■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.
AT RISK: The council reiterated that people should seriously consider the necessity of visiting China, after Beijing passed 22 guidelines to punish ‘die-hard’ separatists The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has since Jan. 1 last year received 65 petitions regarding Taiwanese who were interrogated or detained in China, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday. Fifty-two either went missing or had their personal freedoms restricted, with some put in criminal detention, while 13 were interrogated and temporarily detained, he said in a radio interview. On June 21 last year, China announced 22 guidelines to punish “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists,” allowing Chinese courts to try people in absentia. The guidelines are uncivilized and inhumane, allowing Beijing to seize assets and issue the death penalty, with no regard for potential
STILL COMMITTED: The US opposes any forced change to the ‘status quo’ in the Strait, but also does not seek conflict, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said US President Donald Trump’s administration released US$5.3 billion in previously frozen foreign aid, including US$870 million in security exemptions for programs in Taiwan, a list of exemptions reviewed by Reuters showed. Trump ordered a 90-day pause on foreign aid shortly after taking office on Jan. 20, halting funding for everything from programs that fight starvation and deadly diseases to providing shelters for millions of displaced people across the globe. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has said that all foreign assistance must align with Trump’s “America First” priorities, issued waivers late last month on military aid to Israel and Egypt, the
‘UNITED FRONT’ FRONTS: Barring contact with Huaqiao and Jinan universities is needed to stop China targeting Taiwanese students, the education minister said Taiwan has blacklisted two Chinese universities from conducting academic exchange programs in the nation after reports that the institutes are arms of Beijing’s United Front Work Department, Minister of Education Cheng Ying-yao (鄭英耀) said in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) published yesterday. China’s Huaqiao University in Xiamen and Quanzhou, as well as Jinan University in Guangzhou, which have 600 and 1,500 Taiwanese on their rolls respectively, are under direct control of the Chinese government’s political warfare branch, Cheng said, citing reports by national security officials. A comprehensive ban on Taiwanese institutions collaborating or
France’s nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and accompanying warships were in the Philippines yesterday after holding combat drills with Philippine forces in the disputed South China Sea in a show of firepower that would likely antagonize China. The Charles de Gaulle on Friday docked at Subic Bay, a former US naval base northwest of Manila, for a break after more than two months of deployment in the Indo-Pacific region. The French carrier engaged with security allies for contingency readiness and to promote regional security, including with Philippine forces, navy ships and fighter jets. They held anti-submarine warfare drills and aerial combat training on Friday in
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