■ ENERGY
Brazil, Peru sign accords
Brazil and Peru have agreed to work together to boost production of biofuels, hydroelectric power and petrochemicals as two of the region’s biggest countries seek to ensure future energy supply. A statement from Peru’s presidency says the neighbors will support biofuels and hydropower. Brazil is the world’s largest ethanol exporter. Companies including US-owned Maple Energy already plan to produce ethanol from sugarcane grown and distilled on Peru’s Pacific coast.
■ ENERGY
Sharp joins solar deal
Japanese electronics maker Sharp Corp has agreed with Enel SpA to jointly set up solar power plants in Italy, a newspaper said yesterday. Sharp, one of the world’s largest makers of solar power panels, and the second largest power company in Europe plan to begin operation by 2011, the Nikkei Shimbun business daily said. The solar power plants will have a combined output capacity of more than 160 megawatts, which will be one of the world’s largest solar power operations, the newspaper said. The two firms are also considering building a plant in Italy to produce thin-film solar cell panels. The tie-up with Enel is Sharp’s first step to a further expansion in its solar power operation overseas. By building overseas plants, Sharp aims to raise its annual production capacity for solar cell panels to 6,000 megawatts from the current 710 megawatts. Sharp is stepping up efforts to boost its clean energy business by gaining a foothold in Europe, where the governments provide subsidies to buy solar power at high prices, Nikkei reported.
■ ENERGY
Ecuador hopes for buy out
Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa says Quito wants to buy out private oil companies unwilling to negotiate new deals with his government. Correa has asked companies now suing over an October decree that slashed their share of windfall oil profits to 1 percent to drop their lawsuits. The government on Friday offered to boost those companies’ share of soaring windfall profits to 30 percent. If companies aren’t happy with that offer, Correa says his government will buy their assets at “a fair price.”
■ MALAYSIA
Mahathir warns Johor
Wealthy Singaporean investors may force ethnic Malays from a Malaysian state that is being touted as a key economic zone, former premier Mahathir Mohamad has said. The government launched an ambitious project in 2006 to transform the idyllic southern Johor State into a metropolis to woo foreign investment and compete with Singapore for manufacturing and logistics businesses. Mahathir said the 17.7 billion ringgit (US$4.8 billion) Iskandar Malaysia project was aimed at luring Singaporean investors and could see Malays forced out. “After the land is sold, the Malays will be driven to live at the edge of the forest and even in the forest itself,” Mahathir said in a weekend speech in Johor, the Star newspaper reported.
■ BANKING
Doha Bank receives bids
Doha Bank Ltd, Qatar’s fifth-biggest lender by market value, said it received bids for five times the stock it offered investors in a share sale to raise money for expansion. Shareholders placed bids worth 5.55 billion riyals (US$1.53 billion) for the 22.5 million shares offered to raise 1.12 billion riyals, Doha Bank said in a filing to Qatar’s stock market yesterday.
EXPRESSING GRATITUDE: Without its Taiwanese partners which are ‘working around the clock,’ Nvidia could not meet AI demand, CEO Jensen Huang said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and US-based artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Nvidia Corp have partnered with each other on silicon photonics development, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said. Speaking with reporters after he met with TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) in Taipei on Friday, Huang said his company was working with the world’s largest contract chipmaker on silicon photonics, but admitted it was unlikely for the cooperation to yield results any time soon, and both sides would need several years to achieve concrete outcomes. To have a stake in the silicon photonics supply chain, TSMC and
‘DETERRENT’: US national security adviser-designate Mike Waltz said that he wants to speed up deliveries of weapons purchased by Taiwan to deter threats from China US president-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for US secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, affirmed his commitment to peace in the Taiwan Strait during his confirmation hearing in Washington on Tuesday. Hegseth called China “the most comprehensive and serious challenge to US national security” and said that he would aim to limit Beijing’s expansion in the Indo-Pacific region, Voice of America reported. He would also adhere to long-standing policies to prevent miscalculations, Hegseth added. The US Senate Armed Services Committee hearing was the first for a nominee of Trump’s incoming Cabinet, and questions mostly focused on whether he was fit for the
IDENTITY: Compared with other platforms, TikTok’s algorithm pushes a ‘disproportionately high ratio’ of pro-China content, a study has found Young Taiwanese are increasingly consuming Chinese content on TikTok, which is changing their views on identity and making them less resistant toward China, researchers and politicians were cited as saying by foreign media. Asked to suggest the best survival strategy for a small country facing a powerful neighbor, students at National Chia-Yi Girls’ Senior High School said “Taiwan must do everything to avoid provoking China into attacking it,” the Financial Times wrote on Friday. Young Taiwanese between the ages of 20 and 24 in the past were the group who most strongly espoused a Taiwanese identity, but that is no longer
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake and several aftershocks battered southern Taiwan early this morning, causing houses and roads to collapse and leaving dozens injured and 50 people isolated in their village. A total of 26 people were reported injured and sent to hospitals due to the earthquake as of late this morning, according to the latest Ministry of Health and Welfare figures. In Sising Village (西興) of Chiayi County's Dapu Township (大埔), the location of the quake's epicenter, severe damage was seen and roads entering the village were blocked, isolating about 50 villagers. Another eight people who were originally trapped inside buildings in Tainan
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