■AUTOMOBILES
Group lobbies for subsidy
Carmakers need a government subsidy to roll out the vehicles that Australians want to buy, an industry lobby group said yesterday. Federal Chamber of Automotive Industry spokesman Andrew McKellar said the government should help pay for the shift to more fuel-efficient vehicles from gas-thirsty cars as part of its response to the challenge of climate change. “We have to ensure those new technologies that will support achieving these objectives that they are coming into the marketplace, they are being taken up in terms of new vehicles being manufactured in Australia as well as being made available more broadly across the market,” he said. The government has already promised US$450 million in subsidies for the production of a “green car.”
■TELECOMS
Qatar firm wins court case
Qatar Telecom QSC, which paid US$1.8 billion in June to buy a 40.8 percent stake in Indonesia’s PT Indosat, said the Indonesian Supreme Court had thrown out the legal challenge to its ownership of the stake. “The Supreme Court’s decision today removes the District Court’s order and allows us to keep the shares we acquired in June” in Indonesia’s second-biggest mobile phone operator, Qtel chairman Sheikh Abdullah bin Mohammed Bin Saud al-Thani said in a statement posted on the Doha bourse Web site yesterday. Qatar Telecom is in the process of starting a tender to buy more Indosat shares, the statement said.
■HONG KONG
New slogan being sought
The government is spending hundreds of thousands of US dollars looking for a new slogan to replace the boast of “Asia’s World City,” a news report said yesterday. The territory has spent US$160,000 hiring multi-national communications company Fleishmann- Hillard to supervise the task, the Sunday Morning Post reported. Another US$64,000 is being spent on setting up a Web site for people to offer their ideas on a new slogan and image for the territory of 6.9 million people. The new slogan is expected to compete against regional slogans such as “Malaysia Truly Asia.”
■LIVESTOCK
China open to trotters
The German pork industry, Europe’s largest, is turning its attention to China, not only a vast market, but one with a taste for pigs’ ears, feet and other delicacies that are shunned at home. After two years of negotiations, Berlin sealed a deal last week in Beijing opening the door to China for German pork. “It is extremely positive,” said Michael Stab, in charge of the meat sector for the German Farmers Association. “There is demand for products that are not worth much here, such as trotters and ears, and we are going to try to get quite a good price for them.” The US, Denmark, France and Canada are the biggest meat suppliers to China.
■INDIA
Inflation slowing down
Indian prices of primary articles including food and oil seeds increased at a slower pace in the past 12 months than in the previous year, the government said. Prices of food and non-food articles such as oil seeds and minerals rose by 7.86 percent on average as of Aug. 30, slower than the 9.49 percent annual rate a year earlier, the finance ministry said in an e-mailed statement. Annual inflation remains at a 16-year high, rising three times since the beginning of the year.
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
SHIFT: Taiwan’s better-than-expected first-quarter GDP and signs of weakness in the US have driven global capital back to emerging markets, the central bank head said The central bank yesterday blamed market speculation for the steep rise in the local currency, and urged exporters and financial institutions to stay calm and stop panic sell-offs to avoid hurting their own profitability. The nation’s top monetary policymaker said that it would step in, if necessary, to maintain order and stability in the foreign exchange market. The remarks came as the NT dollar yesterday closed up NT$0.919 to NT$30.145 against the US dollar in Taipei trading, after rising as high as NT$29.59 in intraday trading. The local currency has surged 5.85 percent against the greenback over the past two sessions, central
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