■ Semiconductors
Intel to launch new Centrino
Intel Corp, the world's biggest semiconductor maker, will release a new version of its Centrino laptop chips next month to win more orders from home users. The chip package will have improved sound and graphics that rival the quality found in desktop machines, Anand Chandrasekher, vice president of Intel's laptop business, said in an inter-view. More than US$5 billion worth of Centrino chips have been sold since their introduction in March 2003, Intel said this month. Intel widened its share of the laptop chip market to 85.9 percent in the third quarter from 81.7 percent a year earlier, according to Fra-mingham, Massachusetts-based researcher IDC.
■ Internet
eBay drops Passport support
Microsoft Corp said on Thursday that eBay Inc will soon drop support for its Passport service, originally intended to make the world's biggest software maker the gatekeeper of Web identities. But Microsoft said it will keep Passport up and running, despite the loss of one of its earliest and most important partners. eBay said in a message to users on Wed-nesday that in late January it will stop allowing them to sign on to its Web marketplace through Passport. Passport allows users to store such things as passwords and credit card information for use across the Web. "A very small percentage of eBay users regularly signed in using Passport," eBay spokesman Hani Durzy said.
■ Banking
Merrill Lynch eyes China
US brokerage firm Merrill Lynch & Co is in negotiations with China's Huaan Secu-rities Co Ltd to set up a China-based investment banking joint venture, local media said yesterday. The talks are in the preliminary stages and no details about the value or the structure of the deal have been released, according to a report in the First Financial Daily. The Chinese-language report was carried on the popular sina.com Web site. The companies will need approval from Chinese regulators before starting business, it said.
■ Publishing
Hollinger misses deadline
Newspaper publisher Hol-linger International Inc said it missed a deadline to file its 2003 annual report and could be delisted from the New York Stock Exchange as a result. Chicago-based Hollinger International said it asked the stock exchange if it could extend the Thursday deadline for filing the report with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The NYSE could grant Hollinger International an extension of up to three months or reject the extension request and suspend and delist Hollinger, the company said. Hollinger International said it expects to file the annual report by mid-January.
■ Automakers
SAIC launches new company
Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp (SAIC), China's largest automaker, has launched a new shareholding company to prepare for an eventual overseas listing, state press reported yesterday. Shanghai Automotive Group Company Ltd will have registered capital of 25.7 billion yuan (US$3.1 billion) and net assets of 39.6 billion yuan, Zhu Xiangju, a SAIC spokeswoman, said in commments published in the China Daily. Seventy percent of SAIC's assets in Shanghai-listed affiliate Shanghai Automotive Co Ltd, which includes holdings in two ventures with General Motors GM and Volkswagen, have been transferred to the new company.
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