■ AVIATION
Mitsubishi eyes Americas
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries said yesterday it would launch a sales drive for Japan’s first passenger jet in the Americas next month, hoping for a share of a large but crowded market for regional airliners. Mitsubishi is expected to face tough competition from established makers of similar jets in the region, including Canada’s Bombardier and Brazil’s Embraer. Mitsubishi’s aircraft division said it would put US$700,000 in the Texas-based sales subsidiary.
■ FINANCE
PRC fund pulls investment
China’s sovereign wealth investment company said it redeemed its investments from a US money market fund hit by soured debt before the fund suspended withdrawals last month. China Investment Corp’s (CIC, 中國投資公司) investment, through an affiliate called Stable Investment Corp, is not subject to the potential 3 percent losses the Reserve Primary Fund incurred through its investments in Lehman Brothers, CIC said in a statement yesterday on its Web site. “The fund has confirmed through written documents that it will pay back both principal and interest of our investment,” the CIC statement said.
■ ENERGY
Shoes generate electricity
Telecoms giant NTT is developing shoes that generate electricity as you walk. The shoes have a small generator attached to water-filled soles. Each step puts pressure on the soles, causing the water to spin a small turbine and generate power, NTT said. The futuristic shoes generate 1.2 watts of electricity, “a level sufficient to run an iPod mobile music player forever, as long as the wearer keeps walking,” spokesman Hideomi Tenma said. “The company is trying to improve the power-generating capacity to 3 watts, which is the amount of electricity to power a mobile phone,” he said.
■ TELECOMS
Singapore addicted to SMS
Phone users in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur are Asia’s most enthusiastic senders of text messages, a survey released yesterday showed. More than 97 percent of cellphone users in Singapore sent text messages in the past month, followed by 96 percent of people in Kuala Lumpur and 94 percent of people in Seoul, the survey found. The region’s lowest rates of text messaging were found in Hong Kong, at 85 percent, and Bangkok, at 69 percent, it said. The survey was conducted by market research firm Synovate.
■ INTERNET
Google gets royal visit
Google added a picture of Queen Elizabeth to the logo on its British homepage yesterday to mark her visit to its London offices. The image, known as a Google Doodle, showed the queen in profile and a crown above the letter E of Google. The queen and the Duke of Edinburgh were to tour Googel’s British headquarters, a short walk from Buckingham Palace in central London.
■ BEVERAGES
Coca-Cola profits leap
US soft-drink giant Coca-Cola reported better than expected third-quarter profits on Wednesday, which it attributed to international sales that gained an extra lift from the Beijing Olympics and a weak US dollar. Third-quarter net profit leapt 14 percent to US$1.89 billion. Earnings per share of US$0.83 were 17 percent higher year-on-year. Most analysts had forecast earnings per share of US$0.77.
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
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