■COMPUTERS
India names Satyam heads
Indian authorities have named three business leaders to the board of outsourcing giant Satyam Computers in the wake of a massive fraud scandal that threatens to sink the company. Satyam is fighting for its life after founder and chairman B. Ramalinga Raju confessed to doctoring the company’s accounts by US$1 billion. Raju and two other senior executives have been arrested and charged with criminal conspiracy and criminal breach of trust, among other counts. The Ministry of Corporate Affairs announced yesterday that the three new board members would be Deepak Parekh, head of the Housing Development Finance Corp bank; Kiran Karnik, the former head of Nasscom, a trade body of technology companies; and C. Achuthan, a legal expert and a former member of the Securities and Exchange Board of India.
■FUEL
Chavez denies cancelation
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Saturday that Venezuela’s program to provide heating oil to poor US families was never halted, despite concerns that deliveries might be interrupted. Venezuela’s Citgo Petroleum Corp had to make a public announcement that the aid would continue after its partner nonprofit group said Citgo stopped the free fuel shipments because of the world economic crisis. “They are speculating on all sides that Venezuela has suspended its program of cooperation with the poor of the US,” Chavez said. “No, it was never suspended.” Chavez did not address whether oil shipments were ever interrupted. Boston-based Citizens Energy Corp last Monday alerted households benefiting from the four-year-old program that oil shipments were in doubt.
■ELECTRONICS
Sanyo lowers forecasts
Japan’s struggling Sanyo Electric Co is set to downgrade its earnings forecasts for the year to March, expecting a strong yen to wipe out its net profit almost entirely, a report said yesterday. Sanyo, which is to become a subsidiary of Panasonic Corp later this year, will lower its forecast for group net profit from ¥35 billion (US$384 million) to almost zero for the full year to March, the Asahi Shimbun said. Its forecast of operating profit would be revised down by 40 percent to ¥30 billion from ¥50 billion, with sales expected to fall below ¥2 trillion for the first time in nine years, it said. The company’s earnings from microchip and other electronics parts are rapidly worsening due to the yen’s appreciation, the Asahi said, adding that the company would announce the revised forecasts this week.
■ELECTRONICS
iPhone books to hit shelves
Shortcovers expects to be turning iPhones into electronic books by month’s end. Shortcovers is releasing a mini-application that lets people read books, short stories or other written works on Apple-made smart phones in a direct challenge to electronic book devices sold by Amazon and Sony. Shortcovers software will be available for free download after it clears Apple’s vetting process and makes it to the virtual shelves of iTunes online App Store. “People aren’t reading less they are reading differently,” Shortcovers user experience director Pamela Hilborn said while demonstrating the application at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. “Their attention spans are shorter.” Shortcovers plans to make money on best-selling books and other works to iPhone readers for US$0.99 a chapter, with the first chapters free so people can look about for “their next great read,” Hilborn said.
PLA MANEUVERS: Although Beijing has yet to formally announce military drills, its coast guard vessels have been spotted near and around Taiwan since Friday The Taiwanese military is on high alert and is closely monitoring the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) air and naval deployments after Beijing yesterday reserved seven airspace areas east of its Zhejiang and Fujian provinces through Wednesday. Beijing’s action was perceived as a precursor to a potential third “Joint Sword” military exercise, which national security experts said the PLA could launch following President William Lai’s (賴清德) state visits to the nation’s three Pacific allies and stopovers in Hawaii and Guam last week. Unlike the Joint Sword military exercises in May and October, when Beijing provided detailed information about the affected areas, it
CHINA: The activities come amid speculation that Beijing might launch military exercises in response to Lai’s recent visit to Pacific allies The Ministry of National Defense (MND) yesterday said China had nearly doubled the number of its warships operating around the nation in the previous 24 hours, ahead of what security sources expect would be a new round of war games. China’s military activities come amid speculation Beijing might organize military drills around the nation in response to President William Lai’s (賴清德) recent visit to Pacific allies, including stops in Hawaii and Guam, a US territory. Lai returned from the week-long trip on Friday night. Beijing has held two rounds of war games around Taiwan this year, and sends ships and military planes
Five flights have been arranged to help nearly 2,000 Taiwanese tourists return home from Okinawa after being stranded due to cruise ship maintenance issues, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications announced yesterday. China Airlines Ltd (中華航空), and EVA Airways Corp (長榮航空) have arranged five flights with a total of 748 additional seats to transport 1,857 passengers from the MSC Bellissima back to Taiwan, the ministry said. The flights have been scheduled for yesterday and today by the Civil Aviation Administration, with the cruise operator covering all associated costs. The MSC Bellissima, carrying 4,341 passengers, departed from Keelung on Wednesday last week for Okinawa,
China is deploying its largest navy fleet in regional waters in nearly three decades, posing a threat to Taiwan that is more pronounced than previous Chinese war games, the Ministry of National Defense said today. Speaking in Taipei, ministry spokesperson Sun Li-fang (孫立方) said the scale of the current Chinese naval deployment in an area running from the southern Japanese islands down into the South China Sea was the largest since China held war games around Taiwan ahead of 1996 Taiwanese presidential elections. China's military has yet to comment and has not confirmed it is carrying out any exercises. "The current scale is
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