■AVIATION
Qantas to slash senior jobs
Australian airline Qantas is planning to slash 100 senior executive jobs in response to the slump in global air travel, a report said yesterday. The move would also allow recently appointed chief executive Alan Joyce to stamp his authority on the country’s largest airline, the Australian Financial Review reported, citing unnamed senior sources at Qantas. It said the job losses, to be announced in coming weeks, came on top of the 1,500 positions Qantas announced it would scrap last July. The airline refused to comment on the report. A number of key executives have already left the company, including the head of engineering David Cox and chief financial officer Peter Gregg.
■GERMANY
Economy to contract 7%
Commerzbank AG said the German economy would contract as much as 7 percent this year, cutting its forecast after factory orders collapsed. “The recent collapse of order intake compels us to make a massive downward revision to our economic outlook,” Joerg Kraemer, chief economist at Commerzbank in Frankfurt, said in a note to clients yesterday. “We now expect the German economy to contract this year not only by 3 percent to 4 percent, but by 6 percent to 7 percent. And we have sharply lowered our forecasts for the euro-zone and the US.”
■OIL
Oil prices above US$52
Oil prices rose above US$52 a barrel yesterday in Asia, boosted by stronger Asian stock markets amid plans by the US government to buy bad assets from banks to contain the financial crisis. Benchmark crude for May delivery rose US$0.45 to US$52.52 a barrel by midday in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract edged up US$0.03 on Friday to settle at US$52.07, the first time crude ended the week above US$50 since last year. Dealers said the rally, which was given an extra boost by the US Federal Reserve’s decision to buy US$1.25 trillion of government bonds and mortgage-backed securities, continued yesterday as Asian equity markets rose in anticipation of more good news.
■FOREX
China favors US bonds
US Treasury bonds will remain central to China’s plans for investing its massive foreign exchange holdings, a deputy governor of the Chinese central bank said yesterday. “Investing in US Treasury bonds is an important element in China’s investment strategy and we will continue this practice,” Hu Xiaolian (胡曉煉) told reporters. China has been the top holder of US Treasury bonds since September, when it overtook Japan for the first time, US data showed. As of late January, it had accumulated a total of US$739.6 billion in US Treasury bonds.
■AUCTIONS
Antique toys sold off
KB Toys Inc co-founder Donald Kaufman’s decision to go ahead with auctioning off his antique toys in a recession turned out to be a good one. The first 1,500 lots of his 7,000-piece collection sold for a little more than the US$4 million high estimate in a three-day sale from last Thursday until last Saturday at Bertoia Auctions in Vineland, New Jersey. “Everyone kept saying, ‘Boy, the recession isn’t going on in this room,’” auction-house owner Jeanne Bertoia, 54, said in a telephone interview. The auction set a record for the 20-year-old company on a single sale. Kaufman, 78, sold his stake in KB Toys in 1981. He decided to part with his antiques two years ago to divest his assets and invest the proceeds.
BACK IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD: The planned transit by the ‘Baden-Wuerttemberg’ and the ‘Frankfurt am Main’ would be the German Navy’s first passage since 2002 Two German warships are set to pass through the Taiwan Strait in the middle of this month, becoming the first German naval vessels to do so in 22 years, Der Spiegel reported on Saturday. Reuters last month reported that the warships, the frigate Baden-Wuerttemberg and the replenishment ship Frankfurt am Main, were awaiting orders from Berlin to sail the Strait, prompting a rebuke to Germany from Beijing. Der Spiegel cited unspecified sources as saying Beijing would not be formally notified of the German ships’ passage to emphasize that Berlin views the trip as normal. The German Federal Ministry of Defense declined to comment. While
‘UPHOLDING PEACE’: Taiwan’s foreign minister thanked the US Congress for using a ‘creative and effective way’ to deter Chinese military aggression toward the nation The US House of Representatives on Monday passed the Taiwan Conflict Deterrence Act, aimed at deterring Chinese aggression toward Taiwan by threatening to publish information about Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials’ “illicit” financial assets if Beijing were to attack. The act would also “restrict financial services for certain immediate family of such officials,” the text of the legislation says. The bill was introduced in January last year by US representatives French Hill and Brad Sherman. After remarks from several members, it passed unanimously. “If China chooses to attack the free people of Taiwan, [the bill] requires the Treasury secretary to publish the illicit
A senior US military official yesterday warned his Chinese counterpart against Beijing’s “dangerous” moves in the South China Sea during the first talks of their kind between the commanders. Washington and Beijing remain at odds on issues from trade to the status of Taiwan and China’s increasingly assertive approach in disputed maritime regions, but they have sought to re-establish regular military-to-military talks in a bid to prevent flashpoint disputes from spinning out of control. Samuel Paparo, commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, and Wu Yanan (吳亞男), head of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Southern Theater Command, talked via videoconference. Paparo “underscored the importance
CHINA POLICY: At the seventh US-EU Dialogue on China, the two sides issued strong support for Taiwan and condemned China’s actions in the South China Sea The US and EU issued a joint statement on Wednesday supporting Taiwan’s international participation, notably omitting the “one China” policy in a departure from previous similar statements, following high-level talks on China and the Indo-Pacific region. The statement also urged China to show restraint in the Taiwan Strait. US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell and European External Action Service Secretary-General Stefano Sannino cochaired the seventh US-EU Dialogue on China and the sixth US-EU Indo-Pacific Consultations from Monday to Tuesday. Since the Indo-Pacific consultations were launched in 2021, references to the “one China” policy have appeared in every statement apart from the
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