■ Banking
Islamic licenses offered
Malaysia will gradually award full Islamic banking licenses to all banks as part of efforts to grow the seg-ment and encourage the expansion of such services offshore, reports said yesterday. "Domestic banks cannot be left far behind in offering Islamic banking products ... that is why the government is considering granting the new Islamic banking licenses which can also be given to foreign conventional banks," an official was quoted as saying by the New Straits Times. "We will approve them in stages." Last week, RHB Bank and Bumiputra-Commerce Bank announced they had obtained approval from the finance ministry to set up full-fledged Islamic banking operations and would get the licenses once all conditions were met. Malaysia has two full-fledged Islamic banks now. The central bank has said it would issue three new licenses to foreign banks this year to fast-track the liberalization of the Islamic financial sector to make the country a key Islamic financial hub in Asia.
■ Internet
Google loses Froogle battle
Google Inc's right to use the name "Froogle" for its online shopping service came into question on Fri-day when an arbitration panel rejected its challenge of a Web site named Froogles.com. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) panel rejected Google's argument that Froogles.com was "confu-singly similar" to Google. The loss has no immediate impact on Google's use of the name Froogle. But it means that the Froogles.com name will remain with Richard Wolfe, a New York carpenter who started the Web shopping site in March 2001. But in a separate proceeding in the US Patent and Trademark Office, Wolfe has challenged Google's attempt to register Froogle as infringement of his Froogles.com mark.
■ Aviation
United move angers unions
United Airlines said it plans no further payments to its employee pension funds in bankruptcy in order to improve its chances for attracting exit financing, a move that upset union leaders. The disclosure came Friday, nine days after United deferred a required quarterly payment of US$72 million to the pension funds, which are under review as it scours its operations for further cost cuts in a bankruptcy restructuring now set to last into the middle of next year. The carrier said its new US$1 billion interim financing package lined up this week effectively prohibits further pension contributions before it leaves bankruptcy. United's biggest unions swiftly condemned the move, and one said it is considering legal action to fight it.
■ Publishing
Slate may be on the block
Microsoft said on Friday that it was exploring the sale of Slate, a pioneer in digital publishing. Accord-ing to company executives, Microsoft is considering a sale of Slate because the model of creating a Web magazine of cultural criticism and political analysis to attract visitors to its MSN Network has little business salience in an age dominated by search applications. Micro-soft executives said several media companies were interested but the two most prominently mentioned -- The Wash-ington Post Co and The New York Times Co -- declined to comment on whether any discussions had taken place.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last