■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
Beijing’s continued provocations in the Taiwan Strait reveal its intention to unilaterally change the “status quo” in the area, the US Department of State said on Saturday, calling for a peaceful resolution to cross-strait issues. The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) reported that four China Coast Guard patrol vessels entered restricted and prohibited waters near Kinmen County on Friday and again on Saturday. A State Department spokesperson said that Washington was aware of the incidents, and urged all parties to exercise restraint and refrain from unilaterally changing the “status quo.” “Maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait is in line with our [the
EXTENDED RANGE: Hsiung Sheng missiles, 100 of which might be deployed by the end of the year, could reach Chinese command posts and airport runways, a source said A NT$16.9 billion (US$534.93 million) project to upgrade the military’s missile defense systems would be completed this year, allowing the deployment of at least 100 long-range Hsiung Sheng missiles and providing more deterrence against China, military sources said on Saturday. Hsiung Sheng missiles are an extended-range version of the Hsiung Feng IIE (HF-2E) surface-to-surface cruise missile, and are believed to have a range of up to 1,200km, which would allow them to hit targets well inside China. They went into mass production in 2022, the sources said. The project is part of a special budget for the Ministry of National Defense aimed at
READY TO WORK: Taiwan is eager to cooperate and is hopeful that like-minded states will continue to advocate for its inclusion in regional organizations, Lai said Maintaining the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait, and peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region must be a top priority, president-elect William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday after meeting with a delegation of US academics. Leaders of the G7, US President Joe Biden and other international heads of state have voiced concerns about the situation in the Strait, as stability in the region is necessary for a safe, peaceful and prosperous world, Lai said. The vice president, who is to be inaugurated in May, welcomed the delegation and thanked them for their support for Taiwan and issues concerning the Strait. The international community
COOPERATION: Two crewmembers from a Chinese fishing boat that sank off Kinmen were rescued, two were found dead and another two were still missing at press time The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) was yesterday working with Chinese rescuers to find two missing crewmembers from a Chinese fishing boat that sank southwest of Kinmen County yesterday, killing two crew. The joint operation managed to rescue two of the boat’s six crewmembers, but two were already dead when they were pulled from the water, the agency said in a statement. Rescuers are still searching for two others from the Min Long Yu 61222, a boat registered in China’s Fujian Province that capsized and sank 1.03 nautical miles (1.9km) southwest of Dongding Island (東碇), it added. CGA Director-General Chou Mei-wu (周美伍) told a