World Business Quick Take

■ Currencies
China denies revaluation
China's central bank spokesman Bai Li (白力) dismissed a Korean newspaper report that China may revalue its currency next week to ease inflation-ary pressure. China may strengthen its currency by about 7 percent around Oct. 15, the Korea Economic Daily reported, citing unidentified Chinese sources. The country may also widen the yuan's trading band against the dollar from the current 0.3 percent, the report said. "I don't believe any of China's central bank officials would talk to Korean media on money policies on an anonymous basis," People's Bank of China spokesman Bai said by telephone from Beijing. China has a range of alternative strategies to fight inflation, from widening the trading band to pegging the yuan to a basket of currencies rather than the dollar alone, the report said.

■ Airlines
UAL cutting US flights
Struggling to emerge from bankruptcy, United Airlines said on Wednesday it would start reducing its domestic flights while increasing its more profitable international routes. United's parent company, UAL, said that by next March it would increase its international flights by 14 percent, bringing that segment to 40 percent of its overall flights. Domestic flights would be cut by 14 percent. At the same time, United would reduce its fleet by 13 percent, or 68 aircraft, to 455 planes. "Our strategy has been to continually align our fleet size and deployment with market conditions, which are brutally competitive," said Glenn Tilton, UAL chairman, president and chief executive officer. The moves would mean that international flights would account for about half the airline's overall revenues.

■ Online
Google opens Europe office
Leading Web search engine Google Inc opened its European headquarters in Dublin on Wednesday, the California-based company's first major office outside the US. "We have 150 people supporting people in 17 languages as well as technical staff," said Sergey Brin, 30, who founded Google in 1998 with another computer whiz kid, Larry Page, now 31. Brin said he expected 240 people to be employed at the headquarters within the next three years. In August Google made the biggest Internet flotation on the Nasdaq index since the 1990s technology bubble, soaring 18 percent on its launch in New York, with the entire company then valued at US$27 billion.

■ Entertainment
Nintendo plans new games
Nintendo Co, the world's biggest hand-held game console maker, will offer 12 titles when it starts selling its new portable game device in Japan in December. The company has 124 games under development for the new player from 46 software designers, Satoru Iwata, Nintendo's president, told reporters in Tokyo. Winning support from game makers may be key to Nintendo's success in fending off Sony Corp in the US$4 billion hand-held game market. Sony, maker of the best-selling PlayStation 2, will begin selling its own hand-held player, in Japan by the end of the year. The new Nintendo DS, will cost about ¥15,000 (US$135) in Japan and will debut in the US next month. The company hasn't said what games will be available for the US release. The unit can play 1,100 existing games and will feature a "virtual pet" that responds to user commands through voice recognition, Iwata said.