■ ENERGY
Chopsticks to fuel Japan
Japan will try to turn the millions of wooden chopsticks that go discarded each year into biofuel to ease the country's energy shortage, officials at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries said yesterday. Restaurants and convenience stores generally hand out disposable, wooden chopsticks without asking. Each of Japan's 127 million people uses an average of 200 sets a year, meaning more than 90,000 tonnes of wood, government data show. Earlier this month, a Chinese food association called for an end to the use of disposable chopsticks, saying 45 billion pairs were thrown away in China every year.
■ REAL ESTATE
Shanghai limits purchases
Shanghai plans to tighten controls on purchases of property by foreign companies to help cool surging real estate prices, a report said yesterday. "We no longer encourage foreign companies to purchase en-bloc properties rather than develop their own," the state-run newspaper Shanghai Daily quoted an official of the city's Foreign Economic Relations and Trade Commission, as saying. "Stricter requirements are applied to the approval of such acquisition deals to prevent prices from being pushed up by speculative investors,'' the official said.
■ ELECTRONICS
Sharp to launch 108-inch TV
Sharp Corp, Japan's biggest maker of liquid-crystal-display (LCD) televisions, plans to sell a 108-inch (274cm) set as soon as this year end to capture demand for larger models. The new model will be Osaka-based Sharp's biggest television, company president Mikio Katayama said at a briefing in Tokyo yesterday. Sony Corp, Sharp's closest Japanese competitor, sells a 70-inch LCD model, according to Tokyo-based Sony's Web site. Sharp aims to sell the model by 2010, Katayama said. The company also said it set up a sales unit in Moscow.
■ AVIATION
Delta board elects new CEO
Delta Air Lines said on Tuesday its board had elected industry veteran Richard Anderson as chief executive officer, succeeding retiring Gerald Grinstein, who brought the carrier out of bankruptcy. Anderson, 52, will take over on Sept. 1 at Delta, the third-largest US carrier, which emerged from creditor protection on April 30. Anderson has nearly 20 years of airline industry experience and will become the eighth CEO in Delta's 78-year history, the company said. Delta exited Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after 19 months of court-supervised bankruptcy protection, with the airline industry rocked by a slump in travel following the 2001 terror attacks in the US.
■ MEDIA
Tribune Co to go private
Tribune Co shareholders in Chicago voted to take the media giant private on Tuesday in a US$13 billion deal orchestrated by real estate mogul Sam Zell. But with the bulk of the deal financed through debt, concerns have been raised that it will fall apart in the current credit crunch roiling US financial markets. In a statement announcing that 97 percent of shareholders had approved the deal, the company tried to soothe concerns over the financing provided by Citigroup, Merrill Lynch and JPMorgan Chase. Tribune chairman Dennis FitzSimons said that financing was "fully committed" and that the deal ought to close in the fourth quarter of this year following approval from federal communications regulators.
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