■JAPAN
More boosts may be needed
Tokyo is ready to take more stimulus measures if the deteriorating US economy continues to impact here, the finance minister said yesterday. Speaking on a program on the public broadcaster NHK, Finance Minister Shoichi Nakagawa cited US consumer spending at Christmas and the fates of troubled big US companies as among factors to watch. “These movements across the Pacific might affect Japan ... It is only natural that we carry out what is necessary, including fiscal, financial and tax measures, immediately after the second supplementary budget,” he said. The government is working on a second extra budget for the current fiscal year for submission to parliament possibly in January.
■SOUTH KOREA
Injection coming: report
Seoul’s central bank is likely to inject up to US$3.3 billion into a state fund aimed at easing a credit squeeze in the country’s debt market, a report said yesterday. The Financial Services Commission, the country’s financial watchdog, has promised to set up a 10 trillion won (US$6.7 billion) bond fund by pooling money from banks, pension funds and others. The Bank of Korea is highly likely to contribute up to 5 trillion won to the fund, which will be used to buy financial and corporate debts, Yonhap news agency said. It is scheduled to hold a policy meeting today to finalize the amount, Yonhap said.
■SWEDEN
Official goes salary-free
Lars Nordstrom isn’t the only official being criticized these days for earning too much money during the world financial crisis, but he may be one of the few who has reacted by deciding to work for free. Since becoming head of the Swedish postal service in July, Nordstrom has been paid 900,000 kronor (US$110,000) a month. And that is on top of the millions he receives in a retirement package from his previous job as chief executive officer of the banking group Nordea AB. The Swedish media have criticized Nordstrom for making more money as CEO of Posten Sverige AB than 45 letter carriers do, and seven times more than the prime minister. Nordstrom said on Saturday that he will give back all the money he has earned with the postal service and work for free from now on.
■BANKING
Dubai-based groups merge
Amlak Finance and Tamweel, two Dubai-based property finance groups with total assets of around US$7 billion, have begun a merger process, the WAM news agency reported on Saturday. The merger of the two banks under the supervision of UAE Real Estate Bank will create the largest real estate finance institution in the country, the UAE finance ministry said. “The merger of Amlak Finance and Tamweel is a milestone development for the UAE financial sector,” a ministry official said. The combined group will be compliant with Islamic Shariah rules, which ban the charging of interest, WAM said.
■SAUDI ARABIA
Interest rate slashed
The government announced yesterday that it is slashing its key interest rate by one percentage point to 3.0 percent on softening inflationary pressures, al-Arabiya news channel reported. The Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency said it was reducing the repurchase (repo) rate, the country’s lending benchmark, by 100 basis points, the Dubai-based satellite channel said. It is the third cut in six weeks and the rate has almost halved since early last month, when it stood at 5.5 percent.
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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