■AUTOMOBILES
Group lobbies for subsidy
Carmakers need a government subsidy to roll out the vehicles that Australians want to buy, an industry lobby group said yesterday. Federal Chamber of Automotive Industry spokesman Andrew McKellar said the government should help pay for the shift to more fuel-efficient vehicles from gas-thirsty cars as part of its response to the challenge of climate change. “We have to ensure those new technologies that will support achieving these objectives that they are coming into the marketplace, they are being taken up in terms of new vehicles being manufactured in Australia as well as being made available more broadly across the market,” he said. The government has already promised US$450 million in subsidies for the production of a “green car.”
■TELECOMS
Qatar firm wins court case
Qatar Telecom QSC, which paid US$1.8 billion in June to buy a 40.8 percent stake in Indonesia’s PT Indosat, said the Indonesian Supreme Court had thrown out the legal challenge to its ownership of the stake. “The Supreme Court’s decision today removes the District Court’s order and allows us to keep the shares we acquired in June” in Indonesia’s second-biggest mobile phone operator, Qtel chairman Sheikh Abdullah bin Mohammed Bin Saud al-Thani said in a statement posted on the Doha bourse Web site yesterday. Qatar Telecom is in the process of starting a tender to buy more Indosat shares, the statement said.
■HONG KONG
New slogan being sought
The government is spending hundreds of thousands of US dollars looking for a new slogan to replace the boast of “Asia’s World City,” a news report said yesterday. The territory has spent US$160,000 hiring multi-national communications company Fleishmann- Hillard to supervise the task, the Sunday Morning Post reported. Another US$64,000 is being spent on setting up a Web site for people to offer their ideas on a new slogan and image for the territory of 6.9 million people. The new slogan is expected to compete against regional slogans such as “Malaysia Truly Asia.”
■LIVESTOCK
China open to trotters
The German pork industry, Europe’s largest, is turning its attention to China, not only a vast market, but one with a taste for pigs’ ears, feet and other delicacies that are shunned at home. After two years of negotiations, Berlin sealed a deal last week in Beijing opening the door to China for German pork. “It is extremely positive,” said Michael Stab, in charge of the meat sector for the German Farmers Association. “There is demand for products that are not worth much here, such as trotters and ears, and we are going to try to get quite a good price for them.” The US, Denmark, France and Canada are the biggest meat suppliers to China.
■INDIA
Inflation slowing down
Indian prices of primary articles including food and oil seeds increased at a slower pace in the past 12 months than in the previous year, the government said. Prices of food and non-food articles such as oil seeds and minerals rose by 7.86 percent on average as of Aug. 30, slower than the 9.49 percent annual rate a year earlier, the finance ministry said in an e-mailed statement. Annual inflation remains at a 16-year high, rising three times since the beginning of the year.
GEOPOLITICAL SIGNIFICANCE: The CGA’s nonmilitary role makes it a tool to avert diplomatic issues, an official said, while confirming the donation of a ship to Manila Coast Guard Administration (CGA) ships are scheduled to sail to the Philippines bearing the words “Taiwan Coast Guard” in a high-profile visit in October next year, the first such visit by a Taiwanese maritime law enforcement vessel to the Southeast Asian nation, the agency said yesterday. The CGA also confirmed that it had donated one of its decommissioned patrol vessels to the Philippines in a rare transfer of a retired ship to a nondiplomatic ally. The Republic of China (ROC) Navy last made such a visit in 1974, shortly before the Philippines switched diplomatic recognition to the People’s Republic of China in
‘GLOBAL WARNING’: The infiltration is not just a local problem, as Beijing has been deploying the same tactics worldwide against Western democracies, a report said Between 50,000 and 100,000 Chinese spies are operating in Taiwan, far more than the National Security Bureau’s previous estimate of 5,000, German journalist and author Jurgen Kremb said on Monday. Kremb presented his research, titled “The War of Spies: How China’s Intelligence Services Are Infiltrating Taiwan — and What Europe Must Learn from It,” at a joint event held by the Taiwan offices of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation and the European Values Center for Security Policy. The report was published in June in the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau’s Prospect & Exploration Monthly (展望與探索月刊). By spies, he said he was referring to informants,
CALL FOR CHANGE: They urged the UN to facilitate Taiwan’s involvement in the body, recognize its peace efforts and to work with members in preventing military conflict Representatives to the UN from five of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies sent a joint letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday, calling for the country’s inclusion in the body. Allies in the letter sent ahead of the 81st session of the UN General Assembly General Debate made three demands in support of Taiwan: inclusion, recognition and camaraderie. They implored the UN to seek an appropriate way to facilitate Taiwan’s meaningful involvement in the world governing body, saying that UN Resolution 2758, which accepted the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as a member of the UN, does not exclude Taiwan. Beijing claims that the
WASHINGTON MEETING: Japan’s Hirofumi Takinami said participants rejected the idea that the US should limit its defensive perimeter to the Second Island Chain US and Japanese lawmakers agree that the US must defend the First Island Chain, including Taiwan, and should not fall back to the Second Island Chain, while “a Taiwan contingency is a Japan contingency and therefore a US-Japan alliance contingency,” media reported after a meeting between officials of the two nations in Washington on Tuesday. A delegation of Japanese lawmakers from the Liberal Democratic Party met with US Senator Thom Tillis, co-chair of the Senate Taiwan Caucus, and US Representative Ami Bera, co-chair of the US Congressional Taiwan caucus, to discuss issues concerning East Asia and the Taiwan Strait. The Japanese and
RSS