■ Thai airport ceremony put off
Thailand would delay an opening ceremony at Bangkok's new international airport due to problems including cracked taxiways, inadequate toilets and complaints of sexual harassment, reports said yesterday. The government was to hold a formal inauguration ceremony this month of Suvarnabhumi International Airport, which opened in late September, with an annual passenger capacity of 45 million. But the ceremony, to be attended by King Bhumibol Adulyadej, would be delayed at least six months due to multiple problems, English-language newspapers the Nation and Bangkok Post said. The problems include long waits for luggage, hold-ups at check-in counters, roof leaks and inadequate toilets, the Nation said, adding "uneven and cracked taxiways" were also discovered at the new airport.
■ Trade
NZ backs free trade plan
New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clarke yesterday threw her support behind a US-backed proposal for a massive free trade zone stretching across the Pacific Ocean, saying it was an attractive alternative if global free trade talks fail. Clarke, speaking to reporters at the end of a two-day summit of leaders from the 21-member APEC forum, said the idea was not in conflict with the Doha round of WTO talks, which collapsed in July amid bickering between the US and Europe over farm tariffs. "The key game has to be WTO," she said. "But if Doha stumbles so badly that it went into suspension for years, then of course an agreement which covers countries around about 60 percent of the world economy is very attractive for us," she said.
■ IP protection
China court backs local firm
A Beijing court has ruled China's leading Internet search engine was not guilty of property rights infringement when posting links to Web sites offering illegal music downloads, state press said yesterday. A Beijing intermediate court ruled in favor of Baidu.com (百度) in the lawsuit brought against it by major international music companies, including EMI, Sony BMG, Warner Music and Universal Music, the Xinhua news agency reported. No date for the ruling was given. The music companies accused Baidu of engaging in illegal downloading and the playing of music owned by the plaintiffs without their permission, the report said. They had demanded a public apology from Baidu, the suspension of its download service and 1.73 million yuan (US$216,250) in compensation, it said.
■ Property
Major US deal closed
A New York development company closed its US$5.4 billion purchase of one of the US' largest apartment complexes, despite some tenants' claims that the sale isn't allowed under state housing laws. MetLife Inc said on Friday it had finalized the sale of the Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village complex to Tishman Speyer Properties and BlackRock Realty, the real estate arm of BlackRock Inc, a provider of global investment management and advisory services. Tenants of the 110-building complex had launched their own bid to take over its 11,000 units, most of which are rent-stabilized and priced far below the market rate. This week, the tenants asked the city comptroller to investigate the sale, saying MetLife had not terminated the redevelopment company that managed the complex.
AGING: As of last month, people aged 65 or older accounted for 20.06 percent of the total population and the number of couples who got married fell by 18,685 from 2024 Taiwan has surpassed South Korea as the country least willing to have children, with an annual crude birthrate of 4.62 per 1,000 people, Ministry of the Interior data showed yesterday. The nation was previously ranked the second-lowest country in terms of total fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman has in her lifetime. However, South Korea’s fertility rate began to recover from 2023, with total fertility rate rising from 0.72 and estimated to reach 0.82 to 0.85 by last year, and the crude birthrate projected at 6.7 per 1,000 people. Japan’s crude birthrate was projected to fall below six,
Conflict with Taiwan could leave China with “massive economic disruption, catastrophic military losses, significant social unrest, and devastating sanctions,” a US think tank said in a report released on Monday. The German Marshall Fund released a report titled If China Attacks Taiwan: The Consequences for China of “Minor Conflict” and “Major War” Scenarios. The report details the “massive” economic, military, social and international costs to China in the event of a minor conflict or major war with Taiwan, estimating that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could sustain losses of more than half of its active-duty ground forces, including 100,000 troops. Understanding Chinese
SELF-DEFENSE: Tokyo has accelerated its spending goal and its defense minister said the nation needs to discuss whether it should develop nuclear-powered submarines China is ramping up objections to what it sees as Japan’s desire to acquire nuclear weapons, despite Tokyo’s longstanding renunciation of such arms, deepening another fissure in the two neighbors’ increasingly tense ties. In what appears to be a concerted effort, China’s foreign and defense ministries issued statements on Thursday condemning alleged remilitarism efforts by Tokyo. The remarks came as two of the country’s top think tanks jointly issued a 29-page report framing actions by “right-wing forces” in Japan as posing a “serious threat” to world peace. While that report did not define “right-wing forces,” the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs was
US President Donald Trump in an interview with the New York Times published on Thursday said that “it’s up to” Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be “very unhappy” with a change in the “status quo.” “He [Xi] considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing, but I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that. I hope he doesn’t do that,” Trump said. Trump made the comments in the context
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