■ Management
Bank ordered to improve
Japan's financial regulator has ordered major lender UFJ Holdings Inc to improve its management after pointing out the bank made an inadequate assessment of the amount of its bad loans, reports said yesterday. Following the order, UFJ, Japan's fourth-ranked banking group, would have to submit a management improvement plan to the Financial Services Agency, which would then conduct inspections to check the bank's management, Jiji Press said. Both the FSA and UFJ declined to comment. "We do not comment on an individual case," said an FSA spokeswoman. According to Kyodo News, UFJ's assessment of bad loans at the end of March last year was about 40 percent lower than the amount estimated by the government.
■ Airlines
Qantas to fly to Shanghai
Australian flag carrier Qantas said yesterday it would relaunch direct flights to China's financial hub of Shanghai and India's largest city, Bombay, as it taps growth opportunities in the burgeoning markets. The airline said it also planned to increase flights or capacity to Hong Kong, Japan, the US and New Zealand in a three-year growth drive. "We believe it is the future for us -- India and China," Qantas Airways Ltd executive general manager John Borghetti told reporters. Two new Airbus A330-300 jets would fly between Sydney and Shanghai from Dec. 2 and Borghetti said Qantas expected to add even more services to China, which has one of the world's fastest growing economies. Qantas began flights to Shanghai and Bombay in 1996, but axed them as an economy measure in 2001 and 2002 respectively.
■ Region
Asia to grow briskly
Economic growth in the Asia-Pacific will continue to outpace the rest of the world in the next five years but a Chinese slowdown looms as a genuine threat to the region, the Economist Intelligence Unit said. In a report received yesterday, the London-based EIU said the Asia-Pacific's economies, outside Japan, would grow at an average annual rate of 5.8 percent between this year and 2008, faster than any other region in the world. The EIU said the region's growth this year was likely to be 6.5 percent, but the environment will be less friendly next year and beyond with Beijing's efforts to rein in its red-hot economy the main reason. The EIU said China's economy should slow to below 8 percent between this year and 2008, down from the more than 9 percent rates experienced recently, and a potential investment bubble is not expected to balloon out of control.
■ Biotechnology
Brewer produces cow
Kirin Brewery Co, Japan's No. 2 beer maker, said yesterday it had produced jointly with a US company a cow that is immune to mad cow disease. The animal, produced through genetic manipulation, carries none of the prion proteins that cause the brain-wasting disease, also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), a Kirin spokeswoman said. The cow, still in its mother's womb, is expected to be born early next year, she said. Kirin produced the cow after conducting joint research with US biotechnology firm Hemateck LLC in Connect-icut. The two firms plan to use the cow to develop medicines for diseases such as hepatitis C, pneumonia and rheumatism, she said.
RETHINK? The defense ministry and Navy Command Headquarters could take over the indigenous submarine project and change its production timeline, a source said Admiral Huang Shu-kuang’s (黃曙光) resignation as head of the Indigenous Submarine Program and as a member of the National Security Council could affect the production of submarines, a source said yesterday. Huang in a statement last night said he had decided to resign due to national security concerns while expressing the hope that it would put a stop to political wrangling that only undermines the advancement of the nation’s defense capabilities. Taiwan People’s Party Legislator Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) yesterday said that the admiral, her older brother, felt it was time for him to step down and that he had completed what he
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
CHINA REACTS: The patrol and reconnaissance plane ‘transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,’ the 7th Fleet said, while Taipei said it saw nothing unusual The US 7th Fleet yesterday said that a US Navy P-8A Poseidon flew through the Taiwan Strait, a day after US and Chinese defense heads held their first talks since November 2022 in an effort to reduce regional tensions. The patrol and reconnaissance plane “transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,” the 7th Fleet said in a news release. “By operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law, the United States upholds the navigational rights and freedoms of all nations.” In a separate statement, the Ministry of National Defense said that it monitored nearby waters and airspace as the aircraft