AP, LOS ANGELESTelsa chief executive Elon Musk has owned up to insulting a British spelunker in a rash tweet, but would not concede on the witness stand that he called the man a pedophile. Musk said the insult meant only “creepy old man” and did not literally mean he was calling Unsworth a pedophile. Despite working around the clock to build the sub in short order, Musk arrived in Thailand late in the rescue effort and the craft was never used. Musk, who was dressed in a charcoal gray suit and white shirt, remained composed on the witness stand during questioning from Unsworth’s lawyer, who called him as his first witness. Musk received no compensation for his efforts, although he acknowledged his work could have been interpreted as a “narcissistic” publicity effort.

Staff writer, with CNAThe Executive Yuan is planning to extend a domestic travel subsidy program launched earlier this year to the end of next month to boost travel and shopping during the Lunar New Year holiday, an official said yesterday. The program, which aims to boost domestic travel in fall and winter, has been met with a positive response and would encourage more travel during the Lunar New Year holiday if extended for another month, an Executive Yuan official familiar with the matter said. While the program was originally scheduled to finish at the end of this month, the government plans to extend it after hotels asked for the program to be prolonged, the official said. The ministry has issued 585,000 night market vouchers, but only 60 percent of them have been used, the official said. Of the government’s NT$100 million monthly budget earmarked for the vouchers, only about 60 percent has been used, the official said, adding that extending the expiration date of the vouchers and the subsidy program would likely encourage more travel and shopping.

However, travelers and travel agents in Taiwan have said that the policy is disrespectful of Taiwanese tourists, and the government has humiliated the nation by agreeing to the arrangement. Nearly 700,000 Taiwanese tourists travel to Thailand each year. “If the office’s mind is set on mistreating Taiwanese tourists by enforcing the policy, I would write to travel agents across the nation, asking them to stop organizing tours to Thailand,” Hsiao said. The ministry should halt its visa-waiver program for Thai tourists, he added. This was not the first time TTEO has come under criticism from local travel agencies for enforcing unpopular policies.

By Jason Pan / Staff reporterThe Ministry of the Interior does not run an “Internet army” or provide funding for such activities, Minister of the Interior Hsu Kuo-yung (徐國勇) said yesterday in response to reporters’ questions about the scandal surrounding Yang Hui-ju (楊蕙如). Yang has been accused of paying members of an “Internet army” NT$10,000 a month to post on popular social media platforms in an attempt to influence public opinion. Yang and a man surnmed Tsai (蔡), who used the same Internet Protocol address as Yang, have also been accused of insulting a public official. DPP Deputy Secretary-General Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆) said the accusation that Yang is running a DPP Internet army was baseless, adding that many DPP officials had been among her victims. “So I have to take responsibility for Yang Hui-ju’s case?” Hsieh wrote on Facebook on Tuesday.

All political parties are required to submit paperwork under the act to complete their registration as a legal entity before Saturday, Cheng said, adding that political groups should revise their charters before transforming into political parties. Ministry statistics showed that, as of Tuesday, 65 of 360 political parties on record had disbanded, while two parties had their registrations stricken and one had been abolished. Of the political parties, only the Democratic Progressive Party, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and 44 others had completed the registration process. As the National Women’s League has decided not to become a political party, its NT$200 million (US$6.56 million) of ill-gotten party assets are to go to the government, Cheng said. Ministry protocols would determine how the ill-gotten assets in the league’s name would be processed, he said.

The ministry celebrated the anniversary of the Journal of Biomedical Science at a news conference in Taipei, which was attended by the journal’s current and former editors-in-chief. The journal, launched by the ministry in January 1994, is the first international journal in biomedical science operated by a Taiwanese team, Deputy Minister of Science and Technology Shieh Dar-bin (謝達斌) said. In research and experimental medicine, JCR ranked the Journal of Biomedical Science as No. 1 among 19 similar publications in Asia and 20th of 136 similar journals worldwide last year, said Chang Wen-chang (張文昌), its current editor-in-chief and chairman of Taipei Medical University’s board of trustees. In cell biology, the journal was ranked fourth among 18 similar publications in Asia and 49th among 193 similar publications worldwide, he said, adding that the field is more competitive for studies involving both animal and plant cells.

“The ultimate goal of hyperautomation is to automate anything that can be automated, everything from single tasks to entire business operations,” Gartner senior executive partner Michael Kung (龔培元) told reporters at a news conference in Taipei. The path to hyperautomation starts with task automation supported by robotic process automation, which is then enhanced through a combination of tools such as chatbots, smart speakers and virtual assistants, Gartner said. However, hyperautomation cannot be achieved without the help of artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and advanced algorithms, Kung said. “It might be hard for us to visualize, but autonomous devices will be much more perceptive and will be able to interact with other devices,” Kung said. Democratization was named a forthcoming trend for next year, as more technologies are made accessible to the wider public, Gartner said.

The supplier of probiotics and mycelium health foods had expected the Chinese unit to post 50 percent annual growth in sales, Grape King Bio chairman Andrew Tseng (曾盛麟) told a media briefing in Taoyuan. Shanghai Grape King was affected by lower orders from two of its major clients in China amid a slowing market dragged by stricter marketing regulations and falling consumer spending due to a US-China trade dispute, Tseng said. Sales in China have posted annual declines every month since April, with third-quarter sales falling more than 50 percent from a year earlier, Tseng said. Shanghai Grape King would also begin offering probiotics next year to diversify its product range, he added. Meanwhile, GK Bio International Sdn Bhd, a joint venture by Grape King and Malaysia-based All Cosmos Bio-Tech Holding Corp (全宇生技控股), would begin marketing Grape King’s products next year after gaining approval from Malaysian authorities, Tseng said.

