■ 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 —
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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