GLOBAL MINING GIANT: Rio Tinto's chairman told shareholders to carefully consider the offer in a deal that has drawn protests from steelmakers in China, Japan and Europe
BHP Billiton formalized its unwelcome takeover bid for Rio Tinto yesterday and raised the stakes with an all-share offer worth US$147.4 billion that would create a global mining monolith.

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Japanese beef prices -- already the world's highest -- are about to get even higher, the country's farmers said yesterday, warning that livestock feed prices have shot up from the global rush for ethanol.

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ANOTHER BLOW: Taiwan's stock market was closed for the Lunar New Year, but other Asian bourses were not so lucky, with big falls in Hong Kong and Tokyo
Asian stocks suffered fresh carnage yesterday, with leading bourses plunging by up to 5 percent as growing fears of a US recession swept across global markets, dealers said.

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The dealer blamed for a US$7 billion rogue trader loss at French bank Societe Generale said on Tuesday that he had got "a bit carried away," but refused to be made a scapegoat for the scandal.

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The Walt Disney Co, reporting fiscal first-quarter results, sought to reassure investors that the weakening economy was not affecting television advertising sales or its robust theme park business.

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FORTUNATE FEW: Some stores are offering much bigger prizes than can fit inside a shopping bag, but the real lure is a guaranteed gift once NT$1,000 is spent
Six automobiles and tens of thousands of prizes -- including scooters, designer bags, laptop computers, airline tickets and watches -- await lucky shoppers in Taipei's major department stores during the Lunar New Year holiday as retailers seek to recover from a year of declining spending.

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NEW JOINT VENTURE: Taiwan's eighth-largest life insurer is still not naming its local partner, and rebutted a newspaper report that said Xiamen C&D Corp was the firm
By Kevin Chen
Taiwan Life Insurance Co (台灣人壽) said that it received approval from Chinese banking authorities to set up an insurance joint venture in China.

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China's telecommunications regulator plans to cut prices for long-distance wireless phone calls within the country by as much as 50 percent in a move that may prompt more consumers to switch to mobile services.

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Microsoft Corp's online advertising researchers will spend this year teaching computers to be smart about sticking ads into video clips, and to be even smarter about targeting ads to specific Web surfers.

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Local stainless steel foundries were calm on Tuesday in the face of a recent announcement by the EU that it would launch a probe into Taiwan's alleged dumping of stainless cold-rolled steel plates.

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■ ELECTRONICS

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