Body suspected to be that of missing US climber found

BEIJING, Dec 28: Rescuers have found a body, suspected to be that of one of the two US climbers missing since early November, on a mountain in southwest China.

The body was found last evening at an altitude of 5,300 meters on Genyen Mountain in Sichuan Province, a source with the Sichuan Mountaineering Association said.

Climbers Charlie Fowler, 52, and Christine Boskoff, 39, have not been heard from since November and failed to catch their return flights home on December seven.

"Most of the upper part of the body was buried in snow, but the legs were exposed," Xinhua news agency quoted a local official as saying.

Rescuers could not properly identify the body in the dark and cold, he said.

The rescue team had returned to camp on Genyen Mountain at an altitude of 4,200 meters. They would confirm the identify of the body in the next few days, the report said.

The discovery was confirmed by a US rescue team.

The 10-member team that found the body comprised eight volunteers from Chinese mountain climbing clubs, a representative of the United States, and a local guide.

The luggage of the two U.S. Missing climbers was found by rescuers at a remote village in Lamaya Town near Genyen Mountain during door-to-door inquiries by rescuers last Friday.

The 6,204-meter Genyen Mountain is the third highest peak in Sichuan and local Tibetans believe it is sacred. The US Consulate in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province had announced a reward of 3,798 US dollars for anyone who provided clues on the whereabouts of the two missing American nationals. (PTI)

Terrorism, piracy threaten US firms in Asia: Report

WASHINGTON, Dec 28: Terrorism and copyright piracy were among top security challenges that confronted American businesses in Asia in 2006, the State Department said in a year-end security analysis.

US businesses had to step up spending to protect facilities and staff in the region due to the terrorism threat, said the review by the Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC) yesterday, a joint government-private agency promoting security cooperation.

"The effects of transnational terrorism were apparent across Asia, causing private sector interests to operate at the highest levels of security, using resources that could be used in other ways and affecting investment," it said.

The report added that the US private sector faced the "most intense threat" of intellectual property rights-related commercial losses in India and China, Asia's two largest players on the international business stage.

The report mentions that insurgency groups such as India's United Liberation Front of Assam and Southern Thailand's ethnic Malay-Muslim separatist movement "continued to cause concern" for US private sector interests.

It also said that typhoons, earthquakes and other natural disasters, including in Japan, the Philippines and India, created risks for facilities and employees of US private sector groups.

On political instability, the OSAC referred to the military coups which led to the ouster of elected governments in Thailand and Fiji, saying they caused "the US private sector to reconsider the risk on their investments." (AGENCIES)

Annan asks Ethiopia to stay out of violence in Somalia

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 28: UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has appealed to Somalia's neighbours, including Ethiopia, to stay out of the spiraling violence in the country as the world body's food agency suspended airdrop of food and withdrew last of its international staff in the face of increasing fighting.

Ethiopians have sent troops into Somalia to back the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) fighting against Union of Islamic Courts (UIC).

"It is essential that neighbouring governments stay out of this," said Annan, who has spoken to Ethiopia's president on the issue.

He urged the parties to resolve their differences through negotiations and stressed on the need for national reconciliation.

In Addis Ababa, representatives of the African Union (AU), the League of Arab States and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) discussed Somalia.

"IGAD has indicated that they would want to deploy troops to Somalia," the Secretary-General said, adding, "I am not sure they would be able to do it in the current climate."

On Tuesday, the Secretary-General's Special Representative for Somalia, Frantois LonsTny Fall, had urged the Security Council to call on the two sides to halt the fighting immediately, not to take any further provocative actions, and resume their dialogue without preconditions.

Somalia has not had a functioning government since 1991. The TFG and UIC were holding talks in Khartoum but the latest round, scheduled for October, was postponed over the issue of preconditions, and violence between them flared earlier this month. (PTI)

Afghanistan criticises Pak's decision to fence parts of border

KABUL, Dec 28: The Afghan Government has strongly protested Pakistan's plan to fence and mine parts of the border between the two countries.

Expressing hope that Pakistan would reconsider its decision, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Sultan Ahmad Baheen said that "if it failed to do so, Kabul will call on the international community to pressurise Islamabad and to destroy terrorist centres inside Pakistan."

Pakistan on Tuesday said it would build a fence and plant land mines on parts of its 2,430 km frontier with Afghanistan.

On Islamabad's stand that an agreement with Afghanistan was not needed on the border issue since Pakistan was fencing and mining its own side of the borer, Baheen told PTI "it is only the loya jirga on the Afghan side and representatives of people on the Pakistani side of the Durrand Line who are entitled to take a crucial decision of this nature."

Pashtoon tribes and clans live on both sides of the border and were artificially divided by the Durrand Line in the British days.

Delineated in 1893 by the British by arm-twisting a weak Afghan ruler, the Durrand Line has never been sought to be fenced before.

Afghanistan's Loya Jirga is the grand assembly of the people. (PTI)

Individual buyers spur China's booming car sales

BEIJING, Dec 28: Individual purchases, accounting a whopping 77 per cent of China's sedan sales in 2006, has spurred the booming market, the world's second largest, an industry association said here today.

Sedan sales will exceed 3.8 million at the end of this year, which means individual buyers will drive about 2.9 million sedans out of the showrooms, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) said.

As prices fall, incomes rise and new economy models enter the market, individuals have overtaken governmental institutions and firms as major purchasers of sedan cars.

With domestic manufacturers boosting production and finding ways of cutting costs, sedan prices will drop further, an expert with the State Information Centre said.

A peak is expected around the year 2010 when the sales are expected to touch 10 million units in 2010, up from 5.7 million units last year.

