenWorld Tokyo 2006 conference in Japan.
■ Technology
Hitachi develops elevator
Japan's Hitachi says it has developed a new elevator system in which six to eight cars can circulate on a single loop, sharing the space conventionally used by two. In the new system, each car moves sideways after reaching the top floor and then descends on the loop before shifting sideways again at the bottom to move up, Hitachi said in a statement. "The new system can save space and reduce passenger waiting time by transporting more than double the number of people compared to a conventional elevator system," it said on Wednesday.
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
Taiwanese shares yesterday posted a record daily gain of more than 1,700 points to close above 40,000 points for the first time, led by large-cap semiconductor stocks such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and MediaTek Inc (聯發科) amid optimism about the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. The TAIEX ended up 1,778.51 points, or 4.57 percent, at 40,705.14 after moving between 39,228.39 and 40,755.52, while the New Taiwan dollar closed up NT$0.038 at NT$31.610 per US dollar, ending three consecutive sessions of declines. Turnover on the main board totaled NT$1.007 trillion (US$31.9 billion), with foreign institutional investors buying a net NT$66.98 billion
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
NON-INTERFERENCE: The US called Taiwan a trusted and capable partner, while an African Union leader urged nations to reflect on respect for sovereign choices Taiwan is a “trusted and capable” partner of the US and Taipei’s global relationships, including with Eswatini, provide significant benefits, the US Department of State said of President William Lai’s (賴清德) trip to the southern African kingdom. Lai arrived in the former Swaziland on Saturday on a surprise visit after a planned trip last month was canceled when Seychelles, Mauritius and Madagascar denied overflight permission for his aircraft due to Chinese pressure. “Taiwan is a trusted and capable partner of the United States and many others, and its relationships around the world provide significant benefits to the citizens of those countries,
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