■ FINANCE
Northern Rock attracts bid
Businessman Jose Maria Ruiz-Mateos has offered to buy a 10 percent stake in troubled British mortgage lender Northern Rock, a spokeswoman for the Spanish entrepreneur said on Thursday. Pilar Bernal said Ruiz-Mateos had delivered the offer through letters to Northern Rock CEO Adam Applegarth and to chairman Matt Ridley. "An offer has been made for 10 percent," Bernal said by phone from London. "It's being put forward by Ruiz-Mateos personally, backed by a group of investors." Ruiz-Mateos, 76, built a business empire that included retailers, food companies and banks.
■ AUTOMOBILES
Ghosn betting on China
Carlos Ghosn, head of Renault and Nissan, said yesterday that a major name among global automakers might be taken over by an emerging market rival in the coming years. "I think that Chinese, Indian or Russian manufacturers will buy established automobile groups or merge with them or sign cooperative agreements," Ghosn told the German daily Die Welt in an interview. "It's natural," he said, adding that "China is going to become one of the biggest markets in the world and it is very likely that at least one Chinese manufacturer appears on the global market. "There is no reason why an Indian automobile group should not play a global role" as well, he said.
■ BEVERAGES
Starbucks, Pepsi ink deal
Starbucks Corp, the world's largest chain of coffee shops, and PepsiCo Inc said they will expand a distribution venture, starting in China. Starbucks will sell ready-to-drink beverages through PepsiCo's distribution network, the companies said on Thursday. The accord may expand bottled Starbucks drinks to countries that don't have Starbucks stores. PepsiCo, the second-largest US soft-drink maker, distributes bottled Frappuccino coffee and DoubleShot espresso drinks through a venture with Starbucks. Starbucks operates more than 14,000 stores, 540 of them in China. The coffee chain sells bottled drinks in South Korea, Japan and Taiwan through other distributors.
■ TELECOMS
German firm to buy Orange
Germany's Deutsche Telekom AG said yesterday it has concluded a deal to buy Dutch mobile phone and broadband Internet operator Orange Netherlands from France Telecom for US$1.8 billion. Deutsche Telekom first announced the deal in June, but it did not give the purchase price then. It said yesterday that its T-Mobile Netherlands unit has concluded a contract for the acquisition. Deutsche Telekom said it expects the combination to result in savings of US$1.4 billion over the next few years.
■ JAPAN
Economy OK, minister says
Japan's economic recovery remains on track despite figures released yesterday that showed a jump in the nation's jobless rate and a continued decline in consumer prices, the economy minister said. In good news, the government said industrial production rebounded 3.4 percent last month after declining in July because of plant shutdowns after an earthquake hit north-central Japan, cutting supplies from a major auto parts maker. The jobless rate, meanwhile, rose to 3.8 percent last month from 3.6 percent a month earlier, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
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