Despite the global recession, DHL is spending millions on a new facility in Thailand and new mail-sorting equipment in Europe. 

DHL and Makro to build US$4.6m facility in Thailand

DHL Supply Chain is extending its five-year partnership with wholesaler & retailer, Makro, with the building of a new US$4.6 million automated warehouse in Wang Noi on the northern outskirts of Bangkok.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s three-day visit to India from Tuesday (August 21) follows Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Japan in December last year. Manmohan Singh's visit was preceded by prime minister Jericho Koizumi's visit to India in April-May 2005. Manmohan's visit to Japan culminated in the signing of the "Joint Statement Toward Japan-India Strategic and Global Partnership".

In his book, A Beautiful Country, Abe proposes an Asian order that groups together Australia, India, Japan and the United States. As Japan reformulates its foreign policy in the quest to assume a greater leadership role in Asia, it finds it shares an unprecedented convergence in interests, values and strategies with a rising India that is eager to "look east" and integrate itself into Asia and Asian institutions.

TAIPEI: Taiwan’s President Chen Shui-bian left for a weeklong Central America haul Tuesday seeking to cement ties with diplomatic allies who are under increasing pressure from China to switch sides.

Chen said the trip was especially important after the recent defection of longtime ally Costa Rica to Beijing.

“Facing China’s ruthless suppression and blockade, we must be brave . . . and tell the world firmly and loudly that Taiwan is a sovereign country and the Taiwanese people have a right to join the international community as equals,” he told reporters at the airport.

OSAKA — Much has been made of the massive defeat Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Liberal Democratic Party suffered in the July 29 Upper House elections. But as the smoke from the vote dissipates, it has become clear that the real victor is neither the leading opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) nor the electorate. Instead, it is Japan's bureaucrats who are celebrating.

The aim of these entrenched mandarins is to block Abe's plans for extensive civil-service reforms intended to inhibit them from parachuting into lucrative post-retirement jobs in the public corporations and private firms that they once regulated. They also want to stop Abe from dismantling and privatizing one of their central fiefdoms, the Social Security Agency.

In this struggle, the mandarins are aligning themselves with the DPJ, at least to the general public's eye, because it has proposed merging the Social Security Agency with the National Tax Agency, a move that would ensure government jobs for the former's employees.

NEW DELHI: Oil minister Murli Deora's appeal and offer of relief cut little ice with the agitating officers, who felt it was "too late, too little". "We are firm on striking work as the assurance given by none else than the
PM on September 4 last year has not been fulfiled. The strike will be total and paralyse all operations, especially refuelling of aircraft," said Mukul Kumar of IndianOil Officers' Association.

The officers are seeking merger of 50% dearness allowance with basic pay, release of ad-hoc payment and withdrawal of tax on perquisites like company-provided accommodation.