■Japan
Bankruptcies decline
The number of Japanese corporate failures dropped 13.3 percent from a year earlier to 8,984 cases in the six months to last month, falling below 9,000 in the period for the first time in four years, a research firm said yesterday. The drop was a result of corporate efforts to avert bankruptcy as more companies were restructuring and following risk-averse business strate-gies, Teikoku Databank
said in a statement. "Com-panies are implementing restructuring measures to improve their financial management and profita-bility in a bid to avert bankruptcy and the number of business failures as a result of the economic slump is falling," it said.
■ News Corp
Offer made for Hughes unit
Rupert Murdoch's News Corp will make an offer for about 20 percent of Hughes Software Systems Ltd, an Indian unit of Hughes Electronics Corp. News Corp will pay 232 rupees (US$5) a share to acquire as many as 6.7 million shares, representing 20 percent of Hughes Software's equity, it said in a statement to the Mumbai stock exchange. India-based Hughes Soft-ware develops computer code for the telecommuni-cations industry. The offer is part of News Corp's April agreement with General Motors Corp to buy a controlling 34 percent stake in Hughes Electronics Corp for US$6.6 billion. The acquisition will give News Corp control of DirectTV, the largest US satellite-TV service with 11 million subscribers.
■ Aviation
Continental seeks delay
Continental Airlines Inc, the No. 5 US carrier, will postpone delivery of most of its US$2.5 billion airplane order from Boeing Co, the world's biggest planemaker, until at least 2008, the Wall Street Journal said yester-day, citing unidentified people familiar with the situation. Continental agreed with Boeing to defer delivery of 36 of the 56 737s on order until 2008 or later and is still trying to nego-tiate postponing all 11 757-300s, which may jeopardize Boeing's 757 production line, the paper said. The delay is necessary because Continental has decided to shrink its capacity further next year, the paper said.
■ Patents
Reuters sues Bloomberg
Financial news and data provider Reuters Group PLC claims in a lawsuit that Bloomberg LP, its main rival, violated three of its patents on trading techno-logy. The federal lawsuit, filed late Friday in Man-hattan, asks the court to order Bloomberg to stop using the technology. It also seeks unspecified damages. The technology allows Reuters customers to trade securities based on market data provided by the ser-vice. Bloomberg called the suit "without merit." "We are confident we have not infringed on any patents," Bloomberg spokeswoman Chris Taylor said Sunday. The trading technology generated US$88.4 million for Reuters last year, said Simon Walker, a London-based spokesman. He said the Reuters patents expire in 2016.
■ Office supplies
OfficeMax sold
Boise Cascade Corp agreed to pay US$1.15 billion to buy OfficeMax Inc, the third-biggest US office-supply retailer. Share-holders in OfficeMax, will receive US$9 a share in cash and stock, the company said. The cash element will be between 30 percent and 45 percent, depending on Boise's stock price.
Agencies
NO HUMAN ERROR: After the incident, the Coast Guard Administration said it would obtain uncrewed aerial vehicles and vessels to boost its detection capacity Authorities would improve border control to prevent unlawful entry into Taiwan’s waters and safeguard national security, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday after a Chinese man reached the nation’s coast on an inflatable boat, saying he “defected to freedom.” The man was found on a rubber boat when he was about to set foot on Taiwan at the estuary of Houkeng River (後坑溪) near Taiping Borough (太平) in New Taipei City’s Linkou District (林口), authorities said. The Coast Guard Administration’s (CGA) northern branch said it received a report at 6:30am yesterday morning from the New Taipei City Fire Department about a
IN BEIJING’S FAVOR: A China Coast Guard spokesperson said that the Chinese maritime police would continue to carry out law enforcement activities in waters it claims The Philippines withdrew its coast guard vessel from a South China Sea shoal that has recently been at the center of tensions with Beijing. BRP Teresa Magbanua “was compelled to return to port” from Sabina Shoal (Xianbin Shoal, 仙濱暗沙) due to bad weather, depleted supplies and the need to evacuate personnel requiring medical care, the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) spokesman Jay Tarriela said yesterday in a post on X. The Philippine vessel “will be in tiptop shape to resume her mission” after it has been resupplied and repaired, Philippine Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin, who heads the nation’s maritime council, said
CHINA POLICY: At the seventh US-EU Dialogue on China, the two sides issued strong support for Taiwan and condemned China’s actions in the South China Sea The US and EU issued a joint statement on Wednesday supporting Taiwan’s international participation, notably omitting the “one China” policy in a departure from previous similar statements, following high-level talks on China and the Indo-Pacific region. The statement also urged China to show restraint in the Taiwan Strait. US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell and European External Action Service Secretary-General Stefano Sannino cochaired the seventh US-EU Dialogue on China and the sixth US-EU Indo-Pacific Consultations from Monday to Tuesday. Since the Indo-Pacific consultations were launched in 2021, references to the “one China” policy have appeared in every statement apart from the
More than 500 people on Saturday marched in New York in support of Taiwan’s entry to the UN, significantly more people than previous years. The march, coinciding with the ongoing 79th session of the UN General Assembly, comes close on the heels of growing international discourse regarding the meaning of UN Resolution 2758. Resolution 2758, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1971, recognizes the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the “only lawful representative of China.” It resulted in the Republic of China (ROC) losing its seat at the UN to the PRC. Taiwan has since been excluded from