■ Petroleum
OPEC asks for outside help
OPEC is to invite producers from outside the cartel to talks next month on how to stabilize sky-rocketing oil prices, the organization's President Purnomo Yusgi-antoro said here yesterday. The unusual move to throw open the September 14 OPEC meeting in Vienna to non-members comes just days after crude prices hit record highs, reaching US$44.77 dollars a barrel in New York on Friday. "OPEC will discuss steps to stabi-lize world oil prices with non-OPEC countries and large oil producers, among them Russia and Angola," Purnomo told journalists here. "We will discuss world oil price conditions," he said. Supply uncertainties caused by the financial woes of Russian oil giant Yukos and terrorist attacks on Iraqi oil pipelines have sent prices soaring in recent weeks.
■ Aviation
Soros may bag a carrier
China's Hainan Airlines Co, partly owned by Hungarian-born billionaire George Soros, said yesterday it was in negotiations to buy troubled Malev Hungarian Airlines. "Both sides are sitting down to discussions about cooperating together but it has not gone any further than that and it is not clear about how many shares or cash would be involved," a Hainan Airlines press official said. Malev executives will be in China for further discussions today, the official said. If a deal is hammered out it would give China's fourth-largest carrier a gateway to the European continent. Other interested buyers reportedly include Air France-KLM and Austrian Airlines. Malev, almost wholly controlled by the Hungarian state, has never managed to rise above recurrent crises since the collapse of communism.
■ Shipping
Cruise ship too big for HK
One of the world's biggest cruise liners is being forced to berth outside Hong Kong's Victoria Harbor because the water is too shallow, a news report said yesterday. The 113,000-ton Diamond Princess, managed by P&O, will have to berth at the city's container terminal when it makes three stops in Hong Kong next year, the South China Morning Post reported. The indignity forced on the Diamond Princess, which carries 2,600 passengers, brought a warning from P&O man-aging director Richard Willis that Hong Kong needs better facilities. Hong Kong is currently working on a second, deeper cruise ship terminal but it will not be ready before 2009, accor-ding to the city's Tourism Board. Willis told the news-paper he did not understand why it would take so long. He pointed out that Chinese cities Shanghai and Qingtao were already working hard to develop themselves as important port cities in the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
■ Computing
HP to buy Synstar
Hewlett-Packard Co, the world's second-largest personal-computer maker, said it will pay about ?163 million (US$300 million) to buy Synstar Plc, a UK information technology services company. Hewlett-Packard, based in Palo Alto, California, will pay ?1 for each Synstar share, the companies said in a Regu-latory News Service state-ment. The price is 28 percent more than Friday's closing price for the Brack-nell, England-based com-pany. Synstar's shares have climbed 19 percent this year. The offer, which is recommended by Synstar's board, will be made by Merrill Lynch & Co on behalf of Hewlett Packard.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS