News Headlines - 20 August 2020

▽Three Gorges Dam hits record levels as flooding continues in China - UPI.com

Fear is growing again in China the Three Gorges Dam could be breached as rivers across the country continue to overflow and rise to record levels.
About 260,000 residents in the southwestern city of Chongqing have been evacuated, and thousands of shops in the city were submerged underwater by Thursday, state-owned Beijing News reported.
The dam, which was built in 2003 and spans the Yangtze River in Hubei province, is expected to receive a record 76,000 cubic meters of water per second as heavy downpours continue in the region, according to the report.
Chinese authorities have said 10 of the dam's floodgates were opened on Wednesday, discharging 48,000 cubic meters of water per second.

▽Taiwan Representative Office opens in Somaliland - Taiwan Today

The Taiwan Representative Office in the Republic of Somaliland opened Aug. 17 in Hargeisa, paving the way for enhanced bilateral cooperation benefiting the people on both sides, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
During the launch ceremony, President Tsai Ing-wen delivered a recorded message from the Presidential Office in Taipei City, saying friendship between the two countries is based on the common values of democracy, justice and the rule of law.

▽Paperwork for virus subsidy shifted to new firm after flap : The Asahi Shimbun

On Aug. 14, the ministry signed a new contract with consulting company Deloitte Tohmatsu Financial Advisory LLC, based in Tokyo, to handle the administrative paperwork for subsidies to be paid out under the second supplementary budget for the current fiscal year.
The company will take over from Service Design Engineering Council, which had been in charge of payments from the first supplementary budget... The contact awarded to Deloitte Tohmatsu is worth 42.7 billion yen ($404 million), with 41.6 billion yen to be used to assess the applications and 1 billion yen to offset fees for the bank transfers of the subsidies to the companies... When Service Design Engineering Council won the first contract for the job, it was paid 76.9 billion yen. But it paid Dentsu 74.9 billion yen to handle the actual paperwork.

▽Tax authority penalizes Nissan over Ghosn expenses : The Asahi Shimbun

The taxation bureau determined that Nissan had failed to properly declare about 1 billion yen in income over a five-year period through March 2019... The taxation bureau identified more than 200 million yen used for repeatedly traveling abroad in corporate jets. It also discovered about 100 million yen in rental fees for condominiums in Tokyo, Paris and Amsterdam, along with other items from Ghosn’s personal expenses.
His elder sister had received consultation fees, apparently declared under the guise of a fictitious business deal, which is believed to be the reason the tax bureau imposed the tax penalty on Nissan for that portion of outlays.
Nissan paid the corporate tax after it deducted those expenses from taxable income, but the tax bureau refused to accept those as expenses.

▽Sota Fujii becomes youngest shogi player with two major titles | The Japan Times

Fujii, who had already earned the title of Kisei, made the achievement at the age of 18 years and one month by winning four matches in a row in a seven-match series against Oi title defender Kazuki Kimura, 47, in Fukuoka.
The previous record of 21 years and 11 months was set by ninth-dan player Yoshiharu Habu, 49.