Terry Gou, who controls an electronics manufacturing empire that employs more than one million workers in China, predicted tough times ahead for the world due to economic turmoil.

Close to 60 percent of households will see their monthly electricity costs drop after the first round of electricity rate changes come into effect on June 10, according to the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA).

European leaders will try to breathe life into their stricken economies at a summit over dinner on Wednesday, but disagreement over a plan for mutual bond issuance and other measures to alleviate two years of debt turmoil has already been laid bare.

China's leadership is hitting a rough patch with ally North Korea under its new leader Kim Jong Un, as Beijing finds itself wrong-footed in episodes including Pyongyang's rocket launch and the murky detention of Chinese fishing boats.

Each eurozone country will have to prepare a contingency plan for the eventuality of Greece leaving the single currency, three eurozone sources said on Wednesday, citing an agreement reached by officials.

Nobel laureate and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi will travel outside Myanmar for the first time in 24 years next week to deliver a speech at an international forum in Thailand, her party said on Thursday.

Police yesterday arrested robbery suspect Wang Yuan (王淵) and conducted DNA and saliva tests that appear to confirm his involvement in the March stick-up of a Taiwan Business Bank branch in Taipei.

Japan on Wednesday posted a bigger-than-expected trade deficit in April, as surging energy costs pushed up imports while shipments to China — its biggest market — fell from a year ago.

Eurozone tensions rose again on Thursday with grim signals from business, and a flight of capital into Germany after an EU summit disagreed on solutions to the crisis.

China's economic growth will continue to ease this year, presenting policymakers in Beijing with the challenge of preventing an excessively abrupt slowdown, the World Bank said in a report Wednesday.