■ Housing too costly for most
Housing has become so expensive in China that seven out of 10 urban families cannot afford their own homes, in yet another warning the property sector may be overheating, state media said yesterday. A new study from Beijing Normal University found 70 percent of China's city dwellers do not have enough money to buy a new apartment, based on average housing prices in the east of the country, Xinhua news agency reported. What is pushing up prices to levels out of reach to most of the nation's citizens is what looks dangerously like a speculative boom, according to the agency. During the first quarter of this year, the amount of unsold real estate in China rose 23.8 percent over the same period last year to 123 million square meters, the National Bureau of Statistics reported recently.
■ Finance
Bank mulls acquisitions
Deutsche Bank, Germany's biggest bank, is mulling major acquisitions, above all in the area of retail banking, chairman Josef Ackermann said in a newspaper interview published yesterday. "Retail [banking] is primarily where I see opportunities for acquisitions," Ackermann told the Financial Times. "A deal could be anywhere between 1 billion and 5 billion euros [US$1.26 billion and US$6.3 billion], but I also would not exclude something bigger if it makes strategic sense," Ackermann said.
■ Energy
Liquefying plant planned
A Japanese consortium hopes to capture carbon dioxide emissions at an Australian power plant by 2009 in a world first that would be a major step towards battling greenhouse gases responsible for global warming, a report said yesterday. Under the plan, about 20 percent of the carbon dioxide released by the plant in the northeastern state of Queensland would be trapped, liquefied then stored underground rather than released into the atmosphere. The Nihon Keizai business daily said J Power and Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries would lead the project alongside the Japanese industry ministry and Australian, US and European firms. Construction of the carbon dioxide liquefying facility, estimated to cost about US$124 million, is expected to begin next year and be ready two years later, the report said. The companies are also hoping to use the technology in developing Asian nations, particularly China, where demand for energy has increased rapidly.
■ Internet
Microsoft, Yahoo in talks
Software giant Microsoft and Internet media company Yahoo have been holding talks for more than a year about how to combat the rising threat of Google, including a proposal for Microsoft to buy a stake in Yahoo, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. Among other options on the table is the sale of Microsoft's MSN online network to Yahoo in return for a minority stake in the Internet portal, the report said. The report came after a disappointing earnings report last week sent Microsoft shares tumbling more than 10 percent. The company's stock has languished for over a year on investor concerns about a challenge from Google. Last October Yahoo and Microsoft announced that their instant messaging services would be able to interconnect starting in the second quarter of this year.
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
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
SHIFT: Taiwan’s better-than-expected first-quarter GDP and signs of weakness in the US have driven global capital back to emerging markets, the central bank head said The central bank yesterday blamed market speculation for the steep rise in the local currency, and urged exporters and financial institutions to stay calm and stop panic sell-offs to avoid hurting their own profitability. The nation’s top monetary policymaker said that it would step in, if necessary, to maintain order and stability in the foreign exchange market. The remarks came as the NT dollar yesterday closed up NT$0.919 to NT$30.145 against the US dollar in Taipei trading, after rising as high as NT$29.59 in intraday trading. The local currency has surged 5.85 percent against the greenback over the past two sessions, central
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