■ Stock Markets
Japanese shares dive
Japan's benchmark stock index tumbled 2.8 percent yesterday, its biggest one-day drop since January, as the yen's surge prompted investors to dump major exporters like Honda and Sony. The Nikkei 225 index fell 489.56 points to 16,914.40 points, the lowest close since March 28. In percentage terms, it was the biggest drop since Jan. 18, when the market fell 2.9 percent. By points, it was the largest decline since May 10, 2004, when the index lost 554.12 points. Stocks fell in reaction to the surge in oil prices and the yen, which gained after senior finance and central bank officials from the world's largest economies ended their meeting in Washington on Sunday with a call for greater flexibility in exchange rates, particularly China.
■ Telecoms
Fund buys Telekom stake
The US investment fund Blackstone has agreed to buy a 4.5 percent stake in the German telecommunications giant Deutsche Telekom from the government's privatization vehicle KfW for 2.68 billion euros (US$3.3 billion), the two parties announced yesterday. Blackstone was buying a total 192 million Deutsche Telekom shares at a price of 14 euros apiece, KfW and Telekom announced in separate statements. The purchase price represented a premium of 2.6 percent over the closing price of Deutsche Telekom shares on the Frankfurt stock exchange on Friday. Following the sale, KfW would see its stake in Deutsche Telekom cut to 17.3 percent, while the government continues to hold a stake of 15.2 percent, the statement said.
■ Telecoms
Asian cellphone firms ally
Seven Asian mobile phone operators have formed an alliance to work together in global roaming and other services to attract business travelers and tourists in the region, the companies said yesterday. Joining hands are NTT DoCoMo of Japan, Hutchison Telecom Hong Kong (和記電訊), Far EasTone Telecommunications Co (遠傳電信) of Taiwan, Hutchison Essar of India, KT Freetel Co of South Korea, PT Indosat of Indonesia and StarHub of Singapore. The alliance, with a combined customer base of 100 million people in eight countries and regions, will promote voice, video and data roaming among the networks, set to begin the latter half of this year, the companies said in a joint statement. Users will be able to have the same kind of services they have in their own nations in their own language when traveling abroad in places that are part of the alliance, it said.
■ Copyright
Court bans whiskey names
An Indian court has ruled that Indian whiskey manufacturers cannot use the words "Scot" or "Scotch" to describe their products, in compliance with WTO rules, a newspaper reported yesterday. The words "Scot" or "Scotch" identify whiskey produced in Scotland and no Indian manufacturer can use it to promote or market its product, the Deccan Chronicle newspaper quoted Judge Madan Lokur of the Delhi High Court as saying. This is the first such ruling in India on the WTO's Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights Agreement, which identifies products originating from a particular territory. The judgment was given on a lawsuit filed by the Scotch Whisky Association of the UK seeking to restrain Golden Bottling Limited, an Indian whiskey manufacturer, from using the name "Red Scot" to sell its whiskey.
BUILDUP: US General Dan Caine said Chinese military maneuvers are not routine exercises, but instead are ‘rehearsals for a forced unification’ with Taiwan China poses an increasingly aggressive threat to the US and deterring Beijing is the Pentagon’s top regional priority amid its rapid military buildup and invasion drills near Taiwan, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday. “Our pacing threat is communist China,” Hegseth told the US House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense during an oversight hearing with US General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Beijing is preparing for war in the Indo-Pacific as part of its broader strategy to dominate that region and then the world,” Hegseth said, adding that if it succeeds, it could derail
CHIP WAR: The new restrictions are expected to cut off China’s access to Taiwan’s technologies, materials and equipment essential to building AI semiconductors Taiwan has blacklisted Huawei Technologies Co (華為) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯), dealing another major blow to the two companies spearheading China’s efforts to develop cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) chip technologies. The Ministry of Economic Affairs’ International Trade Administration has included Huawei, SMIC and several of their subsidiaries in an update of its so-called strategic high-tech commodities entity list, the latest version on its Web site showed on Saturday. It did not publicly announce the change. Other entities on the list include organizations such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda, as well as companies in China, Iran and elsewhere. Local companies need
CRITICISM: It is generally accepted that the Straits Forum is a CCP ‘united front’ platform, and anyone attending should maintain Taiwan’s dignity, the council said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it deeply regrets that former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) echoed the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “one China” principle and “united front” tactics by telling the Straits Forum that Taiwanese yearn for both sides of the Taiwan Strait to move toward “peace” and “integration.” The 17th annual Straits Forum yesterday opened in Xiamen, China, and while the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) local government heads were absent for the first time in 17 years, Ma attended the forum as “former KMT chairperson” and met with Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Chairman Wang Huning (王滬寧). Wang
CROSS-STRAIT: The MAC said it barred the Chinese officials from attending an event, because they failed to provide guarantees that Taiwan would be treated with respect The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Friday night defended its decision to bar Chinese officials and tourism representatives from attending a tourism event in Taipei next month, citing the unsafe conditions for Taiwanese in China. The Taipei International Summer Travel Expo, organized by the Taiwan Tourism Exchange Association, is to run from July 18 to 21. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian (朱鳳蓮) on Friday said that representatives from China’s travel industry were excluded from the expo. The Democratic Progressive Party government is obstructing cross-strait tourism exchange in a vain attempt to ignore the mainstream support for peaceful development
RSS