Word: islands
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...barrel-chested rugby fan, Rajapaksa, 63, will need that common touch to bring Sri Lanka to a true and lasting peace between the island nation's Sinhalese majority (which is mostly Buddhist) and Tamil minority (mostly Hindu). The civil war began in earnest in July 1983, after nearly 3,000 Tamils were killed in several days of systematic anti-Tamil violence. It was the low point of what Sri Lanka's Tamils felt had been decades of official discrimination and military repression in Tamil-majority areas in the north and east. The LTTE took up arms in the name...
...Shih is hardly the only Taiwan businessman aspiring to make his company a household name. Capitalizing on technological shifts in mobile computing and consumer attitudes, several of the island's electronics manufacturers are beginning to steal some of the thunder of their better-known Japanese, South Korean and American rivals. Chief among them are Asustek Computer, which practically invented a category of small, inexpensive notebook computers called netbooks, and HTC, which is making a surprisingly strong showing in smart phones, a fast-growing market currently led by the Apple iPhone. (See the best inventions...
...told him: "Think about how you want to start a company." The conversation led Chang, backed by state funding, to found Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), now the world's largest chip foundry and one of Taiwan's most prominent firms. That was just one part of the island's big push. Other electronics manufacturers - makers of notebook PCs, memory chips, LCD panels and other essential components - also set up shop, establishing Taiwan as a force in the global IT industry...
...Taiwan's success in electronics is a prime example of economic policies that lifted the island from poorhouse to powerhouse in a generation. But these days, the model that Taiwan has followed since the 1960s - concentrating heavily on building industries that could export to the wealthy West - has been exposed as dangerously flawed. Amid the global recession, electronics exports plunged 28% in the first half of 2009 compared to a year earlier, contributing to a 10.2% contraction of Taiwan's first-quarter GDP, the worst quarterly performance in the island's history. The government forecasts the economy will shrink...
...There is some fear in Taiwan that Ma's opening to China will accelerate a hollowing out of the island's economy by encouraging companies to move there, costing jobs. Ma's policy team, though, argues closer ties will boost the economy overall because it makes it easier for executives to keep the most advanced parts of their businesses - the high-salary R&D and management divisions - at home. San says the government's vision is to turn Taiwan into an operations center for Chinese industry by supplying technical and manufacturing expertise. There are some early indications Ma's strategy...