■ENERGY
EDF to replace chair
French Prime Minister Francois Fillon confirmed in an interview to be published yesterday that Pierre Gadonneix will be replaced as chairman of energy giant EDF, but he did not name his successor. “We have deemed it necessary to renew the company’s management, though I must pay homage to Pierre Gadonneix, who accompanied EDF’s smooth and successful transformation,” Fillon told the Journal du Dimanche newspaper. “We have defined the ideal profile” and the choice would not be a political one, he said. French financial daily Les Echos has reported that Veolia Environment president Henri Proglio will take over as EDF chairman. The French state owns 85 percent of EDF, which operates France’s 58 nuclear reactors, the world’s biggest network of atomic power plants.
■FINANCE
Creditors pursue Lehman
Belgian creditors of failed Wall Street investment bank Lehman Brothers have demanded some US$700 million from its administrator, local news media reported on Saturday. The five largest Lehman creditors in Belgium are Dexia bank at US$354.2 million, ING Belgium at US$125.2 million, Fortis at US$99.5 million, KBC at US$81.1 million and Axa Belgium at US$23.3 million, the Echo and De Tijd newspapers said. Others include energy firm Electrabel and financial cooperative Swift, as well as religious congregations and charitable organizations. The deadline for claims set by the US bankruptcy court was Sept. 22, more than a year after the shock failure of Lehman Brothers.
■TELECOMS
S Korea adjusts mobile fees
South Korea’s telecoms watchdog yesterday unveiled new guidelines on mobile phone fees following mounting complaints over high charges. When the guidelines take effect in November, fees for each household are likely to be cut by up to 8 percent, the Korea Communications Commission (KCC) said. Under the new rules, mobile operators will stop billing for ten-second chunks of time, a controversial system under which any extra second is rounded off to 10 seconds, and start charging per second. KCC also told the country’s mobile carriers to lower rates for long-term users and to cut fees for data services for Internet users.
■CHINA
Oil, steel profits fall
Profits at China’s oil producers, steel makers and other major industrial companies fell 10.6 percent in the first eight months of the year from the same period a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said yesterday. Total profits for the biggest Chinese industrial companies — those with annual revenues above 5 million yuan (US$732,000) — were 1.67 trillion yuan (US$245 billion) from January to last month, data showed. Hardest hit were the iron and steel sector, where profits declined by 71.7 percent, and the petroleum and natural gas industries, which suffered a 68.5 percent drop in profits. Profits in the power generation sector, however, increased by 194 percent. The report did not say why.
■EUROPE
ECB supports dollar
European Central Bank (ECB) President Jean-Claude Trichet said a strong US dollar is “very, very important for the stability of the global economy,” Corriere della Sera reported, citing an interview with the executive. The ECB is doing all it can to “ensure the stability of prices in the medium and long term,” Trichet was cited as saying by the daily.
LONG FLIGHT: The jets would be flown by US pilots, with Taiwanese copilots in the two-seat F-16D variant to help familiarize them with the aircraft, the source said The US is expected to fly 10 Lockheed Martin F-16C/D Block 70/72 jets to Taiwan over the coming months to fulfill a long-awaited order of 66 aircraft, a defense official said yesterday. Word that the first batch of the jets would be delivered soon was welcome news to Taiwan, which has become concerned about delays in the delivery of US arms amid rising military tensions with China. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said the initial tranche of the nation’s F-16s are rolling off assembly lines in the US and would be flown under their own power to Taiwan by way
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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