AFP, SAN FRANCISCOGoogle cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin are stepping down from their roles at the helm of parent firm Alphabet Inc, and handing the reins to Google chief executive officer Sundar Pichai, the company said on Tuesday. Pichai is to take over from Page as chief executive officer of the holding firm, a Silicon Valley titan that includes Google as well as units focused on “other bets” in areas including self-driving vehicles and life sciences. Page and Brin, who is Alphabet president, “will continue their involvement as cofounders, shareholders and members of Alphabet’s board of directors,” the company said. Pichai is likely to fill a void at the company as it faces antitrust investigations and controversies over privacy and data practices in the US and elsewhere. The move “ratifies that the [Google] founders have stepped aside almost entirely,” he added.

By Crystal Hsu / Staff reporterThe Chinese National Association of Industry and Commerce (CNAIC, 工商協進會) yesterday called on all presidential candidates to make Taiwan more business friendly, saying the government’s 2.72 percent projected GDP growth for next year lags behind the 3 percent global average. “All political camps should assign more importance to the opinions of business groups if they are serious about urging firms to move back to Taiwan,” CNAIC chairman Lin Por-fong (林伯豐) said after the group’s monthly gathering in Taipei. It is better to raise the cap on the number of foreign workers and implement different basic wage standards for domestic and foreign workers, he said. The association said it expects the government to pursue membership in regional trade blocs and secure trade agreement with foreign countries. It has invited major presidential candidates talk about their industrial policy before the election, Lin said.

Strong demand for complimentary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) image sensors for handset cameras has boosted utilization rate at its 12-inch fabs to 100 percent this quarter, which could extend to next quarter, Powerchip said. DRAM chip demand would recover early next year, it added. “The demand for [CMOS image] sensors is also well ahead of what we can supply. Powerchip, previously known as Powerchip Technology Corp (力晶科技), primarily makes CMOS image sensors, DRAM chips and driver ICs used in flat panels for mobile phones for other firms on a contract basis. It operates three 12-inch fabs and two 8-inch fabs in Taiwan, as well as one 12-inch fab in China.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has long regarded Hong Kong and Xinjiang as crucial areas for asserting territorial sovereignty, and has responded with fury to what it considers foreign meddling. “Xinjiang is China’s Xinjiang,” said a statement from the Chinese State Ethnic Affairs Commission, echoing another government mantra: “Hong Kong is China’s Hong Kong.”The Uighur Human Rights Policy Act denounces the detention of an estimated 1 million Uighurs, Kazakhs and others in Xinjiang, home to the predominantly Muslim minority groups. Tensions over the US bills have cast doubt over the potential for a trade deal between the two countries, which have been embroiled in a 16-month tariff dispute. Asked about Trump’s comments, Hua yesterday said that Beijing too had no timeline for ending the protracted trade dispute. “We will not set any time limit on when the deal will or will not be reached,” Hua said.

Thomson Reuters FoundationPrivacy concerns are pushing people to change their behavior online, according to an international poll published yesterday that found one in three avoid specific search terms or Web pages to elude tracking. “People and authorities are waking up to the impact of data collection,” online privacy expert Paul-Olivier Dehaye said in an e-mail. “People want to see an end to tech companies trampling over our right to privacy,” O’Carroll said. However, Edin Omanovic, advocacy director at London-based group Privacy International, said new laws were not always the answer. Of the nine countries surveyed, only Egypt has no specific data protection law, the French data watchdog CNIL said.

By Ann Maxon / Staff reporterKaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu’s (韓國瑜) brother-in-law yesterday defended his family’s gravel business, saying that many reports about his father were “fake news” designed to defame him. Some media outlets have deliberately portrayed his father, Lee Jih-kuei (李日貴), who was a Yunlin County councilor between 1991 and 2003, as “an overbearing man who abused government power,” Lee Ming-che said. In reality, Lee Jih-kuei meant that Han wanted to be a legislator to resolve problems in the gravel industry, he said. However, the minutes also quoted Lee Jih-kuei as criticizing, in vulgar terms, then-Changhua County commissioner Chou Ching-yu (周清玉) for banning all gravel excavation in the county. Asked about the news conference, Han said that the reports about Lee Jih-kuei’s gravel business has greatly disturbed the family.

BloombergThe use of ride-hailing apps is declining in China as operators scale back incentives for drivers, contributing to the slowdown in vehicle sales in the world’s biggest auto market, Sanford C. Bernstein & Co said in a report yesterday. Total daily active usage across ride-hailing apps in the third quarter of this year fell 6.3 percent from a year earlier, marking a fifth consecutive quarterly drop, Bernstein said, citing TalkingData figures. “Driver density is a key determinant of user wait times and the perceived convenience ride-hailing services offer,” Bernstein analysts, including Robin Zhu (朱鑌), wrote. Could the ride-hailing industry be ‘disrupted’ by the lesser availability up of cheap capital, before it can ‘disrupt’ car ownership?” it said. China’s auto market is experiencing a prolonged slump that has dragged down the global EV sector, as the country accounts for about half of the world’s sales of electric vehicles.