■ COMPUTERS
Makers issue battery recall
Computer makers are recalling 100,000 laptop battery packs made by Sony Corp after 40 reports of overheating, a US Consumer Product Safety Commission notice said on Thursday. The recall applies to certain Sony 2.15Ah lithium-ion cell batteries made in Japan and sold around the world in laptops made by Hewlett-Packard Co, Dell Inc and Toshiba Corp. Twenty-one of the reports claimed minor property damage, and small burns were reported in four cases. Sony blamed two factors for the defects: adjustments on its manufacturing line from October 2004 to June 2005, which may have affected the quality of cells in certain production lots, and a possible flaw in the metal foil for electrodes.
■ BANKING
Barclays seeking capital
Barclays PLC said yesterday it was seeking up to £7.3 billion (US$11.8 billion) from Middle Eastern investors to avoid resorting to a British government bailout. The money would come from investment funds and royal families in Qatar and Abu Dhabi. Yesterday’s announcement follows an earlier £4.5 billion cash call by the bank in June. Barclays said the investment would enable it to meet new rules on banks’ capitalization ordered by Britain’s financial regulators. “The board believes that this maintains Barclays as a strong, independent and well capitalized bank,” chairman Marcus Agius said.
■ BANKING
Mizuho halves profit target
Japan’s second-largest bank, Mizuho Financial Group, said yesterday it had slashed its net profit target for this year by more than half in the face of global financial turmoil. Mizuho forecast a 19.7 percent drop in net profit to ¥250 billion (US$2.5 billion) in the fiscal year to March, well short of a previous forecast of ¥560 billion. It blamed the falling stock market, rising corporate bankruptcies and the collapse of Wall Street bank Lehman Brothers. The bank said it made a net profit of about ¥94 billion in the six months to September, down sharply from ¥327.06 billion a year earlier, missing its target of ¥250 billion. Mizuho, one of Japan’s three megabanks, saw its profits roughly halved last year amid heavy losses from the subprime loan crisis in the US.
■ ICELAND
PM warns of huge deficit
Prime Minister Geir Haarde said on Thursday the total cost of the nation’s banking crisis could amount to 1.1 trillion Icelandic crowns (US$9.4 billion), or 85 percent of last year’s GDP. According to a statement released by the prime minister’s office, Haarde told parliament the budget deficit next year could be as high as 10 percent of economic output, pushing gross debt — which stood at 29 percent of GDP at the end of last year — above 100 percent by the end of next year. Its GDP last year was around US$11 billion.
■ AUTOMOBILES
Toyota to reopen US plants
Toyota Motor Corp said yesterday it would reopen three US factories after a three-month suspension in the face of falling US demand, using them to produce exports for the Middle East and Latin America. The factories in Texas, Indiana and Alabama will resume producing Sequoia sports utility vehicles and Tundra pick-up trucks by the middle of this month, Japan’s largest automaker said. Toyota’s sales are expected to fall this year for the first time in a decade amid the global slowdown. Toyota’s sales in the US plunged 29.5 percent in September.
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 —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat
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