■ Internet
Livedoor delist coming soon
The Tokyo Stock Exchange is expected to delist shares in scandal-hit IT firm Livedoor as early as Monday because of a fresh criminal complaint against its former president, reports said yesterday. Livedoor founder Takafumi Horie will face a new fraud allegation to be filed with prosecutors by the Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission, Jiji Press and other media reported. The commission's complaint alleges that Horie and his associates falsified Livedoor's financial report for the year to September 2004 to add ?5.34 billion (US$45.1 million) to the group's results, Kyodo News said, citing unnamed regulatory sources.
■ US Economy
Trade deficit hits record
The US trade deficit grew to a record US$68.5 billion in January, pumped up by rising oil prices and Americans' appetite for imported goods, especially from China, government data showed on Thursday. The latest increase, which came despite a rise in US exports, was fuelled by a strong market that is giving Americans money to spend. The values of imports and exports were the highest on record, the Bloomberg financial news agency reported. US imports rose 3.5 percent in January to US$182.9 billion, lifted by record shipments of consumer goods, autos, business equipment, and industrial supplies such as petroleum. Exports increased 2.5 percent to US$114.4 billion as US companies sold record amounts of industrial supplies, vehicles and capital goods, including aircraft, abroad, Bloomberg said.
■ Piracy
China creates piracy court
China has created a special court to prosecute product piracy cases, a government spokesman said yesterday, amid demands for Beijing to step up action against rampant illegal copying of movies, music, software and other goods. The supreme court has named a Judicial Court of Intellectual Property to handle such cases nationwide, court spokesman Sun Huapu said at a news conference held during the annual meeting of China's parliament. Last year China's courts convicted 741 people in 505 criminal product piracy cases, Sun said. Courts handled 16,453 civil cases of intellectual property rights violations last year, up more than 20 percent from the previous year, he added. US officials say Chinese copying of goods such as software, golf clubs, Hollywood movies and heart medications costs legitimate producers worldwide up to US$50 billion a year in lost potential sales.
■ Health
Chinese ads blasted
China should ban all medical advertising to protect public health, members of parliament were quoted by state media as saying yesterday, accusing most ads of "cheating and misleading" consumers. Advertisements promising cures for everything from hemor-rhoids to balding are plastered all over Chinese cities, on the sides of buses, inside taxis, in newspapers and even crudely glued to lamp posts. "Nowadays medical advertisements about hospitals and medicines are flooding the Chinese media, and some of them are full of appalling lies," Xinhua news agency quoted Kang Jiaoyang, member of a parliamentary advisory body, as saying. Some ads promised "miraculous cures" for cancer and AIDS, added Wu Liying, a delegate from the northeastern province of Liaoning.
FIVE-YEAR WINDOW? A defense institute CEO said a timeline for a potential Chinese invasion was based on expected ‘tough measures’ when Xi Jinping seeks a new term Most Taiwanese are willing to defend the nation against a Chinese attack, but the majority believe Beijing is unlikely to invade within the next five years, a poll showed yesterday. The poll carried out last month was commissioned by the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, a Taipei-based think tank, and released ahead of Double Ten National Day today, when President William Lai (賴清德) is to deliver a speech. China maintains a near-daily military presence around Taiwan and has held three rounds of war games in the past two years. CIA Director William Burns last year said that Chinese President Xi Jinping
President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday said that China has “no right to represent Taiwan,” but stressed that the nation was willing to work with Beijing on issues of mutual interest. “The Republic of China has already put down roots in Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu,” Lai said in his first Double Ten National Day address outside the Presidential Office Building in Taipei. “And the Republic of China and the People’s Republic of China [PRC] are not subordinate to each other.” “The People’s Republic of China has no right to represent Taiwan,” he said at the event marking the 113th National Day of
SPEECH IMPEDIMENT? The state department said that using routine celebrations or public remarks as a pretext for provocation would undermine peace and stability Beijing’s expected use of President William Lai’s (賴清德) Double Ten National Day speech today as a pretext for provocative measures would undermine peace and stability, the US Department of State said on Tuesday. Taiwanese officials have said that China is likely to launch military drills near Taiwan in response to Lai’s speech as a pretext to pressure the nation to accept its sovereignty claims. A state department spokesperson said it could not speculate on what China would or would not do. “However, it is worth emphasizing that using routine annual celebrations or public remarks as a pretext or excuse for provocative or coercive
CONCERNS: Allowing the government, political parties or the military to own up to 10 percent of a large media firm is a risk Taiwan cannot afford to take, a lawyer said A Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator has proposed amendments to allow the government, political parties and the military to indirectly invest in broadcast media, prompting concerns of potential political interference. Under Article 1 of the Satellite Broadcasting Act (衛星廣播電視法), the government and political parties — as well as foundations established with their endowments, and those commissioned by them — cannot directly or indirectly invest in satellite broadcasting businesses. A similar regulation is in the Cable Radio and Television Act (有線廣播電視法). “The purpose of banning the government, political parties and the military from investing in the media is to prevent them from interfering
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