■ Corporate taxes
Singapore to cut taxes
Singapore will lower its existing corporate tax rate of 20 percent by at at least one percentage point to stay competitive, former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew (李光耀) said in remarks published yesterday. "You know this is a tough and competitive world. People don't come because they like Singapore," Lee, the influential minister mentor in his son Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's (李顯龍) Cabinet, was quoted as saying by the Sunday Times. "They come because the returns are better," he said. In reference to Hong Kong, where companies are taxed at just 17.5 percent, one of the lowest in the world, Lee said Singapore had to lower its corporate tax rate or lose out to the former British colony in attracting investors. Details will be announced on Feb. 15.
■ Health products
TV show a false advertiser
Japanese newspapers vented their anger yesterday after a popular local television program made false claims about the weight loss benefits of fermented soybean. The program, aired earlier this month, claimed that eight people who ate the substance -- called natto in Japan -- for two weeks at breakfast and dinner lost as much as 3.4kg. The program, Encyclopedic Discovery, triggered a buying frenzy, emptying shelves of the product. But the show's producers reluctantly admitted the weight loss claims were fabrications and apologized on Saturday.
■ Fishing
Tuna tracking in the works
International fisheries officials are expected to push for a global tracking system that would certify the origin of every tuna headed to market at an unprecedented conference that convenes today to reverse a sharp decline in tuna catches. The conference brings together the world's regional tuna management groups and runs through Friday in Kobe, Japan. Attendees, representing commercial fishing and government regulators, will seek the creation of a framework to produce certificates of origin for all species of tuna they catch, Kyodo News reported yesterday.
■ Toys
Crocodile Hunter doll
A talking "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin action figure with his recorded voice will go on sale across the US next month. The toys will also be sold in Canada, the UK, France and Germany. The 39-piece Steve Irwin Wildlife Adventure Series will launch next month at the 2007 International Toy Fair in New York, toy maker K&M International said. Irwin recorded the voice for the toy before his death last year. The doll says phrases like "Do you see that? It's a giant golden orb spider and she's built her web right across our path! It's super sticky for catching small birds and bats. Let's not disturb it."
■ Insurance
Chinese market booms
China's insurance market expanded 14.4 percent to US$73 billion last year as demand for insurance coverage rises. Insurance companies' total assets rose by 29 percent, according to documents issued at the China Insurance Regulatory Commission's annual conference yesterday in Beijing. The premiums on property and casualty cases jumped 22.6 percent to 150.9 billion yuan, while life premiums rose 10.7 percent to 359.3 billion yuan, the regulator's Chairman Wu Dingfu (吳定富) said. Efforts to dismantle the welfare system are spurring sales.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
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