■FINANCE
Citigroup names new head
Troubled US banking giant Citigroup on Wednesday named as its new chairman Richard Parsons, a longtime top executive at media giant Time Warner, to steer it through its most challenging period. Parsons pledged to revamp the bank as it moves to split into two business entities amid retrenchments, massive losses and a deepening global financial crisis. Parsons will succeed Win Bischoff as chairman of the board of directors, effective Feb. 23. Bischoff, with the bank since 2000, will retire later this year.
■AUTOMAKERS
Hyundai profits plunge
Hyundai Motor’s fourth-quarter profit fell sharply as the South Korean automaker absorbed increased branding expenditure while sales fell in its home market. Hyundai Motor Co earned 243.6 billion won (US$177.6 million) in the three months ended Dec. 31, down 27.9 percent from 338 billion won in net profit posted a year earlier, it said in a release yesterday. The company, which, with affiliate Kia Motors Corp, forms the fifth-largest automotive group in the world, said sales in the quarter rose 1.1 percent to 8.83 trillion won from 8.74 trillion won. For all of last year, net profit declined 13.9 percent to 1.45 trillion won, while sales gained 5.1 percent to 32.2 trillion won.
■ELECTRONICS
LG posts loss in Q4
South Korea’s LG Electronics said yesterday it swung to a loss in the fourth quarter of last year, hit by big shortfalls at its flat-screen panel unit and tougher competition. Its net loss for the period stood at 671 billion won (US$489 million) compared to a 621 billion won net profit a year earlier. Sales increased 12.2 percent to 6.59 trillion won, but the operating balance recorded a 309 billion won loss from a 154 billion won profit a year earlier.
■ENTERTAINMENT
Disney trims management
Walt Disney Co said on Wednesday that it had offered severance packages to about 600 executives at its theme parks and resorts in the US to cut costs in the economic downturn. Disney said the voluntary separation plan was made to managers earning US$100,000 or more per year in an effort “to contain costs and maximize efficiency.” “Given the continued uncertainty of the economic environment, we must manage our business even more productively,” Walt Disney Parks and Resorts spokeswoman Leslie Goodman said in a statement.
■FINANCE
Belgium helps ailing KBC
Authorities in the Flanders region of Belgium have agreed to provide struggling bank KBC with 2 billion euros (US$2.6 billion) in exchange for a non-voting stake in its capital, KBC said yesterday. “The group is further strengthening its capital base by a two-billion-euro non-dilutive core capital issue to be subscribed by the Flemish regional government,” KBC said in a statement. “In addition, a stand-by core capital facility of 1.5 billion euros is also being provided,” it said.
■MALAYSIA
No hiring of foreign workers
The government has banned the hiring of new foreign workers in the manufacturing and services sectors amid fears the economic crisis will lead to more job losses for locals, reports said yesterday. Home Minister Syed Hamid Albar told the New Straits Times there was no reason to bring in foreigners after a report found 45,000 people would be laid off over Lunar New Year.
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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