PRESS DIGEST-Financial Times, Wall St Journal Asia editions
SINGAPORE, Dec 31 (Reuters) - The Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal carried the following stories in their Asia print and/or Web site editions on Monday.
Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.
FINANCIAL TIMES (www.ft.com)
-- Benazir Bhutto's son Bilawal, a 19-year-old student at Oxford University, was surprisingly chosen to succeed the slain opposition leader as chairman of Pakistan's largest party.
-- The world's banks issued a record amount of equity in the second half of the year as they funded large deals and rebuilt their balance sheets in the wake of the global credit squeeze.
-- China is to introduce taxes on grain exports in the latest attempt to rein in food-driven inflation that reached an 11-year high in November.
-- The Taiwan Stock Exchange is planning to sell up to 25 percent of its equity to strategic investors, including an investment bank and other exchanges, during or after an initial public offering in 2009.
-- Khazanah Nasional, the Malaysian government's investment arm, is to merge Bank Lippo LPBN.JK and PT Bank Niaga (BNGA.JK) in Indonesia to comply with competition regulations aimed at streamlining the industry.
-- India's largest initial public offering, the planned listing of Reliance Power, has cleared one of its last regulatory hurdles and the stage looks set for another record year of capital-raising in the country in 2008.
WALL STREET JOURNAL (www.wsj.com)
-- Chinese leaders gave their blessing to allow Hong Kong to directly elect its leader in 2017, a rare acknowledgment of public desire for democracy in the former British colony.
-- China released long-awaited rules governing the re-opening of its domestic capital markets to foreign investment banks, limiting the scope of new joint-ventures to underwriting share and bond offerings.
-- ICBC (1398.HK) said it will raise its stake in its Hong Kong unit, ICBC (Asia) Limited, by buying Fortis NV's (FOR.BR) 8.23 percent holding for HK$1.92 billion ($246 million).
-- A Chinese steel company agreed to buy a stake in Australia's IMX Resources and to acquire the output of one of its mines, the latest move by China to secure mineral resources amid consolidation in the global mining industry.
