■ Retail
Child labor deal scrutinized
US Labor Department investigators will review a US$135,540 settlement the agency reached with Wal-Mart Stores Inc, the world's largest retailer, over accusations that it violated child labor laws. The investigation was sought by Representative George Miller. The California Democrat criticized the deal made public on Feb. 12 because it provides that Wal-Mart will receive 15 days notice in most cases before the Labor Department investigates employee complaints of wage and hour violations. Miller said the two-week window could give Wal-Mart the chance to sweep violations under the rug. The alleged violations, at 25 stores in Arkansas, Connecticut and New Hampshire between 1998 and 2002, had to do with teenage workers who used hazardous equipment such as a chain saw, paper balers and fork lifts. US child labor laws prohibit anyone under 18 from operating hazardous equipment.
■ Labor
Strike at Reuters approved
Union-represented workers at the US operations of Reuters Group PLC have voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike against the financial news and information company, the head of the union said on Friday. Barry Lipton, president of the Newspaper Guild of New York, said the strike authorization proposal passed by a margin of 302 to 4, according to results compiled on Friday morning. The guild represents about 450 of the 2,000 US-based employees of Reuters, and an overwhelming majority of the editorial employees. "Reuters has an extraordinarily onerous list of givebacks on the table, including a partial wage freeze, drastic reduction in pension benefits, and decimation of health insurance coverage while at the same time demanding higher contributions for the coverage," Lipton said.
■ Eurozone
French rush to declare coins
Teller windows at the Bank of France were mobbed by a record crowd as a deadline for declaring franc coins expired, the central bank said on Friday. Around 45,000 people showed up at the bank's various branches throughout France to turn in old coins on Thursday, setting an "absolute record" that far surpassed a previous high set when the euro became legal tender more than three years ago. Roughly 17,000 had turned up on Jan. 3 2002 as the bank opened two days after the 12-nation eurozone introduced euro banknotes and coins. According to the central bank, more than 50 million franc-denominated coins were turned in since Feb. 1, compared with 22 million last month and 118 million for all of last year. On Monday, the bank had said that 3 billion franc coins worth about 600 million euros (US$780 million dollars) were still outstanding.
■ Investment
Priest must return assets
A Catholic priest who was jailed in Singapore for embezzling church funds has been ordered to return to a parishioner cash, unit trusts and shares worth S$1.5 million (US$915,000), news reports said yesterday. High Court Judge Choo Han Teck said Father Joachim Kang and retired investment company director Emilly Chan both had plausible arguments, but he believed the parishioner over the priest. The priest was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in jail last April for misappropriating S$5.1 million in church funds. After Kang was convicted, Chan, 74, started action to get her money, unit trusts and shares returned, maintaining she had only given them to Kang for safekeeping. Kang insisted they were gifts.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the