■CHINA
CIC invests in SouthGobi
China’s main sovereign wealth fund is investing US$500 million in a Canada-based company that mines coal in Mongolia, expanding its multibillion-dollar global shopping spree for resource assets. China Investment Corp (CIC, 中國投資公司) is investing in a 30-year secured debenture issued by SouthGobi Energy Resources Ltd, CIC said in a statement yesterday. It said the instrument is convertible to common equity. SouthGobi’s majority owner is Canada’s Ivanhoe Mines Ltd. Its flagship mine, Ovoot Tolgoi, is in southern Mongolia near the Chinese border and sells coal to customers in China.
■AUTOMOBILES
Honda raises profit forecast
Honda Motor Co raised its full year profit forecast despite earnings diving by more than half last quarter with “green” car incentives and growth in markets like China expected to further boost vehicle sales. Net profit for the July-to-September quarter fell 56.2 percent from a year earlier to ¥54.0 billion (US$587.0 million), the company said yesterday, hit by a strong yen and the weak global auto market. But Honda, Japan’s No. 2 automaker, now expects a CHINAnet profit for the fiscal year ending March of ¥155 billion, nearly four times its initial outlook for a ¥40 billion profit. The automaker also raised its forecast for sales this fiscal year to 3.4 million vehicles.
■GAMBLING
Casino sparks dispute
Morocco’s King Mohammed VI is among a number of investors embroiled in a bitter financial restructuring of a loss-making Macau casino and hotel firm, a report said yesterday. The king is one of about 20 wealthy people who were sold a US$400 million stake in Macau Legend, the South China Morning Post cited sources as saying. The investors, who bought the stake from investment bank Merrill Lynch in 2006, anticipated a quick profit from a listing of the Fisherman’s Wharf theme park on the Hong Kong stock exchange earlier this year, the report said, but the listing never happened.
■TELECOMS
Verizon income drops 9.8%
The US telecommunications firm Verizon, the country’s second largest, reported on Monday that net income had dropped 9.8 percent compared with the third quarter of last year, to US$2.89 billion. But the figures topped analysts’ estimates, Bloomberg financial news agency reported. The cost of cutting 4,000 jobs last quarter in the declining land-line business had eaten into net income, and another 4,000 jobs are to be cut in the current quarter, Verizon’s chief financial officer John Killian said. Revenues climbed 10.2 percent to US$27.26 billion, in part from the one-time boost from the takeover of Alltel. Without considering the acquisition, revenues climbed 0.6 percent.
■SOFTWARE
Wipro reports rise in profit
India’s third-largest software group Wipro yesterday reported a 19 percent rise in net profit and forecast improving demand, underscoring new optimism in the sector. In the fiscal second quarter to last month, the Bangalore-based firm said it turned a profit of 11.62 billion rupees (US$248 million) on 6 percent rise in sales to 69.17 billion rupees. “We see more stability in volumes and pricing as well as an improving demand environment,” Wipro chairman Azim Premji said in a statement.
National Taiwan University (NTU) yesterday said it disqualified a person from an entrance examination for using AI smart glasses to cheat, along with two others for making untruthful statements in their curriculum vitae. The three applicants were given null scores, Taiwan’s highest-ranked university said, calling on prospective students to be honest in the admissions process. NTU registrar Lee Hung-sen (李宏森) said that the cheating applicant wore a hat and thick-rimmed glasses to the second written exam for medical school, claiming that they felt cold. Suspicions were aroused when the applicant stared oddly at the test for long stretches while steadily bringing the paper
A magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck off the southern coast of Mindanao in the Philippines at 7:38am today, prompting the US Tsunami Warning System to issue an alert for neighboring countries, including Taiwan. The system issued a purple alert indicating a "tsunami threat." The potential threat zone includes Taiwan, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Yap and Palau. Philippine authorities were assessing the damage from the quake, with the office of civil defense seeking to verifying initial reports that 15 people had been killed and 129 injured in the region, mostly from falling debris. Arlene Hollero, disaster chief of Maasim town in the Philippines' Sarangani Province,
‘GRAY ZONE’ PRESSURE: Beijing’s activities are intended to create the deceitful impression that China has jurisdiction over the area around Taiwan, the CGA said Taiwan’s rights over its territorial waters and exclusive economic zone must not be violated by any country, the Mainland Affairs Council said yesterday, adding that it will not accept any unprovoked actions. The council issued the remarks in response to the China Coast Guard conducting maritime enforcement drills near eastern Taiwan and claiming to fully exercise China’s maritime administrative law enforcement authority. The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) has been closely monitoring the situation and is taking concrete steps to defend the nation’s sovereignty and secure its waters, the council said. China has no sovereign rights over the waters off eastern
Heavy rain is expected to affect parts of Taiwan this week, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday as a meteorologist said the active part of the annual plum rain season has started. A stationary plum rain front and southwesterly winds would bring unstable weather and abundant moisture to Taiwan from today for about a week, with the heaviest rainfall forecast for tomorrow and Wednesday, the CWA said. The agency said western and northeastern Taiwan, and mountainous areas in the east and southeast, could expect showers or thunderstorms on those two days, with localized heavy rain possible. Other parts of
RSS