■ENERGY
Suzlon sells stake in Hansen
Suzlon Energy, India’s biggest maker of wind turbine generators, has sold a 35 percent stake in Belgian wind gearbox maker Hansen, raising US$370 million as it moves to cut debt, a statement said. The sale, reducing troubled Suzlon’s holding in Hansen Transmissions International NV to 20 percent, was announced late on Thursday by the company. Suzlon, the world’s fifth-largest turbine maker which dominates the Indian wind-generation market, purchased Hansen in 2006 for US$565 million in a deal it said had big synergies with its own wind turbine operations.
■BANKING
US Treasury to sell warrants
The US Treasury said on Thursday it would sell warrants in JPMorgan Chase and two other commercial banks acquired under a program to pump capital into the financial system. Treasury officials said they would use a “modified Dutch auction” to sell the warrants in JPMorgan, Capital One Financial and TCF Financial Corporation, over the next month. The Dutch auction methodology establishes a market price by allowing investors to submit bids at specified increments above a minimum price specified for each auction.
■INTERNET
eBay completes Skype sale
Online auction giant eBay announced on Thursday it had completed its sale of Skype to an investment group that includes the two founders of the Web communications company. The previously announced sale of a 70 percent stake in Skype for some US$2 billion had been held up by lawsuits filed by Skype founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis. Zennstrom and Friis settled the suits this month and will hold a 14 percent stake in Skype through their new company, Joltid Ltd. Fifty-six percent will be held by the investor group led by private equity firm Silver Lake Partners, while eBay will retain a 30 percent equity investment in Skype. The deal values Skype at US$2.75 billion.
■CHINA
Electricity rates go up
China raised electricity rates for businesses and industries yesterday by 5.7 percent and says more hikes are planned, as the country adjusts prices to reflect costs and promote energy saving. It was the first rate-hike since July last year, when electricity tariffs for nonresidential use rose 5 percent. Residential electricity rates have remained stable since a 1 percent hike in July 2006, but a residential rate increase is planned for early next year, China’s main planning agency said in a notice late on Thursday. Businesses will pay 0.028 yuan per kilowatt hour more as of yesterday, the National Development and Reform Commission said.
■INTERNET
New captions for YouTube
Google Inc said on Thursday it was beginning to add automatic, machine-generated captions for videos on its YouTube site. The new service is intended to make online videos accessible to the deaf and hearing-impaired. Hundreds of thousands of videos on Google sites already contain caption tracks that users have created and added manually with Google’s existing captioning service. But with 20 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute, most videos on the site still lack captions. So Google is tapping into the speech-recognition technology that it uses for its Google Voice call management service to make captions an automatic feature on YouTube.
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