April 22, 2003

New York Gov George Pataki is expected to outline aggressive schedule for rebuilding downtown Manhattan in speech to Association for a Better New York; wants Daniel Libeskind's tower, transportation hub joining PATH and subway lines, and memorial to 9/11 victims completed or substantially under way by Dec 2006, end of his third term; officials say temporary PATH station is likely to be complete before end of this year; responding to complaints from business leaders, Pataki is also expected to outline program of $50 million in short-term capital projects to make it easier for workers and residents to get around Lower Manhattan; financing for tower is still uncertain (M)

Thailand's bankruptcy court handed control of Thai Petrochemical Industry back to its founder, Prachai Leophairatana, ousting the company's creditor-appointed administrators, Effective Planners, for failing to meet the company's debt reorganization targets. Thai Petrochemical became Thailand's biggest defaulter in 1997, when it stopped payment on $4.2 billion in debt. Mr. Prachai fought creditors for three years to hang on to the company, often resorting to xenophobia and union fears of layoffs, until the court declared him bankrupt. Analysts said the new decision could hurt confidence among foreign investors, but Thai Petrochemical's shares rose on the news as investors calculated that the company stood more to gain with Mr. Prachai in charge than fighting from the outside. Wayne Arnold (NYT)

Caltagirone, a builder in Italy, and its partners abandoned their 2.55 billion euro ($2.77 billion) bid for the real estate company Metrovacesa, after shareholders refused to sell a majority stake. Shareholders owning 23 percent of Metrovacesa, a leading Spanish real estate company, offered to sell their shares to Caltagirone, Spain's stock market regulator said. The bid had been conditional on the Italian companies winning at least 50 percent of Metrovacesa's shares.

Clyde Haberman NYC column takes issue with Simon Wiesenthal, world's most famous pursuer of Nazi war criminals, for saying his work is done because anyone left is too old to stand trial; reviews several current cases in New York of men who are accused of being Nazi collaborators; wonders how many Americans would shrug off pursuit of participants in Sept 11 terrorist attack 50 years later (M)

More than a decade after barriers to competition began to come down in Canada's telephone industry, politicians and regulators are venting their displeasure at how little has been accomplished. In contrast to the United States, where AT&T was broken up long ago and curbs placed on the new regional operating companies, regulators in Canada have taken a softer approach, seeking to encourage competition without destabilizing the entrenched incumbents. The hope has been that new entrants would gain market share by building networks of their own, and, with some help from regulators, by gaining access to existing lines at reasonable cost.