■ STEEL
China may block merger
China has sanctioned state-owned companies to examine three possible strategies to block BHP Billiton's proposed takeover of mining giant Rio Tinto, the South China Morning Post reported yesterday. Citing unnamed sources, the daily said that strategies include forming a local consortium to bid for Rio Tinto, a joint bid by domestic and foreign firms, or purchasing Rio shares on the open market. "[Companies] have approval from the State Council to go ahead and get actively involved," one source was quoted as saying. China International Capital Corp and Bank of China International have been retained by the government in an overall advisory role, the report said.
■ BANKING
ECB to tackle inflation
European Central Bank (ECB) President Jean-Claude Trichet pledged, in an interview published yesterday, to focus on eurozone inflation and not let interest-rate cuts in the US and the UK distract the bank from tightening monetary policy. Speaking to the Financial Times in Frankfurt in an interview conducted on Dec. 13, Trichet said any evidence of "second-round effects" leading to an acceleration in inflation would be "decisive." The ECB's main interest rate currently stands at 4 percent. Eurozone inflation hit 3.1 percent last year, the highest level in six-and-a-half years owing to rising costs of energy and food products. ECB directors have a mandate to keep inflation slightly below 2 percent.
■ PHILIPPINES
Record remittances
More than 1 million Filipinos left for short-term work abroad this year, the Philippine labor department said yesterday. At this rate of deployment, the labor migrants would most likely send home a record US$14 billion to their families this year, Philippine Labor Secretary Arturo Brion said in a statement. A total of 1,012,954 Filipinos left for more than 190 countries between Jan. 1 and Dec. 9, representing a 1.1 percent rise from the figure a year ago, he said. Brion said annual remittances should "continue to approach, if not reach, US$14 billion for the first time in history by year-end 2007."
■ FINANCE
Japan mulling reforms
Japanese regulators have announced the largest financial market reforms in a decade in the face of hot competition to be Asia's financial hub. On Friday the Financial Services Agency unveiled a plan to enhance "the competitiveness of financial and capital markets" with deregulation and liberalization. The agency plans to submit the bills to parliament early next year to revise existing regulations, agency officials said. Under the latest package, Tokyo will remove ban on creating a comprehensive financial market to handle the trading of stocks, bonds and financial and commodity derivatives in two years.
■ SHIPBUILDING
Samsung wins huge orders
South Korea's Samsung Heavy Industries, the world's second-largest shipbuilder, said yesterday it had secured US$2.41 billion in new orders. The company said it won a US$1.15 billion contract to build two semi-submersible floating drilling rigs by September 2010 for an unidentified Russian client. Separately, clients in Africa and in the Americas ordered two oil drilling ships worth US$1.26 billion, which will be delivered by May 2011, it said.
SILENCING CRITICS: In addition to blocking Taiwan, China aimed to prevent rights activists from speaking out against authoritarian states, a Cabinet department said The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday condemned transnational repression by Beijing after RightsCon, a major digital human rights conference scheduled to be held in Zambia this week, was abruptly canceled due to Chinese pressure over Taiwanese participation. This year’s RightsCon, the world’s largest conference discussing issues “at the intersection of human rights and technology,” was scheduled to take place from tomorrow to Friday in Lusaka, and expected to draw 2,600 in-person attendees from 150 countries, along with 1,100 online participants. However, organizers were forced to cancel the event due to behind-the-scenes pressure from China, the ministry said, expressing its “strongest condemnation”
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) yesterday said the US faced a choice between an “impossible” military operation or a “bad deal” with Tehran, after US President Donald Trump disparaged Iran’s latest peace proposal. Negotiations between the two countries have been deadlocked since a ceasefire came into effect on April 8, with only one round of direct peace talks held so far. Iran’s Tasnim and Fars news agencies reported that Tehran had submitted a 14-point proposal to mediator Pakistan, but Trump was quick to cast doubt on it. “I will soon be reviewing the plan that Iran has just sent to us, but
A group affiliated with indicted Chinese immigrant Xu Chunying (徐春鶯) is to be dissolved for monitoring Chinese immigrants in Taiwan, a source said yesterday. Xu, the secretary-general of the Cross-Strait Marriage and Family Service Alliance, was indicted on March 24 on charges of violating the Anti-Infiltration Act (反滲透法). The alliance “illegally monitored" Chinese immigrants living in Taiwan on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Ministry of the Interior is expected to dissolve the organization in the coming days under provisions of the Civil Associations Act (人民團體法), the source said. Xu, who married a Taiwanese in 1993 and became a Republic
WHAT WAS ALL THAT FOR? Jaw Shaw-kong said that Cheng Li-wen had pushed for more drastic cuts and attacked him, just for the outcome to be nearly identical to his bill The legislature yesterday passed a supplementary budget bill to fund the purchase of separate packages of US military equipment, with the combined amount of spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.8 billion). The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their legislative majority to pass the bill, which runs until 2033 and has two main funding provisions. One was for NT$300 billion of arms sales already approved by the US for Taiwan on Dec. 17 last year, the other was for NT$480 billion for another arms package expected to be announced by Washington. The bill, which fell short of the NT$1.25
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