. Secretary of State Colin Powell made his last
official visit to East Asia, hopping through Japan, China
and South Korea over 3 days with the crisis over North Korea’s
ambitions on the top of his agenda.
While VP Cheney expressed clear frustration with the pace
of diplomacy, Powell said last week that “this is an area
where you have to have patience and determination.”
. Earlier this year, both China and India
diverted tens of billions of dollar holdings to domestic
holdings with China pumping $45 billion into its banks and India
devoting $1 billion to infrastructure projects.
. China and India are no longer committed to
open-ended dollar buying. At the margin, this shift is negative
for the dollar and for US real interest rates.
. China’s leading trade fair got off to a roaring
start as buyers from around the world clogged roads and packed
hotels in the southern city of Guangzhou.
. Organizers said they invited 235k buyers; 27% moved
there the last time. An
estimated 13,330 companies showed their wares. The bi-annual
expo, known as the Canton Fair (or the Chinese Export
Commodity Fair) has traditionally been the main contact
point for foreign buyers looking to source from Chinese
companies.
. The sudden slowdown in the rate of growth of Chinese
car sales is focusing multinational manufacturers to reassess
their ambitions and product range in a market that has become
the most important source of growth for global car companies.
. Nearly 150 miners were killed by a gas explosion in
a coal shaft in central China, the highest toll in a series of
mine tragedies affecting the country’s hard-pressed energy
industry, said the government last week.
. A Chinese researcher in Beijing for the New York
Times has been formally arrested on suspicion of providing
state secrets to foreigners, e.g., report of planned retirement
of former president Jiang Zemin as head of China’s military.
. Rioters in Chongqing in central China burned
police cars and looted government buildings after a quarrel
between residents escalated into a riot involving up to 20,000
residents and officials said.
. China spurned Taiwanese president Chen
Shui-bian peace overtures, saying that his calls for easing
tensions were false.
. China dismissed Taiwanese concessions on direct
fights as maneuvers towards independence. China regards such
flights as an internal matter and warned the Taiwanese that
independence would lead to great disaster
. The poor performance of Hutchison Telecom
International Limited (HTIL) of Hong Kong was in
sharp contrast to the success of China Power International
due to the latter’s political connections to the Chinese
government.
. Political relations between Tokyo and Beijing are
cool largely because China says Japan shows a lack of
remorse for wartime atrocities.
. The advisory panel of academics and business leaders
said in its report to the prime minister that Japan should
consider acquiring the capability to attack foreign missile
bases preemptively, a reflection of nervousness about the
possible threat of North Korea.
. Feedback from passengers has prompted Japan
Airlines to improve passengers’ chances of sleeping on
some overnight flights. The service has been tested on flights
from Singapore to Tokyo’s Narita airport since 9/1 and will be
introduced on flights from Kuala Lumpur to Osaka, and from
Bangkok to Tokyo and Nagoya.
. Nintendo, the Japanese game maker, raised full-year net
profit forecast by 20%, citing a stronger dollar and solid
demand for software titles for its Gameboy Advance device.
. Peru submitted a new request to the Japanese
government seeking the extradition of former president Alberto
Fujimori so he can face corruption and corruption &
embezzlement charges, said officials at the Peruvian embassy in
Japan. So far Japan has rebuffed the request.
. Rescue
workers waded through sludge to search for victims of mudslides
caused by Japan’s deadliest typhoon (hurricane) in more than a
decade.
. North Korea dashed South Korea’s hopes of a
bilateral talk declaring there is no hope for progress unless
South Korea’s nuclear experiments are fully investigated.
. North Korea has trained as many as 600 computer hackers so they
could cause trouble to South Korea, US and Japan, said South
Korea’s Defense Ministry.
. South Korea’s regulator said it would investigate
Citigroup’s Korean operations following Japan’s decision to
shut down its banking unit.
. The IT sector is unlikely to recover until well into
the 2nd half of 2005, after Samsung Electronic
reported falling prices for flat screens and computer chips and
narrowing margins on mobile handsets.
. Over the last few months, Pres. Macapagal-Arroyo of
the Philippines has allowed Iraqi terrorists to determine
the location, mission and staying power of her nation’s
military commitments.
. She has acceded to China’s expansionist plans in
the South China Sea. She has also accepted nearly $100 million a
year in military, development and food aid from the US since the
9/11attack.
. The importance of indoor shopping malls to
Bangkok’s (Thailand) 12 million residents was
highlighted recently when the prime minister triggered a furor
by proposing to close them early each day to conserve energy.
. An Islamic militant group claiming to have
kidnapped two Indonesian women in Iraq demanded the
release of a jailed Indonesian cleric who refused to be freed in
exchange, saying hostage-taking is not in keeping with Islam.
. Indonesia’s election commission declared Susilo
Bambang Yudhoyono the winner in the presidential elections, but
the incumbent Megawati refused to concede defeat. She finally
relented.
. The new president received a doctorate in economics
after his election victory from the Bogor Institute of
Agriculture. His dissertation was on the role of agricultural
development in alleviating poverty.
. President Yudhoyono said he would focus on domestic
affairs cataloguing challenges from unemployment and corruption
to terrorism and separatist conflicts in the outlying provinces
of Aceh and Papua.
. He singled out the rising price of oil. He must soon
decide whether to cut the popular subsidies or risk wreaking the
national budget.
. Most of the cabinet ministers named by him were
described as advocating measured changes in the country.
. The post of attorney general has drawn the most
public interest because it is central to fighting graft in a
country ranked by Transparency International as among the
most corrupt in the world.
. His chief economic officer is a businessman and the
former head of the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce with
close ties to the Golkar Party of former President Suharto.
. Cambodian lawmakers opposed legislation to create a panel to
find a replacement for King Norodom Sihanouk who threw his
country into turmoil that he would step down due to poor health.
They failed.
. The new king, Prince Norodom Sihamoni, spent most of
is life in Europe as a ballet choreographer, dancer and
professor of classical arts.
. Prince Sihamoni was always considered his father’s
favorite son, returning to Phnom Penh for his father’s
birthday (who is now 81) and traveling to his side when he was
ill.
. Unlike his half-brother, Prince Norodom Renariddh,
Prince Sihamoni has remained distant from public life and is
little known among his subjects.
. India is drawing up plans to use some of its almost $120
billion of foreign exchange reserves to fund domestic
infrastructure projects in a step that has no precedent
elsewhere.
. India just spends $2 billion a year on its road
network, compared worth $3 billion spent in neighboring China.
. Senior officials say India’s reserves which
have tripled in the past 3 years are more than enough to cover
any exchange rate shock, amounting to almost 20 months worth of
imports.
. Economists say India needs to upgrade its
infrastructure drastically if it is to raise annual growth from
6% to 8%.
. India’s government declined an opportunity
for economic reform after it refused to open state-owned
telephone networks to competition in high-speed broadband
Internet services.
. Pakistan
had successfully test-fired a medium-range, nuclear capable
missile that could hit many cities in neighboring India, but
defense officials said it was not intended as a message to the
rival country.
. Afghanistan’s
failure was discussed at the NATO defense ministers’ meeting in Romania. The US pushed for NATO to take overall command of
peacekeeping and reconstruction instead of the American and NATO
armies operating separately.
. A Russian-US crew headed to the international
space station from Kazakhstan aboard a Soyuz spacecraft
that none of the astronauts has piloted before.
