■ GERMANY
Consumer confidence slips
Consumer confidence has fallen further as climbing energy prices eat away at household purchasing power, a study by the GfK research institute showed yesterday. The latest barometer of consumer sentiment in Europe’s biggest economy slipped to 3.9 points from a revised figure of 4.7 points in its previous reading. A year ago, the confidence index stood at 7.4 points. GfK said it had revised down its consumption growth outlook to 0.5 percent from 1.0 percent previously given expectations that inflation would remain around 3.0 percent in the coming months.
■ ENTERTAINMENT
DreamWorks mulls venture
India’s Reliance Entertainment and other investors are negotiating with Hollywood’s DreamWorks SKG to form a new movie venture worth as much as US$2 billion, two people familiar with the talks said. They said that Dreamworks, the movie studio founded in 1994 by Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg, was looking to raise a total of US$2 billion from investors — US$1 billion in equity and another US$1 billion for new movie projects. One of the individuals said Reliance would likely invest more than US$500 million to US$600 million in equity.
■ ENTERTAINMENT
Fandango buys Movies.com
Movie ticketing and entertainment site Fandango Inc said on Monday it had acquired Movies.com from Walt Disney Co for an undisclosed amount. Los Angeles-based Fandango, which is owned by Comcast Corp, sells tickets for 1,300 theaters in the US. It said it would now handle the movie ticketing functions for Movies.com, which is mainly an entertainment Web site. Movies.com, which previously partnered with MovieTickets.com for ticketing, was owned by the Walt Disney Internet Group. Philadelphia-based cable TV system owner Comcast said the purchase price was minimal. Fandango said it had 6.3 million monthly unique visitors to its Web site last month, compared with 1.9 million for Movies.com. Both sites were launched in 2000.
■ CONGLOMERATES
Ex-Samsung director guilty
A former director at Samsung America Inc has pleaded guilty to embezzling US$1 million to US$2.5 million from his employer. John Lee admitted on Monday that the scheme ran from 2002 through last year. He had been director of the export department at the Ridgefield Park offices of the South Korean conglomerate Samsung Corp. Lee says he created a fake entity with a similar name of an actual company and had Samsung send money to an account he created after submitting bogus invoices. The 44-year-old pleaded guilty to a wire fraud charge and an income tax charge.
■ ECONOMY
Surgery, vacations slow
South Koreans are cutting down on cosmetic surgery and vacations amid the economic slowdown, reports said yesterday. “We saw a 30 percent drop in double eyelid operations and rhinoplasty from last year and more than a 40 percent decline in facial contouring surgery,” Kim Beyong-geon, a surgeon in southern Seoul, told the Dong-A Ilbo newspaper. A joint survey by JoongAng Ilbo newspaper and recruitment firm Job Korea yesterday also showed that about 61 percent of those polled had changed summer vacation plans. Of these, about 30 percent said they would use public transport rather than private cars, about 15 percent said they would cut the length of their break and about 9 percent had scrapped overseas travel.
THREATS: Naval facilities have been built in Shanghai and Zhejiang, while airbases have been expanded in Xiamen, Fuzhou and Zhangpu, across the Strait from Taiwan The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is building large-scale military infrastructure at five sites along the eastern coast of China, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said in a recent report. The latest issue of the council’s Mainland China Situation Quarterly said satellite photos showed military infrastructure such as air force and naval bases being constructed along the eastern coast of China. That means the CCP might be preparing for potential conflict in Taiwan, it said, adding that there are five such construction sites from north to south. A naval base has been built in Shanghai’s Pudong New Area, with underground oil storage tanks, railway
MILESTONE: The foreign minister called the signing ‘a major step forward in US-Taiwan relations,’ while the Presidential Office said it was a symbol of the nations’ shared values US President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed into law the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, which requires the US Department of State to regularly review and update guidelines governing official US interactions with Taiwan. The new law is an amendment to the Taiwan Assurance Act of 2020 focused on reviewing guidelines on US interactions with Taiwan. Previously, the state department was required to conduct a one-time review of its guidance governing relations with Taiwan, but under the new bill, the agency must conduct a review “not less than every five years.” It must then submit an updated report based on its findings “not later
A trial run of the north concourse of Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport’s new Terminal 3 is to commence today, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said yesterday. The eight additional boarding gates would allow for more aircraft parking spaces that are expected to boost the airport’s capacity by 5.8 million passengers annually, Deputy Minister of Transportation and Communications Lin Kuo-shian (林國顯) said. The concourse, designed by a team led by British architect Richard Rogers, provides a refreshing space, Lin said, adding that travelers would enjoy the tall and transparent design that allows sunshine to stream into the concourse through glass curtain walls. The
The Presidential Office today thanked the US for enacting the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, which requires the US Department of State to regularly review and update guidelines governing official US interactions with Taiwan. The new law, signed by US President Donald Trump yesterday, is an amendment to the Taiwan Assurance Act of 2020 focused on reviewing guidelines on US interactions with Taiwan. Previously, the department was required to conduct a one-time review of its guidance governing relations with Taiwan, but under the new bill, the agency must conduct such a review "not less than every five years." It must then submit an updated
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