- IV.
International
. Asia’s largest economies are sinking the spoils of their
trade surpluses with the purchase of US Govt. securities,
financing much of widening US federal budget deficit.
. Asian
leaders
are ignoring a potential Africa-like HIV/AIDS crisis and treating
it like an infection that will affect only high-risk groups, the
UN said.
. The
Mekong River Commission’s scientists said more research was
necessary in order to understand the Mekong River’s ecology and
the effects it has on Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Burma &
Thailand. The river provides an annual harvest of 2 million
metric tons of fish worth $1.4 billion.
. Citing
recent security snafus, Japan, China and South Korea, are mulling
an effort to create an open source alternative to Microsoft’s
operating systems. It would be built on Linux, but include extra
security.
. Parliamentarians from across Asia, from
Tokyo to Istanbul, proposed forming a single Asian parliament
patterned after the European, Latin American and African
parliaments, to ensure peace, security and economic stability in
the region.
. The managing director of the International Monetary
Fund wrapped up a visit to China by reiterating his
agency’s call for a freely traded currency, while adding that he
does not expect such a change to occur soon.
.
A coalition of major US businesses and labor groups is considering
asking for a federal investigation into alleged currency
manipulation by China.
.
DaimlerChrysler
will invest $1.1 billion with a Chinese partner to make
Mercedes cars and trucks in China in a bid of a larger
market share.
. In Chongqing, authorities are
building massive infrastructure projects in hopes of bringing China’s
economic miracle inland. But the city has far to go before it
becomes a coastal-style investment management for western China.
.
Advertising spending in China is rising as companies
compete to win over consumers and capture future riches. But first
they must overcome cultural hurdles and state censors.
.
China’s military reportedly conducted the first test
fight of a plane jointly developed with Pakistan; plans to export the Xiao Long FC-1, whose
capabilities rival the F-16.
. China is mad at US because Pres. Bush
and members of Congress met with the Dalai Lama last week in
Washington.
. Widespread
corruption is the main factor fueling real estate war in China.
. Hongkong Airport Authority
revived plans to sell as much as $500 million in bonds, six months
after delaying its first global offering because of the SARS
outbreak.
. Guiness
Atkinson China
and Hongkong Fund rose an average annual 12.8% in the 5
years ended August 21.
. Japan’s economy grew 1.0% in Q2, compared with the
preliminary estimate of 0.6%, the Govt. said.
. Japan
Air Lines
will lease seven Boeing 767-300ER jetliners from Mitsubishi.
The new planes will replace aging DC-10s.
. Intel
will
invest $23 million more in Elpida, Japan’s last bigmaker
of PC memory chips.
. US warned Taiwan that failure to crack down on
copyright pirates will have serious consequences on trade
relations and the islands’ high tech industry.
. Hynix (South Korean chipmaker)
is in final talks to sell its nonmemory chip assets to Citigroup
for $500 million, Korea Economic Daily said.
. Six
nations agreed to continue talks at an unspecified date on North
Korea’s nuclear program. US vowed not to give in to
blackmail. China said it would continue economic aid to North
Korea.
.
China
has deployed up to 150k troops on its border with North Korea
to deter Pyongyang’s nuclear buildup and contain mounting
violence from rogue North Korean soldiers, according to a
recent report.
. Money raised from the sale of debt papers help
finance this year’s budget deficits in the Philippines,
which is seen to reach P202 billion. For 2003, the Govt. wants to
borrow 52% of its funding needs from the local market, and the
other 48% from abroad.
. San
Miguel Corp
bought a $20-million property in an industrial estate in Rayong,
Thailand, as part of its Asia-Pacific expansion program.
. Secretary
of Defense quit, warning of a well-funded plot to destabilize the
country.
.
SEC has ordered Power Homes Unlimited Corp to immediately
return the investment of its over 100k members and refrain from
holding seminars or training intended to attract more investors.
. The
Asian Development Bank has released a $15-million loan to
Philippine Export-Import Credit Agency (PhilExim) for relending to
the small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
. The Health Ministry of Singapore has
quarantined 25 people who had contacts with a man confirmed as
having SARS, the first new case since the epidemic was contained
in July.
. An attempt to reorder Malaysia’s sugar
import-quota system is rejected by the Govt. on the ground that
the existing arrangement has served the country and the consumer
well. Price controls and licensing will continue to shape the
domestic sugar industry.
. In search of warmer climates and lower costs
of living, more Japanese retirees are choosing to live in S.E.
Asia, e.g., Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia to stretch
further their savings and pension.
.
Unidentified people are believed to have breached the Official
Secrets Act by making available classified information from
the Budget before it was tabled in Parliament.
. Four suspected Jemaah Islamiyah members have been
arraigned for plotting terrorist attacks on 5 embassies in
Thailand and tourist spots in Pattaya and Phuket.
. Law
firms representing Japanese creditors of Siam Strip Mill (SMM)
plan to appeal again to the Supreme Court by the end of this month
in an attempt to overturn a contentious bankruptcy court ruling.
. The
Bank of Thailand banned local banks from lending securities to
nonresidents under a new measure aimed at clamping down on
currency speculation.
. Cambodia’s National Election Committee declared Hun Sen’s
Cambodia People’s Party as the poll winner, but it failed to
secure the two-thirds majority needed to rule in its own right.
. ASEAN
trade ministers met in Pnom Penh with
a call for economic integration aimed at achieving a single
market. It is envisioned that the community will be set up by 2020
with a common market of 530 million where tariffs would be
eliminated.
. A
Singapore-owned hotel in Cambodia has been ordered to pay
compensation t its employees after an arbitration panel found
“service charges collected” from guests by the hotel were not
passed on to workers.
. Ten Vietnamese businessmen, five South Korean
men and 185 women from the southern Mekong Delta region have been
arrested in Ho Chi Minh City after a wife-selection racket
was uncovered.
. The
Foreign Ministry says a recently amended penal code had reduced
the number of crimes, for which death sentences are imposed, to 29
from 44. Amnesty International is critical in that the statute
books still include robbery, embezzlement and fraud as punishable
by death.
. China
and Vietnam have great potential for cooperation in many
fields, and cooperative relations between the two countries will
go to new heights, said the General Secretary of the Communist
Party.
. The US State Dept. has warned of new security threats
in Laos, after 5 people were killed in an ambush on a bus.
The guerrillas, mainly from the Hmong minority, have waged a
low-level insurgency for nearly 3 decades.
. The 2003 election period in Battambang,
the country’s second most populous province, saw likely to
political killings and fewer cases of intimidation, but around
twice as many cases of vote-buying.
. The
poor battle for land rights. With the passage of the 2001 land
law, many saw hope for the 200k people still mired in land
disputes. Many are landless. A 2000 study by Oxfam GB found more
than 12% of the population was landless and predicted a “steep
increase” in the future.
. With the bombings in Mumbai (India),
extremists signal new deadly ambitions and leave city residents
wondering whether more violence is still to come.
