■ ENERGY
Firms investing in Turrum
An ExxonMobil Corp subsidiary and BHP Billiton announced plans yesterday to spend US$1.25 billion to tap oil and gas reserves in the Bass Strait off southern Australia. The joint venture will build an offshore platform off Victoria state at a site called the Turrum field and aims to extract about 28.3 billion cubic meters of natural gas and 110 million barrels of oil and gas liquids, the companies said. The Turrum project is expected to start producing from 2011, with gas sales from 2015. ExxonMobil Australia chairman Mark Nolan said the Turrum project had enough resources to supply the energy needs of a city of 1 million people for more than 20 years.
■ INTERNET
High court finds Horie guilty
The Tokyo High Court yesterday upheld a lower court ruling that found Japanese Internet tycoon Takafumi Horie guilty of breaking a securities law and sentenced him to two years and six months in prison without suspension, media reports said. The 35-year-old former president of Livedoor Co had pleaded not guilty to charges of forging the company’s financial records and falsifying information about the acquisition of a Japanese publisher to raise his company’s stock price. Horie’s lawyer appealed the high court’s ruling at the Supreme Court yesterday. The Tokyo District Court in March last year found Horie guilty of initiating the accounting fraud, which also involved other Livedoor executives.
■ AUTOMOBILES
Honda posts record profits
Japan’s Honda Motor Co reported record fiscal first-quarter profits as sales growth in new markets offset damage from a stronger yen and soaring material costs. Honda said it earned ¥179.6 billion (US$1.7 billion) in the second quarter, up 8.1 percent from the same period the previous year. Sales for the quarter dipped 2.2 percent to ¥2.87 trillion, largely because a rising yen eroded the value of the automaker’s overseas earnings. The Tokyo-based manufacturer of the Civic and Accord compacts said it still sold more vehicles worldwide than in any other fiscal first quarter. Demand for Honda products is booming in Asia, Brazil and other new markets, it said.
■ SOUTH KOREA
Economic growth slows
Economic growth slowed sharply in the second quarter, official figures showed yesterday, amid warnings of a slump that could further test President Lee Myung-bak’s sagging popularity. Growth slowed below forecast to an annual rate of 4.8 percent in the last quarter from 5.8 percent in the first quarter, the Bank of Korea said, as soaring oil prices pushed up inflation and weakened domestic demand. “Because of high prices and the jobless rate, domestic consumption weakened in the second quarter, weighing down on the growth momentum,” Choi Chun-sin, a director of the bank, told reporters. The latest growth figure is the lowest since early last year.
■ AUTOMOBILES
Ford plans restructuring
Ford Motor Co announced plans to accelerate its vast restructuring plan on Thursday after the sputtering auto giant posted its worst quarterly loss in history. The US$8.7 billion loss in the second quarter was largely caused by hefty charges as Ford wrote down the value of its assets and recognized losses from auto leasing. The automaker has now lost nearly US$24 billion since 2006 and recently backed off plans to return to profitability by next year amid a weak US economy.
Taiwan aims to open 18 representative offices and seven Taiwan Tourism Information Centers worldwide by next year to attract international visitors, the Tourism Administration said on Saturday. The agency has so far opened three representative offices abroad this year and would open two more before the end of the year, it said. It has also already opened information centers in Jakarta, Mumbai and Paris, and is to open one in Vancouver next month and in Manila in December, it said. Next year, it would also open offices in Amsterdam, Dubai and Sydney, it added. While the Cabinet did not mention international tourists in its
EYES AT SEA: Many marine enthusiasts have expressed interest in volunteering for coastal patrols, which would help identify stowaways and illegal fishing, the CGA said Six thousand coastal patrol volunteers are to be recruited for 159 inspection offices to enhance the nation’s response to “gray zone” conflicts, Coast Guard Administration (CGA) sources said yesterday. Volunteer teams would be established to increase the resilience of coastal defense systems in the wake of two unlawful entries attempted by Chinese over the past three months, Ocean Affairs Council Minister Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said. A former Chinese navy captain drove a motorboat into the Tamsui River (淡水河) in Taipei on the eve of the Dragon Boat Festival in June, while another Chinese man sailed in a rubber boat into the Houkeng
NEXT LEVEL: The defense ministry confirmed that a video released last month featured personnel piloting new FPV drone systems being developed by the Armaments Bureau Taipei and Washington are pushing for their drone companies to work together to establish a China-free supply chain, the Financial Times reported on Friday. A delegation of high-level executives and US government officials were yesterday to arrive in Taipei to discuss with their Taiwanese counterparts collaboration on drone technology procurement and development, the report said. The executives represent 26 US manufacturers of drone and counter-drone systems, while the officials are from the US Department of Commerce and the US Department of Defense’s Defense Innovation Unit, along with Dev Shenoy, principal director for microelectronics in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense
‘ANONYMOUS 64’: A national security official said that it is an attempt by China to increase domestic anti-Taiwanese sentiment and inflame cross-strait tensions The Ministry of National Defense’s (MND) Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM) yesterday denied accusations by China that it had undermined regional security by carrying out cyberattacks against targets in China, adding instead that Beijing was responsible for raising tensions and undermining regional peace. The Chinese Ministry of State Security on WeChat accused a hacker group called “Anonymous 64” of targeting China, Hong Kong and Macau starting earlier this year through frequent cyberattacks. The group carried out cyberattacks to seize control of Web sites, outdoor electronic billboards and video-on-demand platforms in China, Hong Kong and Macau, it said, adding the hackers’