■ FINANCE
HSBC stops US sales
HSBC Holdings PLC said it stopped selling and trading mortgage-backed securities in the US as the British bank adapts its businesses to turmoil caused by mortgage defaults and a loss of investor confidence. About 120 jobs will be cut across its investment-banking operations globally, including some 100 in the US, an HSBC spokesman who asked not to be named said on Thursday. The move comes amid investors' resistance to buying many mortgage securities.
■ TECHNOLOGY
Blu-ray in `stalemate'
Sony Corp head Howard Stringer said the Blu-ray disc format the company has developed as the successor to the DVD is in a "stalemate" with the competing HD DVD format, chiefly backed by Toshiba Corp and Microsoft Corp. "It's a difficult fight," said Stringer, speaking on Thursday at the 92nd Street Y cultural center in Manhattan. Toshiba sells its players for as low as US$200, while Blu-ray players cost more than twice as much. In August, the HD DVD camp induced Paramount Pictures to drop most of its support for Blu-ray. "We were trying to win on the merits, which we were doing for a while, until Paramount changed sides," Stringer said.
■ FINANCE
Chinese bank opens in US
The US Federal Reserve has announced its approval of an application by China Merchants Bank Co (中國招商銀行) to open a branch in New York. China's sixth-largest lender by assets, Shenzhen-based China Merchants Bank, is indirectly controlled by the Chinese government through wholly owned companies. The Fed said the bank branch "would engage in wholesale deposit-taking, lending, trade finance and other banking services." Chinese banks recently have made a push to open branches in the US, with an application still pending by leading lender Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd (中國工商銀行).
■ OIL
Brazil finds huge reserve
A huge offshore oil discovery could raise Brazil's petroleum reserves by a massive 40 percent and boost the country into the ranks of the world's major exporters, officials said. The government-run oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA, or Petrobras, said the new "ultra-deep" Tupi field could hold as much as 8 billion barrels of recoverable light crude, sending Petrobras shares soaring and prompting predictions that Brazil could join the world's "top 10" oil producers. Petrobras president Sergio Gabrielli said on Thursday the oil from ultra-deep areas would give Brazil the world's eighth-largest oil and gas reserves.
■ WTO
China threatens veto
China has threatened to veto any proposals on cutting customs tariffs on industrial goods at the WTO if its requests are not met, sources said yesterday. During a meeting of the negotiating group on non-agricultural market access, China's delegate said he had received instructions from Beijing to veto any revised text put forward by group chair Don Stephenson if it "failed to meet China's minimum requirements," the sources said. The move was seen as a bid to put pressure on the negotiations in the Doha Round of trade liberalization talks. But sources said it would be very difficult for China to veto the whole Doha package as Beijing stands to make substantial gains from a successful WTO deal.
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