■ ENERGY
Brazil, Peru sign accords
Brazil and Peru have agreed to work together to boost production of biofuels, hydroelectric power and petrochemicals as two of the region’s biggest countries seek to ensure future energy supply. A statement from Peru’s presidency says the neighbors will support biofuels and hydropower. Brazil is the world’s largest ethanol exporter. Companies including US-owned Maple Energy already plan to produce ethanol from sugarcane grown and distilled on Peru’s Pacific coast.
■ ENERGY
Sharp joins solar deal
Japanese electronics maker Sharp Corp has agreed with Enel SpA to jointly set up solar power plants in Italy, a newspaper said yesterday. Sharp, one of the world’s largest makers of solar power panels, and the second largest power company in Europe plan to begin operation by 2011, the Nikkei Shimbun business daily said. The solar power plants will have a combined output capacity of more than 160 megawatts, which will be one of the world’s largest solar power operations, the newspaper said. The two firms are also considering building a plant in Italy to produce thin-film solar cell panels. The tie-up with Enel is Sharp’s first step to a further expansion in its solar power operation overseas. By building overseas plants, Sharp aims to raise its annual production capacity for solar cell panels to 6,000 megawatts from the current 710 megawatts. Sharp is stepping up efforts to boost its clean energy business by gaining a foothold in Europe, where the governments provide subsidies to buy solar power at high prices, Nikkei reported.
■ ENERGY
Ecuador hopes for buy out
Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa says Quito wants to buy out private oil companies unwilling to negotiate new deals with his government. Correa has asked companies now suing over an October decree that slashed their share of windfall oil profits to 1 percent to drop their lawsuits. The government on Friday offered to boost those companies’ share of soaring windfall profits to 30 percent. If companies aren’t happy with that offer, Correa says his government will buy their assets at “a fair price.”
■ MALAYSIA
Mahathir warns Johor
Wealthy Singaporean investors may force ethnic Malays from a Malaysian state that is being touted as a key economic zone, former premier Mahathir Mohamad has said. The government launched an ambitious project in 2006 to transform the idyllic southern Johor State into a metropolis to woo foreign investment and compete with Singapore for manufacturing and logistics businesses. Mahathir said the 17.7 billion ringgit (US$4.8 billion) Iskandar Malaysia project was aimed at luring Singaporean investors and could see Malays forced out. “After the land is sold, the Malays will be driven to live at the edge of the forest and even in the forest itself,” Mahathir said in a weekend speech in Johor, the Star newspaper reported.
■ BANKING
Doha Bank receives bids
Doha Bank Ltd, Qatar’s fifth-biggest lender by market value, said it received bids for five times the stock it offered investors in a share sale to raise money for expansion. Shareholders placed bids worth 5.55 billion riyals (US$1.53 billion) for the 22.5 million shares offered to raise 1.12 billion riyals, Doha Bank said in a filing to Qatar’s stock market yesterday.
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 —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat
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