This year the Chinese government reduced taxes and eased restrictions to promote the development of compact cars. From January to November, sedan sales notched up a year-on-year increase of 38.52 per cent to more than 3.41 million units.

China's total auto sales will exceed seven million in 2006, overtaking Japan to become the world's second largest domestic auto market, CAAM statistics said.

China has also taken measures to prevent the development of excessive production capacity in its auto industry.

The National Development and Reform Commission, China's top industry watchdog, said yesterday that if an automaker wants to build a new plant in another location, its sales in the previous year must account for more than 80 per cent of its existing production capacity approved by the Government. (PTI)

Vodafone, Essar submit offers for HTIL's stake in Hutch-Essar

LONDON, Dec 28: Triggering a bid war for Indian mobile operator Hutch-Essar, being valued up to 18 billion dollars, UK-based Vodafone and India's Essar have made their offers to acquire Hutchison Telecom's stake in the venture.

A day after the visit of top brasses of both Vodafone and Essar, British media reported, quoting unnamed sources, that the two suitors have made their respective offers.

Essar, the joint venture partner in Hutch-Essar with 33 per cent stake, has offered 11 billion dollars (about Rs 50,000 crore) for the 67 per cent stake of HTIL, putting the enterprise value of the JV at 16.5 billion dollars.

However, Vodafone, the world's largest mobile phone operator, has submitted an offer valuing the company at 17-18 billion dollars, the 'Financial Times' reported.

No comments could be ascertained from Vodafone, Essar and Hong Kong-based Hutchison Telecom International Ltd.

There was a confusion in Indian media on valuation of Hutch-Essar following an interview by HTIL's parent Hutchison Whampoa's finance director Frank Sixt that the group would not entertain any offer made below 14 billion dollars.

This was construed by many as the valuation of HTIL's 67 per cent stake, thus pegging the enterprise value of the joint venture at 21 billion dollars. (PTI)

Indian giant Tata pursues expansion path in US

WASHINGTON, Dec 28: Indian conglomerate Tata may be making waves with a planned mega takeover of top European steelmaker Corus, but its biggest acquisition so far has been in the United States, where it is eyeing even more lucrative deals.

Tata has offered about 5.6 billion pounds (USD11.1 billion) for Corus as it battles with Brazilian steelmaker CSN, or Companhia Siderurgica Nacional, to seize control of the Anglo-Dutch firm.

The deal is poised to outsize by 11 times Tata's largest corporate takeover abroad so far -- the nearly USD700-million purchase of a 30 per cent share of US food and beverage firm Energy Brands Inc in August.

But the Indian company shows no sign of relenting from its expansion path in the United States.

"We see the United States as a major opportunity for us," David Good, Tata's chief representative in North America, told AFP in an interview, citing the hotel, auto parts, telecom and food and beverage sectors as best bets for expansion.

The United States already accounts for nearly 30 per cent of the Tata group's annual international turnover of USD6.7 billion. The group's total annual revenue is about USD22 billion, equivalent to about three per cent of India's Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Tata's 2007 foray into the United States will begin with a January 11 takeover of the Ritz-Carlton Boston hotel from its current American owners, Millennium Partners, for USD170 million.

The Taj Boston will be the second US hotel property of Tata's hotel chain Taj Hotels, Resorts and Palaces. (AGENCIES)

Japanese police for stiffer penalties for drunken driving

TOKYO, Dec 28: Japan's National Police Agency today unveiled a proposal to revise the Road Traffic Law to set stiffer penalties for drunken driving.

The proposal also includes requiring use of seat belts in rear seats, cognitive function tests for drivers over 75 years and affixing senior driver labels on vehicles used by drivers in that age group.

The agency plans to submit a bill to Japanese Parilament Diet's regular session starting in January.

The first revision of the law over drunken driving since 2001 is being eyed in response to a recent series of serious drunk-driving incidents that have made national headlines, including one involving a government employee in August who caused an accident in which three children died.

The law defines the state of probable inability to drive normally under the influence of alcohol as drunken driving, while it stipulates 0.15 ml or more of alcohol per litre of breath constitutes drunken driving.

The draft proposal calls for introducing a prison term of up to five years or a maximum fine of 1 million yen for drunken driving, up from a maximum three years in prison or a maximum 500,000 yen fine at present.

It also seeks to set penalties of up to three years behind bars or a fine of a maximum 500,000 yen for driving while intoxicated, up from the current maximum of one year in prison or maximum fine of 300,000 yen.

The law also currently bans providing alcoholic beverages to those considered likely to drive but stipulates no punishment. (AGENCIES)

Buddhist foundation provides aid to Indonesia flood victims

PANGKALAN BRANDAN, SUMATRA, Dec 28: Members of a Taiwan-based Buddhist foundation has been helping flood victims in Langkat District in north Sumatra by distributing food, clothes, blankets and medicines.

Floods in Langkat killed at least 11 peopple and forced thousands to flee to safer areas.

A tea of the foundation Tzu Chi Indonesia (TCI) earlier visited Mandailing Natal District in north Sumatra, to help victims of an earthquake and landslide which hit the area recently, TCI spokesman Aswin Halim told ANTARA.

Halim said from LAngkat, the TCI team would go Aceh Tamiang in Aceh district, the worst hit in the floods.

The death toll due to floods in Aceh reached 46, while 162 others were reported missing till yesterday, according to data provided by Disaster and Refugee Handling Unit of Aceh Taming flood mitigation.

In Aceh Tamiang, some over two lakh people have been affected by floods and forced to take refuge to safer areas. (AGENCIES)

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