■BANKING
Commerzbank asks for cash
Commerzbank, the second-biggest German bank, took the plunge and said yesterday that it would ask the government for 8.2 billion euros (US$10.5 billion) in cash and 15 billion euros more in debt guarantees. Commerzbank also posted a third-quarter net loss of 285 million euros and an operating loss of 475 million euros. The international financial crisis cost the bank 1.1 billion euros in losses from market operations, the statement said. Commerzbank said it had increased loan loss provisions to 628 million euros from 414 million euros, a sign the bank expects more turbulence in the future.
■BANKING
BPN to be nationalized
Portugal is planning to nationalize the troubled Banco Portugues de Negocios (BPN) in yet another rescue of a financial institution, Portuguese Finance Minister Fernando Teixeira dos Santos announced on Sunday at the end of a special Cabinet session. The government of Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates is to propose the nationalization before parliament, the finance minister said. BPN recently reported loses of 700 million euros and finds itself on the edge of bankruptcy, dos Santos said, adding that there were no prospects of the bank acquiring new reserves of liquidity any time soon.
■TECHNOLOGY
Hynix debt rating cut
Hynix Semiconductor Inc, the world’s second-largest memory chip maker, had its debt rating cut to three levels below investment grade at Moody’s Investors Service, which cited the company’s weaker credit profile and earnings. Hynix’s corporate family and senior unsecured bond ratings were cut to Ba3 from Ba2, affecting about US$500 million in debt securities, Moody’s said in a statement yesterday. Moody’s has a negative outlook on the ratings. The downgrade brings Hynix’s ratings at Moody’s in line with those assigned at Standard & Poor’s, which last week changed the outlook on the South Korean chip maker’s debt to negative. Hynix on Oct. 30 reported its biggest loss in at least seven years after a glut drove down prices of computer memory chips.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Economy to shrink next year
The economy will shrink for the first time since 1991 next year and debt will surge to more than 60 percent of GDP as British Prime Minister Gordon Brown ramps up spending, European Commission forecasts showed. The economy will contract 1 percent after expanding 0.9 percent this year, the EU’s executive arm said in a report published in Brussels yesterday. It will grow 0.4 percent in 2010. Debt will be 50.1 percent of GDP this year, 55.1 percent next year and 60.3 percent in 2010, the commission said. Brown and Chancellor of the Exchequer (finance minister) Alistair Darling signaled last week they would abandon a decade-old pledge to limit debt to 40 percent of GDP as they try to ease the effects of a likely recession on consumers and companies.
■METALS
Demand outstrips supply
China, the world’s largest consumer of aluminum, may need four times as much scrap aluminum as can be produced domestically, the China National Resources Recycling Association said. Scrap aluminum consumption may grow 25 percent to 11.8 million tonnes next year, whereas domestic output may rise by a similar rate to 3.3 million tonnes, the association said yesterday at a conference in Shanghai.
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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