■TRADE
Geithner voices optimism
Efforts by the US and China to revive the global economy are starting to pay off, US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said yesterday. Geithner made his comments at a meeting with President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) wrapping up two days of talks in Beijing. “We’ve already demonstrated the capacity of our two countries to work together on the global stage, to lay a foundation for economic recovery, and I think partly because of the strength of the actions put in place by your government and by [US] President [Barack] Obama we’re starting to see some early signs of stabilization and recovery in the global economy,” Geithner told Hu.
■JAPAN
Economy has hit bottom
The Asian giant’s economy likely bottomed out in the first quarter of this year, but is unlikely to recover until late this year or early next year, Finance Minister Kaoru Yosano said yesterday. “I think that the economy has hit bottom” in the first quarter until March, he told reporters after a Cabinet meeting. “The economy will maintain this upward trend during and after the April-to-June quarter, and probably return to normal ... around the end of this year or by spring next year.” The country posted its worst growth figure during the January-to-March quarter as GDP shrunk by an annualized 15.2 percent.
■DEFENSE
Saab announces layoffs
Swedish aerospace and defense company Saab AB yesterday said it would lay off 370 office staff at its Saab Bofors Dynamics unit in Sweden. The company said staff in the central Swedish cities of Karlskoga, Eskilstuna and Linkoping, as well as in southwestern Goteborg would be affected by the layoffs. The redundancies will be implemented between this year and 2011 and are part of a long-term restructuring process, initiated as a result of declining orders from the Swedish armed forces, Saab said.
■COMPUTERS
EMC eyes Data Domain
US computer storage giant EMC Corp offered US$1.8 billion on Monday for Data Domain in a bid to counter a rival offer for the data storage company from NetApp. EMC, in a statement, said it was prepared to offer US$30 per share in cash for Data Domain, which NetApp offered to buy on May 20 for US$1.5 billion, or US$25 per share in a cash and stock deal. “EMC’s all-cash proposal is superior to the proposed NetApp transaction providing Data Domain stockholders greater value and certainty,” EMC said. “EMC’s all-cash offer represents a 20 percent premium to the cash and stock offer made by NetApp,” it said.
■AVIATION
Ryanair announces losses
Leading budget airline Ryanair reported its first annual pre-tax loss yesterday, saying it had gone into the red by 169 million euros (US$239 million) last year following a fuel bill increase of 59 percent. The loss run up by the end of March compared with a profit of 481 million euros in the previous year and came after Ryanair faced record oil prices and a hefty writedown on the value of its investment in rival Irish carrier Aer Lingus. The company said it had written down the value of its 29.8 percent stake in Aer Lingus by a further 222 million euros, after Aer Lingus’ share price fell.
Right-wing political scientist Laura Fernandez on Sunday won Costa Rica’s presidential election by a landslide, after promising to crack down on rising violence linked to the cocaine trade. Fernandez’s nearest rival, economist Alvaro Ramos, conceded defeat as results showed the ruling party far exceeding the threshold of 40 percent needed to avoid a runoff. With 94 percent of polling stations counted, the political heir of outgoing Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves had captured 48.3 percent of the vote compared with Ramos’ 33.4 percent, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal said. As soon as the first results were announced, members of Fernandez’s Sovereign People’s Party
EMERGING FIELDS: The Chinese president said that the two countries would explore cooperation in green technology, the digital economy and artificial intelligence Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday called for an “equal and orderly multipolar world” in the face of “unilateral bullying,” in an apparent jab at the US. Xi was speaking during talks in Beijing with Uruguayan President Yamandu Orsi, the first South American leader to visit China since US special forces captured then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro last month — an operation that Beijing condemned as a violation of sovereignty. Orsi follows a slew of leaders to have visited China seeking to boost ties with the world’s second-largest economy to hedge against US President Donald Trump’s increasingly unpredictable administration. “The international situation is fraught
MORE RESPONSIBILITY: Draftees would be expected to fight alongside professional soldiers, likely requiring the transformation of some training brigades into combat units The armed forces are to start incorporating new conscripts into combined arms brigades this year to enhance combat readiness, the Executive Yuan’s latest policy report said. The new policy would affect Taiwanese men entering the military for their compulsory service, which was extended to one year under reforms by then-president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in 2022. The conscripts would be trained to operate machine guns, uncrewed aerial vehicles, anti-tank guided missile launchers and Stinger air defense systems, the report said, adding that the basic training would be lengthened to eight weeks. After basic training, conscripts would be sorted into infantry battalions that would take
GROWING AMBITIONS: The scale and tempo of the operations show that the Strait has become the core theater for China to expand its security interests, the report said Chinese military aircraft incursions around Taiwan have surged nearly 15-fold over the past five years, according to a report released yesterday by the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Department of China Affairs. Sorties in the Taiwan Strait were previously irregular, totaling 380 in 2020, but have since evolved into routine operations, the report showed. “This demonstrates that the Taiwan Strait has become both the starting point and testing ground for Beijing’s expansionist ambitions,” it said. Driven by military expansionism, China is systematically pursuing actions aimed at altering the regional “status quo,” the department said, adding that Taiwan represents the most critical link in China’s
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