■ STOCKS
BYD mulls year-end listing
Chinese battery and auto maker BYD (比亞迪) said yesterday that it hoped to list on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in the second half of the year, after delaying earlier plans for a Chinese listing. Last month, the Hong Kong-listed company said it was asking for shareholder approval to push back the flotation because of weakness in the stock market. BYD, part-owned by a unit of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Group, said investors were scheduled to vote on the extension next Monday. The company has said it plans to offer up to 100 million A shares in Shenzhen to raise 2.85 billion yuan (US$419 million).
■ INVESTMENT
Fund eyes Colonial Pipeline
South Korea’s national pension fund says it is interested in buying Chevron’s 23.4 percent stake in Colonial Pipeline. National Pension Service official Kim Hee-seok said yesterday that the fund is in talks with the US oil pipeline operator, but emphasized that nothing has been decided on who will buy the stake. Kim declined to comment on local media reports estimating the fund had offered to pay Chevron Corp 1 trillion won (US$800 million) for the stake. The pension service is South Korea’s biggest investor, with 295 trillion won in assets as of June.
■ PHARMACEUTICALS
Roche buying BioImagene
Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche Group says it is buying California-based medical scanning company BioImagene Inc for US$100 million. Roche says it expects to complete the purchase of privately held BioImagene in the coming weeks. The Sunnyvale company provides imaging technology used by pathologists to analyze patients’ tissue samples. Roche, based in Basel, Switzerland, says BioImagene will become part of its subsidiary Ventana Medical Systems Inc.
■ECONOMY
Bahrain’s rating downgraded
Moody’s Investor Service says it has downgraded Bahrain’s sovereign rating, citing the country’s increasingly high price of oil needed to balance its budget. The ratings agency in a statement yesterday also cited a negative outlook about the nation’s banking sector and added it had downgraded ratings for several Bahrain-based banks over the past two years. Bahrain’s local and foreign currency debt ratings were lowered from A2 to A3.
■ TELECOMS
Smartphones rise in Asia
Smartphones will make up over half of Asian mobile phone sales by 2015, with 477 million units likely to be sold, a report by consultancy Frost and Sullivan said yesterday. The report said smartphones would account for 54 percent of the Asia-Pacific mobile market in five years, up sharply from 5 percent last year. The sharp rise will be a huge revenue boost for telecoms operators as it means a surge in demand for data services, the consultancy said. It said data usage from smartphones would generate more than US$38 billion for the region’s telecoms operators by 2015.
■ INTERNET
Seoul blocks some Twitter
South Korea will block access to three more Twitter accounts that it said posted North Korean propaganda. The content posted under the accounts violated national security law, the Korea Communications Standards Commission said in a statement yesterday. This follows its decision on Aug. 19 to block South Koreans accessing another Twitter account featuring pro-North Korean posts.
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
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique