■INDONESIA
Jakarta to spend more
Jakarta plans to spend an extra 50 trillion rupiah (US$4.5 billion) to help sustain economic growth this year and counter the impact of a global financial crisis, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said. Southeast Asia’s largest economy will outlay 38 trillion rupiah this year from unrealized spending planned last year and the other 12 trillion rupiah for this year, the president said. The additional spending may help Indonesia’s US$433 billion economic growth exceed 5 percent this year, from an estimated 6.1 percent last year, central bank governor Boediono said. The budget deficit is estimated to have narrowed to 0.1 percent of GDP last year, the lowest since the Asian financial crisis a decade earlier, Yudhoyono said.
■JAPAN
Tuna fetches top yen
The Japanese passion for sushi is apparently immune to the global economic crisis. A plump tuna yesterday fetched ¥9.6 million (US$104,000) at Tokyo’s Tsukiji fish market, the second-highest price ever. This year’s first auction took place before dawn at the world’s largest fish market, with 730 tunas lined up for bidding. The top-priced fish was a blue-fin tuna weighing 128kg. “I just wanted to bid on the best tuna of the day,” the winning buyer said, according to Jiji Press. He said he planned to sell the tuna to high-end sushi bars in Japan and China. The highest price ever paid for a tuna at the market was ¥20 million in 2001. Tsukiji market, the source of fresh sushi and sashimi flown daily to top restaurants the world over, has long topped must-see lists for foreign visitors to Tokyo. But the auction was closed to tourists last month after fishmongers complained that visitors were bad mannered.
■ELECTRONICS
Samsung unveils slim TV
South Korea’s Samsung Electronics yesterday unveiled what it says is the world’s slimmest liquid-crystal-display (LCD) TV. The new product, measuring only 6.5mm thick, is thinner than any other existing TV set, and even slimmer than most mobile handsets, Samsung said in a statement. Its thickness is one-seventh of Samsung’s “Bordeaux 850” LCD TV, which is currently the thinnest on the market.
■PHARMACEUTICALS
Pfizer exercises option
Pfizer Inc, the world’s largest drugmaker, exercised an option to buy commercial licenses on vaccines developed by Switzerland’s Cytos Biotechnology AG. The options were based on an agreement the companies signed in August that gave Pfizer access to experimental vaccines using immune-response technology, Schlieren, Switzerland-based Cytos said yesterday in an e-mailed statement. Cytos did not disclose the size of the payments or say which diseases the vaccines target.
■ECONOMY
No Great Depression: Sachs
The world is facing a serious recession but should avoid a repeat of the Great Depression it experienced in the 1930s, a top US economist said on Sunday. This recession would be more serious than others, but not as hard as the Great Depression, Jeffrey Sachs, a special advisor to the UN secretary general, told the Spanish daily El Pais. Sachs said he also believed Asia should be able to maintain positive economic growth levels. Allowing Lehman Brothers to collapse had been a “huge mistake” that had worsened the economic crisis, he said. Any other errors of that magnitude — such as letting troubled US automakers to go under — would lead to a depression.
INSURRECTION: The NSB said it found evidence the CCP was seeking snipers in Taiwan to target members of the military and foreign organizations in the event of an invasion The number of Chinese spies prosecuted in Taiwan has grown threefold over a four-year period, the National Security Bureau (NSB) said in a report released yesterday. In 2021 and 2022, 16 and 10 spies were prosecuted respectively, but that number grew to 64 last year, it said, adding that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was working with gangs in Taiwan to develop a network of armed spies. Spies in Taiwan have on behalf of the CCP used a variety of channels and methods to infiltrate all sectors of the country, and recruited Taiwanese to cooperate in developing organizations and obtaining sensitive information
Seven hundred and sixty-four foreigners were arrested last year for acting as money mules for criminals, with many entering Taiwan on a tourist visa for all-expenses-paid trips, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said on Saturday. Although from Jan. 1 to Dec. 26 last year, 26,478 people were arrested for working as money mules, the bureau said it was particularly concerned about those entering the country as tourists or migrant workers who help criminals and scammers pick up or transfer illegally obtained money. In a report, officials divided the money mules into two groups, the first of which are foreigners, mainly from Malaysia
SILICON VALLEY HUB: The office would showcase Taiwan’s strengths in semiconductors and artificial intelligence, and help Taiwanese start-ups connect with global opportunities Taiwan has established an office in Palo Alto, one of the principal cities of Silicon Valley in California, aimed at helping Taiwanese technology start-ups gain global visibility, the National Development Council said yesterday. The “Startup Island Taiwan Silicon Valley hub” at No. 299 California Avenue is focused on “supporting start-ups and innovators by providing professional consulting, co-working spaces, and community platforms,” the council said in a post on its Web site. The office is the second overseas start-up hub established by the council, after a similar site was set up in Tokyo in September last year. Representatives from Taiwanese start-ups, local businesses 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
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