■Japan
Bankruptcies decline
The number of Japanese corporate failures dropped 13.3 percent from a year earlier to 8,984 cases in the six months to last month, falling below 9,000 in the period for the first time in four years, a research firm said yesterday. The drop was a result of corporate efforts to avert bankruptcy as more companies were restructuring and following risk-averse business strate-gies, Teikoku Databank
said in a statement. "Com-panies are implementing restructuring measures to improve their financial management and profita-bility in a bid to avert bankruptcy and the number of business failures as a result of the economic slump is falling," it said.
■ News Corp
Offer made for Hughes unit
Rupert Murdoch's News Corp will make an offer for about 20 percent of Hughes Software Systems Ltd, an Indian unit of Hughes Electronics Corp. News Corp will pay 232 rupees (US$5) a share to acquire as many as 6.7 million shares, representing 20 percent of Hughes Software's equity, it said in a statement to the Mumbai stock exchange. India-based Hughes Soft-ware develops computer code for the telecommuni-cations industry. The offer is part of News Corp's April agreement with General Motors Corp to buy a controlling 34 percent stake in Hughes Electronics Corp for US$6.6 billion. The acquisition will give News Corp control of DirectTV, the largest US satellite-TV service with 11 million subscribers.
■ Aviation
Continental seeks delay
Continental Airlines Inc, the No. 5 US carrier, will postpone delivery of most of its US$2.5 billion airplane order from Boeing Co, the world's biggest planemaker, until at least 2008, the Wall Street Journal said yester-day, citing unidentified people familiar with the situation. Continental agreed with Boeing to defer delivery of 36 of the 56 737s on order until 2008 or later and is still trying to nego-tiate postponing all 11 757-300s, which may jeopardize Boeing's 757 production line, the paper said. The delay is necessary because Continental has decided to shrink its capacity further next year, the paper said.
■ Patents
Reuters sues Bloomberg
Financial news and data provider Reuters Group PLC claims in a lawsuit that Bloomberg LP, its main rival, violated three of its patents on trading techno-logy. The federal lawsuit, filed late Friday in Man-hattan, asks the court to order Bloomberg to stop using the technology. It also seeks unspecified damages. The technology allows Reuters customers to trade securities based on market data provided by the ser-vice. Bloomberg called the suit "without merit." "We are confident we have not infringed on any patents," Bloomberg spokeswoman Chris Taylor said Sunday. The trading technology generated US$88.4 million for Reuters last year, said Simon Walker, a London-based spokesman. He said the Reuters patents expire in 2016.
■ Office supplies
OfficeMax sold
Boise Cascade Corp agreed to pay US$1.15 billion to buy OfficeMax Inc, the third-biggest US office-supply retailer. Share-holders in OfficeMax, will receive US$9 a share in cash and stock, the company said. The cash element will be between 30 percent and 45 percent, depending on Boise's stock price.
Agencies
US PUBLICATION: The results indicated a change in attitude after a 2023 survey showed 55 percent supported full-scale war to achieve unification, the report said More than half of Chinese were against the use of force to unify with Taiwan under any circumstances, a survey conducted by the Atlanta, Georgia-based Carter Center and Emory University found. The survey results, which were released on Wednesday in a report titled “Sovereignty, Security, & US-China Relations: Chinese Public Opinion,” showed that 55.1 percent of respondents agreed or somewhat agreed that “the Taiwan problem should not be resolved using force under any circumstances,” while 24.5 percent “strongly” or “somewhat” disagreed with the statement. The results indicated a change in attitude after a survey published in “Assessing Public Support for (Non)Peaceful Unification
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
‘MISGUIDED EDICT’: Two US representatives warned that Somalia’s passport move could result in severe retaliatory consequences and urged it to reverse its decision Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) has ordered that a special project be launched to counter China’s “legal warfare” distorting UN Resolution 2758, a foreign affairs official said yesterday. Somalia’s Civil Aviation Authority on Wednesday cited UN Resolution 2758 and Mogadishu’s compliance with the “one China” principle as it banned people from entering or transiting in the African nation using Taiwanese passports or other Taiwanese travel documents. The International Air Transport Association’s system shows that Taiwanese passport holders cannot enter Somalia or transit there. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) protested the move and warned Taiwanese against traveling to Somalia or Somaliland
Four former Hong Kong opposition lawmakers jailed in the territory’s largest national security case were released yesterday after more than four years in prison, the first among dozens convicted last year to regain their freedom. Former legislators Claudia Mo (毛孟靜), Jeremy Tam (譚文豪), Kwok Ka-ki (郭家麒) and Gary Fan (范國威) were part of a group of 47 public figures — including some of Hong Kong’s best-known democracy advocates — who were charged with subversion in 2021 for holding an informal primary election. The case fell under a National Security Law imposed on the territory by Beijng, and drew international condemnation and warnings
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