■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-LIMITS PARTNERSHIP: ‘The bottom line’ is that if the US were to have a conflict with China or Russia it would likely open up a second front with the other, a US senator said Beijing and Moscow could cooperate in a conflict over Taiwan, the top US intelligence chief told the US Senate this week. “We see China and Russia, for the first time, exercising together in relation to Taiwan and recognizing that this is a place where China definitely wants Russia to be working with them, and we see no reason why they wouldn’t,” US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told a US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on Thursday. US Senator Mike Rounds asked Haines about such a potential scenario. He also asked US Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse
INSPIRING: Taiwan has been a model in the Asia-Pacific region with its democratic transition, free and fair elections and open society, the vice president-elect said Taiwan can play a leadership role in the Asia-Pacific region, vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) told a forum in Taipei yesterday, highlighting the nation’s resilience in the face of geopolitical challenges. “Not only can Taiwan help, but Taiwan can lead ... not only can Taiwan play a leadership role, but Taiwan’s leadership is important to the world,” Hsiao told the annual forum hosted by the Center for Asia-Pacific Resilience and Innovation think tank. Hsiao thanked Taiwan’s international friends for their long-term support, citing the example of US President Joe Biden last month signing into law a bill to provide aid to Taiwan,
China’s intrusive and territorial claims in the Indo-Pacific region are “illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive,” new US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo said on Friday, adding that he would continue working with allies and partners to keep the area free and open. Paparo made the remarks at a change-of-command ceremony at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, where he took over the command from Admiral John Aquilino. “Our world faces a complex problem set in the troubling actions of the People’s Republic of China [PRC] and its rapid buildup of forces. We must be ready to answer the PRC’s increasingly intrusive and
STATE OF THE NATION: The legislature should invite the president to deliver an address every year, the TPP said, adding that Lai should also have to answer legislators’ questions The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday proposed inviting president-elect William Lai (賴清德) to make a historic first state of the nation address at the legislature following his inauguration on May 20. Lai is expected to face many domestic and international challenges, and should clarify his intended policies with the public’s representatives, KMT caucus secretary-general Hung Meng-kai (洪孟楷) said when making the proposal at a meeting of the legislature’s Procedure Committee. The committee voted to add the item to the agenda for Friday, along with another similar proposal put forward by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The invitation is in line with Article 15-2