■MINING
Rio Tinto to cut production
Rio Tinto Ltd said yesterday it would cut production and jobs at an Australian diamond mine because of the global economic downturn. Underground expansion work at the Argyle Diamonds mine in the state of Western Australia would be “slowed to only critical development activities,” the company said in a statement. “Given global market conditions, we will also reduce diamond production by taking an extended maintenance shutdown of the diamond processing facilities for up to three months, commencing in March,” Argyle Diamonds chief operating officer Kevin McLeish said in the statement.
■SOFTWARE
Oracle cut 500 jobs: report
Oracle Corp eliminated about 500 jobs in its North American sales and consulting businesses last Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. The Redwood Shores, California, software maker had 33,526 employees in the Americas at the end of November and 86,657 worldwide, the report said. An Oracle spokeswoman declined to comment, the paper said.
■BANKING
RBS sells PRC bank stake
Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) sold its entire stake in Bank of China (中國銀行), the third-largest lender in China, for nearly US$2.37 billion, joining a recent string of investors who have cut their holdings in Chinese banks. RBS sold its 4.3 percent stake, about 10.8 billion shares, in the Bank of China for HK$1.71 per share, representing as 7.6 percent discount over Tuesday’s closing price, a person familiar with the matter said.
■COMPUTERS
Satyam names new auditors
India’s fraud-hit Satyam Computer Services Ltd named new auditors yesterday, the first step by the government-appointed board as the company battles for survival after unveiling the country’s biggest corporate scandal. KPMG and Deloitte were appointed as the auditors, said Deepak Parekh, a senior Indian banker and part of the outsourcer’s new three-member board. Satyam’s founder and chairman Ramalinga Raju quit last week and confessed the company’s profits had been falsely inflated for years. The new audit firms replace PricewaterhouseCoopers.
■THAILAND
Bank of Thailand cuts rate
Thailand’s central bank cut its interest rate more than economists expected for a second month after inflation cooled to the slowest pace in six years and political protests sent confidence to a record low. The Bank of Thailand lowered its one-day bond repurchase rate by three-quarters of a percentage point to 2.00 percent. “We still have lots of ammunition,” Duangmanee Vongpradhip, a Bank of Thailand assistant governor, told a press briefing. “Domestic demand continued to soften, both in consumption and investment, partly as a result of fragile sentiment. We can be less aggressive now as we see fiscal measures in place.”
■ECONOMY
China overtakes Germany
China’s economy overtook Germany’s in 2007 to become the world’s third largest, underscoring the nation’s increasing economic and political clout. Its GDP expanded 13 percent from a year earlier, more than a previous estimate of 11.9 percent, to 25.731 trillion yuan (US$3.38 trillion), the statistics bureau said on its Web site yesterday. That topped Germany’s 2.424 trillion euros (US$3.32 trillion), using average exchange rates for 2007.
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 —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
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
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