■ FINANCE
Standard opens in Jiangxi
Standard Chartered Plc, which runs 13 branches in China, will be the first foreign lender to open an outlet in Nanchang City, Jiangxi Province, the state-run Xinhua news agency said. The branch was approved by the nation's banking regulator this month and will be the London-based bank's first in the central part of the country, Xinhua said. Standard Charted incorporated operations in China last March before receiving a license for local-currency business.
■ JAPAN
Former minister speaks out
Former economy minister Heizo Takenaka said the country needs "strong" measures to revitalize its economy. Possible steps may include reducing corporate taxes and extending operations around the clock at Tokyo's Haneda Airport, Takenaka said on a news program broadcast by TV Asahi. He did not elaborate. The former minister also said he expected the US to inject public funds to ease the impact of the subprime crisis. "Sooner or later, the US will take this measure," Takenaka said.
■ AUTOMOBILES
Hyundai wins Qatar project
Hyundai Engineering & Construction Co, South Korea's largest builder by market value, received US$301 million of orders from Qatar to build power-generation facilities. Qatar General Electricity & Water Corp placed a US$201 million order for a transformer substation, Hyundai Engineering said in a statement yesterday. Hyundai Engineering also won a US$100 million power cabling contract from the company, also known as Kahramaa. The substation will take 30 months, while the cabling contract will be completed in 23 months, it said.
■ TRADE
Peru, China reach deal
Peru and China have agreed to boost trade and investment between their countries ahead of a free trade deal planned for November, Peruvian President Alan Garcia said. The countries, whose trade balance reached US$5.3 billion last year, will in coming months sign a preliminary partnership to increase commerce more than fourfold by 2015, Garcia told local media on Friday night, after a six-day visit to China and Japan. They plan to ink a formal trade deal during the annual APEC forum, to be held in Peru in November, Garcia said, giving no details on tariff reductions or other preferential terms of trade. China is Peru's second-largest commercial partner after the US.
■ TELECOMS
DoCoMo eyeing Android
NTT DoCoMo Inc may start employing a mobile phone-operating system developed by Google Inc by 2010, the Yomiuri Shimbun said. The move would allow DoCoMo to simplify the platform software for mobile phones and gain better access to growing markets in other Asian countries, the report said, without saying where it obtained the information. The operating system, known as Android, was developed by Google and a group known as the Open Handset Alliance. DoCoMo previously developed a mobile phone operating system for domestic customers in Japan, the report said. Some Japanese mobile-phone handset makers have withdrawn their businesses because of shrinking demand at home, it said.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
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