■AUTOMOBILES
Government targets investors
The British government is taking legal action to bar four investors involved in the collapse of automaker MG Rover from any company management positions, British Business Secretary Peter Mandelson said yesterday. The businessmen, known as the Phoenix Four, reportedly collected millions in pay and pensions from the company before its collapse, a report released by Mandelson’s department said. Former Rover executives John Towers, Peter Beale, John Edwards and Nick Stephenson responded angrily, calling the report a “witch hunt” and a “whitewash for the government.” MG Rover went into administration in 2005 and its assets were later sold to China’s Nanjing Automobile Group (南京汽車).
■CHINA
Dollar advises diversity
It makes sense for China to diversify its huge stockpile of foreign exchange reserves, the US Treasury’s economic and financial emissary to China said yesterday. China’s forex reserves, the world’s biggest stockpile, stood at US$2.13 trillion at the end of June. China has expressed concerns in the past about the value of its holdings of US Treasuries, as massive US debt offerings pose the risk of eroding the value of dollar assets. “The general issue is that China has a huge amount of reserves and it makes some sense to diversify what you put these reserves [into],” David Dollar told a meeting of the World Economic Forum in the Chinese city of Dalian. “It’s healthy to have a wide and different type of reserve currencies,” he said.
■BANKING
Banks deny Myanmar links
Two Singapore banks have rejected a report by a US-based rights group that said Myanmar’s ruling junta deposited billions of dollars with them. DBS Group Holdings and Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp (OCBC) said in separate statements late on Thursday that there was no truth in the report by EarthRights International (ERI). ER had said in a report released on Thursday that energy giants Total and Chevron were propping up the Myanmar military regime with a gas project that allowed the junta to stash almost US$5 billion in the two Singaporean banks.
■AVIATION
Pilots, management to meet
Pilots of India’s Jet Airways were scheduled to hold a meeting yesterday with the airline management and the government’s chief labor commissioner to resolve a four-day strike that has led to the cancelation of more than 800 flights. Operations at India’s second-largest private airline remained disrupted as more than 150 flights across the country were canceled yesterday, the airline’s Web site said. At least 400 pilots have been on mass sick leave since Tuesday to protest the sacking of two pilots by the airline.
■ELECTRONICS
Console price cuts work
Sony and Microsoft sold more game consoles last month after they cut prices, helping ease the overall decline in the US video-game market. Last month sales of Sony’s PlayStation 3 console gained 13 percent from a year earlier, the first increase in 10 months, and those of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 rose 10 percent, researcher NPD Group said on Thursday. Nintendo’s Wii console, the industry leader, slumped 39 percent to 277,400 units, NPD said. Sony cut the price of the PS3 by 25 percent on Aug. 19 and Microsoft lowered the price of its most powerful console, the Xbox 360 Elite, by a similar proportion to US$300 on Aug. 27.
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
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat
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