AVIATION
Airline license suspended
Kingfisher Airline’s licence was suspended on Saturday after it failed to address the Indian regulator’s concerns about its operations, forcing the debt-laden carrier to stop taking bookings. Controlled by Vijay Mallya — the self-styled “King of Good Times” — and seven months behind on salary payments among other missed bills, Kingfisher’s fleet has been grounded since the start of this month when a staff protest turned violent. The airline, which has never made a profit since being founded in 2004 and reeling under US$1.4 billion of debt, will have its licence reinstated if it provides a plan that satisfies the Directorate General of Civil Aviation.
CHINA
Land prices slowdown
Land prices rose at a slower annual pace for the fifth quarter, gaining 1.77 percent to an average 3,093 yuan (US$495) a square meter in the July to September period, the government said. Residential land prices gained 1.03 percent to 4,564 yuan a square meter in the same period, according to the monitoring of prices in 105 cities, the Ministry of Land and Resources said in a statement on its Web site dated Friday. The country’s new home prices last month rose in fewer than half the cities monitored by the government from a month earlier, according to data released by the statistics bureau on Thursday, indicating property curbs are stabilizing the housing market. Land supply and demand are forecast to increase in the fourth quarter amid government investments “to promote stable and healthy economic development,” while land prices are forecast to continue rising if no further real estate control measures are introduced, the land ministry said.
MEDIA
News Corp denies talks
Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp denied it has held talks to acquire the Los Angeles Times or Chicago Tribune once the newspapers’ owner, Tribune Co, emerges from bankruptcy. The denial encompasses reported talks with Tribune’s creditors, News Corp said. Published reports last week said that News Corp executives were in early negotiations with Tribune’s debt holders, including Los Angeles-based Oaktree Capital Management, who will gain control of the Chicago-based company after court supervision ends. News Corp is preparing to separate its entertainment and publishing businesses, in part to allow the 81-year-old Murdoch to pursue publishing unencumbered. Murdoch, whose roots in newspapers date back decades, has expressed interest in the Los Angeles Times in the past. He may go shopping for distressed newspapers once News Corp’s split becomes final next year, according to one person with knowledge of the matter.
IRELAND
IMF denies bad measures
The IMF denied on Saturday that austerity measures are to blame for the nation’s sluggish economy, saying that other factors are keeping growth flat. Greece, Portugal and Ireland are complaining that the IMF underestimated the economic and social impact of drastic spending cuts and tax hikes in the bailout programs, but a senior IMF official said that was not the problem in Ireland. The pace of the EU-IMF rescue program “has struck an appropriate balance and continues to do so for the period ahead, enabling Ireland to make steady progress in reducing fiscal imbalances while protecting the still fragile economic recovery,” Ajai Chopra, deputy director in the IMF’s European Department, said in a statement.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last