■ 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.
STILL COMMITTED: The US opposes any forced change to the ‘status quo’ in the Strait, but also does not seek conflict, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said US President Donald Trump’s administration released US$5.3 billion in previously frozen foreign aid, including US$870 million in security exemptions for programs in Taiwan, a list of exemptions reviewed by Reuters showed. Trump ordered a 90-day pause on foreign aid shortly after taking office on Jan. 20, halting funding for everything from programs that fight starvation and deadly diseases to providing shelters for millions of displaced people across the globe. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has said that all foreign assistance must align with Trump’s “America First” priorities, issued waivers late last month on military aid to Israel and Egypt, the
France’s nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and accompanying warships were in the Philippines yesterday after holding combat drills with Philippine forces in the disputed South China Sea in a show of firepower that would likely antagonize China. The Charles de Gaulle on Friday docked at Subic Bay, a former US naval base northwest of Manila, for a break after more than two months of deployment in the Indo-Pacific region. The French carrier engaged with security allies for contingency readiness and to promote regional security, including with Philippine forces, navy ships and fighter jets. They held anti-submarine warfare drills and aerial combat training on Friday in
COMBAT READINESS: The military is reviewing weaponry, personnel resources, and mobilization and recovery forces to adjust defense strategies, the defense minister said The military has released a photograph of Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) appearing to sit beside a US general during the annual Han Kuang military exercises on Friday last week in a historic first. In the photo, Koo, who was presiding over the drills with high-level officers, appears to be sitting next to US Marine Corps Major General Jay Bargeron, the director of strategic planning and policy of the US Indo-Pacific Command, although only Bargeron’s name tag is visible in the seat as “J5 Maj General.” It is the first time the military has released a photo of an active
CHANGE OF MIND: The Chinese crew at first showed a willingness to cooperate, but later regretted that when the ship arrived at the port and refused to enter Togolese Republic-registered Chinese freighter Hong Tai (宏泰號) and its crew have been detained on suspicion of deliberately damaging a submarine cable connecting Taiwan proper and Penghu County, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement yesterday. The case would be subject to a “national security-level investigation” by the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office, it added. The administration said that it had been monitoring the ship since 7:10pm on Saturday when it appeared to be loitering in waters about 6 nautical miles (11km) northwest of Tainan’s Chiang Chun Fishing Port, adding that the ship’s location was about 0.5 nautical miles north of the No.
RSS