■ INFLATION
Chavez threatens seizures
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez threatened again on Friday to seize property from businesses if they are caught hoarding products, as Venezuela struggles with shortages of some basic foods and high inflation. Chavez warned that price speculation is occurring "at all levels of society, from the big capitalists to the small shopkeepers" and said his government could expropriate property from individuals or companies that purportedly sit on goods for months to sell later them at inflated prices. Annual inflation soared to 22.5 percent last year -- the highest official rate in Latin America -- the Central Bank said.
■ BIOTECHNOLOGY
France bans corn strain
France on Friday invoked an EU safeguard procedure to bar a strain of genetically modified corn after a watchdog said it had doubts about the product, the prime minister's office said. The government was invoking the procedure "until European authorities re-evaluate the authorization on commercialization" of the product, the prime minister's office said in a statement. It had decided to act on the "principle of precaution" after the watchdog authority's findings, it added. The government also announced it was investing 45 million euros (US$66 million) in vegetable biotechnology, an eight-fold increase over the current budget. US agricultural giant Monsanto, which produces the strain, has 15 days to present its defense.
■ LABOR
Hollywood talks to start
The Directors Guild of America and Hollywood's production companies said on Friday that they planned to start formal contract negotiations yesterday, promising a major break in the entertainment industry's troubled labor situation. News Corp president Peter Chernin and Walt Disney Co chief executive Robert Iger were earlier deputized by their fellow company chiefs to join top negotiators from the producers' alliance in seeking terms with directors, said several people who were briefed on the situation but asked for anonymity to protect the talks.
■ ECONOMY
UK GDP slows to 0.5%
UK economic growth slowed to the weakest pace in two years during the fourth quarter, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research estimated. The economy expanded 0.5 percent in the final quarter of last year, compared with 0.7 percent in the third quarter, the London-based group, which advises the Bank of England and the Treasury, said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. That would be the slowest pace since the third quarter of 2005. "This is a welcome moderation from a growth rate that has been persistently above trend for the past two years," the institute said. "We expect gross domestic product to be significantly below trend this year."
■ OIL
Crude futures tumble
World oil prices tumbled on Friday amid mounting fears the US economy could be tipping into a recession and amid reports of fresh unrest in Nigeria, a key oil-producing nation, traders said. New York's main oil futures contract, light sweet crude for delivery in February, closed down US$1.02 at US$92.69 per barrel. On the London market, Brent North Sea crude for February delivery tumbled US$1.15 to settle at US$91.07 per barrel. Oil prices have plummeted by as much as US$5 this week.
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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