■ LOGISTICS
UPS urged to retain jobs
The Philippine government will ask United Parcel Service (UPS) to retain some operations in the country after the US logistics giant announced it was relocating to southern China, President Gloria Arroyo’s spokeswoman said yesterday. UPS on Wednesday announced the planned transfer of its hub to a more centrally located US$180 million facility to be built at Shenzhen airport. The announcement represents an investment blow to the Philippines, which also faces a possible exit by Intel Corp from its second offshore assembly operations center in Asia. Arroyo spokesman Lorelei Fajardo told reporters the airport authorities at Clark airport north of Manila, where UPS had built its US$300 million intra-Asia hub in 2002, were in talks with the US firm’s representatives to explore alternatives to its planned downsizing.
■INVESTOR SERVICES
Agency to review ratings
Moody’s Investors Service shares fell sharply on Wednesday as the credit ratings agency said it was reviewing whether computer errors wrongly assigned top-quality ratings to debt in Europe that did not warrant high marks. Moody’s said in a statement after the market closed on Wednesday that it had hired a law firm to conduct an outside review of how it rates the debt in question, which was aimed at institutional investors. Moody’s said it rated about US$4 billion of the debt in Europe known as constant-proportion debt obligations, or CPDOs. The disclosure follows a Financial Times report that Moody’s incorrectly gave triple-A ratings to the CPDOs. The report also cited internal documents that it said indicated some senior officials at Moody’s were aware early last year of the error.
■JAPAN
Economy holding up: IMF
The Japanese economy is holding up well in the face of the US economic slowdown, but interest rates still need to be kept low until uncertainty over the outlook clears, the IMF said yesterday. The IMF urged Asia’s largest economy to make efforts to reduce its huge public debts and take measures to address the demands from its aging population. “We see the economy as showing a welcome resilience to the slowdown in the US and global markets so far,” said Daniel Citrin, deputy director of the IMF’s Asia and Pacific Department.
■TRADE
Chinese toy exports slowing
The rapid growth in China’s toy exports slowed dramatically in the first quarter of this year, hurt by higher production costs, a stronger currency and safety concerns, a state news agency said yesterday. Toy exports from January through March grew by 3 percent, down from a 23.6 percent growth rate in the same period last year, Xinhua news agency said. Toy exports for the quarter totaled US$1.5 billion, the agency said, citing China’s customs agency.
■BANKING
UBS sells subprime assets
Swiss bank UBS AG said on Wednesday it sold subprime and other mortgage-based securities with a nominal value of US$22 billion for US$15 billion to a newly created investment fund run by US asset manager BlackRock Inc. The sale is part of an attempt by Switzerland’s largest bank to offload risky positions that contributed to its massive writedown of US$37.4 billion over the past nine months. The securities had a nominal value of about US$22 billion, but have been listed with a book value of US$15 billion since March, UBS said.
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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