■AUTOMOBILES
Porsche head avoids crisis
Porsche boss Wendelin Wiedeking has managed to steer clear of the immediate fallout of the global financial crisis, telling a German newspaper yesterday he has avoided investing in shares. “I’ve never had any shares” the CEO of the iconic German sports car manufacturer was quoted as saying in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Instead Wiedeking said he preferred to invest into real estate, start-up companies, and even restaurants. He said he had just realized one of his dreams by buying a cafe in the North-Rhine Westphalia region. “The cafe is doing very well, I can recommend it to everyone: good food, good beer and reasonable prices,” Wiedeking said.
■REAL ESTATE
Amlak, Tamweel to merge
The two largest property financiers in the booming Gulf emirate of Dubai — Amlak Finance PJSC and Tamweel PJSC — announced on Saturday that they have opened merger talks. The two firms said they had the blessing of Dubai emir Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, who is also vice president and prime minister of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), in a statement carried by the official WAM news agency. Tamweel chairman Sheikh Khaled bin Zayed bin Saqer al-Nahayan said that the major shareholders — Emaar Properties for Amlak Finance, and Dubai Islamic Bank and Dubai World for Tamweel — were “fully supportive of the merger discussions.” Amlak Finance chairman Nasser bin Hassan al-Sheikh, who is also director general of the Dubai finance department, said the merged firm would have a combined balance sheet of more than 27 billion UAE dirhams (US$7.35 billion).
■SEMICONDUCTORS
Chip exports plunge
South Korea, the world’s top memory chip producer, suffered a drop in semiconductor exports for a third straight month last month amid a market glut and a slow US economy, data showed yesterday. Statistics from the Ministry of Knowledge Economy, disclosed by Yonhap news agency, showed semiconductor exports plunged 9.9 percent year-on-year to US$2.96 billion last month, a consecutive fall since July. Semiconductors account for a quarter of the country’s exports of information technology goods, such as mobile handsets and flat TV or computer display screens, the ministry says. Market research firm iSuppli Corp warned in a statement online on Saturday that memory chip makers, reeling from a major downturn in business conditions, face difficulty in securing capital due to the US credit crunch. It said some memory chip suppliers could face serious liquidity issues in the near future.
■ECONOMICS
Japan mulls stimulus plans
Japanese Finance Minister Shoichi Nakagawa said the government might form economic packages in addition to the current stimulus plan being suggested. Liberal Democratic Party officials are urging lawmakers to approve ¥1.8 trillion (US$17 billion) of additional spending to help small companies cope with high oil and food prices before parliament is dissolved. Opposition and ruling party lawmakers haven’t agreed on a timetable to debate the legislation. Nakagawa hasn’t forgotten a promise of balancing the budget by fiscal 2011, he said yesterday on Asahi Television’s Sunday Project. Former Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi set a goal in 2006 of balancing the primary budget, which excludes interest payments, so Japan could start to cut debt that the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development estimates is about 180 percent of the economy.
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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