■ Aviation
Qantas maintenance to stay
Qantas Airways Ltd said yesterday it would keep its maintenance operations in Australia for now, but announced plans to close its engineering plant in Sydney and cut 480 jobs by May as part of a major cost-cutting drive. Chief executive Geoff Dixon said the restructuring would save A$100 million (US$74 million) a year, but warned that shifting thousands of maintenance jobs overseas was still a long-term option. Transport Minister Warren Truss welcomed the decision not to outsource maintenance jobs, and said he had made it clear to Qantas it was "strongly in the national interest" to keep them in Australia.
■ Piracy
China announces IPR plan
China's government has created a plan to intensify intellectual property rights protection this year, the government said yesterday. The plan covers trademarks, patents and import and export activities, the official Xinhua News Agency said, citing the Commerce Ministry. China is widely regarded as the world's top producer of illegal copies of music, movies, software, designer clothes, medicines and other products. Such fake products are still widely available despite repeated government crackdowns. Under the latest plan, China will draft or revise 17 laws and regulations concerning trademarks, copyrights, patents and customs this year, Xinhua said. It said officials will take measures to raise public awareness about protecting intellectual property rights, and will conduct international exchanges and cooperation as part of the effort, Xinhua said. It did not give further details of the plan.
■ Energy
China rejects joint project
China has rejected a Japanese proposal for joint development of disputed natural gas deposits in the East China Sea, Kyodo News agency reported, citing the Chinese Foreign Ministry. The two countries have been feuding over the deposits. China claims it has rights to the natural gas, but Tokyo says the two countries should share them. Kyodo quoted Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Qin Gang (秦剛) as saying that the development is taking place in undisputedly Chinese waters, and that Beijing would reject Japan's joint development proposal. Qin also said China rejects as a one-sided a Japan-proposed "median line" to separate their economic waters in the East China Sea, Kyodo said.
■ Investment
NYSE shares jump
The New York Stock Exchange got off to a flying start on Wednesday as its shares became publicly traded for the first time in its 214-year history. NYSE Group shares soared 24.5 percent to US$80 on heavy volume of 6.3 million shares after the exchange completed its merger with Archipelago, an electronic market platform. NYSE chief executive John Thain bought 100 shares at US$67 each on Wednesday in the first trade for the NYSE Group, which ended more than two centuries as a member-owned institution in a major revamp. The market on Tuesday completed its US$9.5 billion merger with Archipelago Exchange, a cutting-edge electronic platform. Renamed the NYSE Group and sporting the share ticker "NYX," the new company had a market capitalization of roughly US$10 billion, more than three times the size of the NASDAQ, an alternative market dominated by technology listings.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
‘CLEAR MESSAGE’: The bill would set up an interagency ‘tiger team’ to review sanctions tools and other economic options to help deter any Chinese aggression toward Taiwan US Representative Young Kim has introduced a bill to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan, calling for an interagency “tiger team” to preplan coordinated sanctions and economic measures in response to possible Chinese military or political action against Taiwan. “[Chinese President] Xi Jinping [習近平] has directed the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. China has a plan. America should have one too,” Kim said in a news release on Thursday last week. She introduced the “Deter PRC [People’s Republic of China] aggression against Taiwan act” to “ensure the US has a coordinated sanctions strategy ready should
TAIWAN ISSUE: US treasury secretary Scott Bessent said on the first day of meetings that ‘it wouldn’t be a US-China summit without the Taiwan issue coming up’ There were no surprises on the first day of the summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday, as the government reiterated that cross-strait stability is crucial to the Asia-Pacific region, as well as the world. As the two presidents met for a highly anticipated summit yesterday, Chinese state media reported that Xi warned Trump that missteps regarding Taiwan could push their two countries into “conflict.” Trump arrived in China with accolades for his host, calling Xi a “great leader” and “friend,” and extending an invitation to visit the White House
RSS