■ENERGY
Temasek selling power firm
A Japanese-led consortium has won the bid for a Singaporean power company being sold by state-linked investment firm Temasek Holdings, sources told Dow Jones Newswires yesterday. Japan’s Marubeni Corp heads the consortium and will pay Temasek about US$2.5 billion for Senoko Power, they said. Senoko is the second of three local power generation firms Temasek is unloading as part of efforts to liberalize the domestic energy market. Temasek said in March that it had signed a share purchase agreement with SinoSing Power Pte Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of China Huaneng Group (華能), to sell Tuas Power Ltd for S$4.235 billion (US$2.96 billion). Temasek’s third power generator is Power Seraya.
■BUSINESS ETHICS
Court rules against Wal-Mart
Mexico’s Supreme Court on Thursday compared the practices of US retail giant Wal-Mart in Mexico to employer-worker relations during the dictatorship of former Mexican president Porfirio Diaz. The country’s top court backed a Wal-Mart employee who had complained that vouchers handed out by the company as part of its salary payments could only be spent in the company’s stores. The practice of vouchers “that come from the worker’s salary only to be exchanged in the management company’s establishment is similar to what happened in old company stores [during Diaz’s dictatorship],” the court said in its decision.
■BANKING
Seoul scraps limit on banks
South Korea will scrap the limit on purchases of non-deliverable forwards on the won, a finance ministry official said. The move will be effective from Sept. 8, Sohn Byung-doo, director in charge of the currency market at the ministry, said yesterday in Seoul. Banks may only buy a certain amount of this type of derivative. Non-deliverable forwards are derivatives that oblige traders to exchange one currency for another at a set price and date in the future. The derivatives are called “non-deliverable” because settlement is made in US dollars.
■MINING
Facility closed after deaths
BHP Billiton Ltd, the world’s largest mining company, suspended operations at its Western Australia iron ore mines following the second worker fatality in 10 days, the company said yesterday. Both deaths occurred at the company’s Yandi mine, in the Pilbara region, with the latest incident occurring on Thursday night after a collision between two vehicles, spokeswoman Samantha Evans said. Officials immediately halted operations at its Western Australia mines due to safety concerns, she said. The company did not know how long operations would remain suspended, Evans said.
■PHILIPPINES
Inflation hits new high
Inflation rose to its highest rate in nearly 17 years last month, climbing to 12.5 percent from a year ago, the government said yesterday. The National Statistics Office said the figure brings the country’s consumer price index for the first eight months of the year to 8.8 percent, up from 2.6 percent for the same period last year. It said prices for almost all commodities rose except for food, beverages and tobacco. The inflation rate last month was the highest since December 1991, when it was 13.2 percent.
STILL COMMITTED: The US opposes any forced change to the ‘status quo’ in the Strait, but also does not seek conflict, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said US President Donald Trump’s administration released US$5.3 billion in previously frozen foreign aid, including US$870 million in security exemptions for programs in Taiwan, a list of exemptions reviewed by Reuters showed. Trump ordered a 90-day pause on foreign aid shortly after taking office on Jan. 20, halting funding for everything from programs that fight starvation and deadly diseases to providing shelters for millions of displaced people across the globe. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has said that all foreign assistance must align with Trump’s “America First” priorities, issued waivers late last month on military aid to Israel and Egypt, the
France’s nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and accompanying warships were in the Philippines yesterday after holding combat drills with Philippine forces in the disputed South China Sea in a show of firepower that would likely antagonize China. The Charles de Gaulle on Friday docked at Subic Bay, a former US naval base northwest of Manila, for a break after more than two months of deployment in the Indo-Pacific region. The French carrier engaged with security allies for contingency readiness and to promote regional security, including with Philippine forces, navy ships and fighter jets. They held anti-submarine warfare drills and aerial combat training on Friday in
COMBAT READINESS: The military is reviewing weaponry, personnel resources, and mobilization and recovery forces to adjust defense strategies, the defense minister said The military has released a photograph of Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) appearing to sit beside a US general during the annual Han Kuang military exercises on Friday last week in a historic first. In the photo, Koo, who was presiding over the drills with high-level officers, appears to be sitting next to US Marine Corps Major General Jay Bargeron, the director of strategic planning and policy of the US Indo-Pacific Command, although only Bargeron’s name tag is visible in the seat as “J5 Maj General.” It is the first time the military has released a photo of an active
CHANGE OF MIND: The Chinese crew at first showed a willingness to cooperate, but later regretted that when the ship arrived at the port and refused to enter Togolese Republic-registered Chinese freighter Hong Tai (宏泰號) and its crew have been detained on suspicion of deliberately damaging a submarine cable connecting Taiwan proper and Penghu County, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement yesterday. The case would be subject to a “national security-level investigation” by the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office, it added. The administration said that it had been monitoring the ship since 7:10pm on Saturday when it appeared to be loitering in waters about 6 nautical miles (11km) northwest of Tainan’s Chiang Chun Fishing Port, adding that the ship’s location was about 0.5 nautical miles north of the No.
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