■ Fast food
US fast food giant McDonald's announced on Friday that it had gone hedgehog-friendly, following a long running campaign waged by British lovers of the prickly mammals. The British Hedgehog Preservation Society (BHPS) claimed that countless creatures had died by getting their heads stuck inside when trying to eat left-over ice cream. McDonald's said it had redesigned cups and lids for its McFlurry ice cream so that they were no longer a danger to the animals. McDonald's UK said it had invested "significant research and testing" into designing their new cup, which features a smaller opening meaning customers have to remove the lid to eat the dessert.
■ Internet
Sohu in tie-up with NBA
Sohu.com Inc (搜狐), China's third-biggest Internet portal, and NuCom Media Group will help the National Basketball Association add content including live video broadcasts of games to its Chinese Web site, the companies said. The agreement is between the NBA, Sohu and NuSports, a NuCom subsidiary, said the joint statement released by the companies and the association at a press briefing in Beijing today. NBA started the China Web site for the 2002/03 season, the year the nation's basketball star Yao Ming (姚明) started playing in the NBA with the Houston Rockets. The association says it has 30 million viewers a week in China for its games.
■ China
GDP mostly top firms' money
The total operating revenue of China's top 500 companies last year accounted for more than three-quarters of the Asian giant's gross domestic product (GDP), the state news agency Xinhua reported yesterday. The total of 14.14 trillion yuan (US$1.8 trillion) accounted for 77.6 percent of China's GDP, according to a report issued by the China Enterprise Confederation and the China Enterprise Directors Association, quoted by Xinhua. In 2001, operating revenue of the top 500 accounted for 55.7 percent of GDP. In 2004, the figure rose to 73.5 percent.
■ Precious stones
Myanmar sells jade, gems
Military-run Myanmar has sold over 540 lots of jade and gems during a two-day auction, state media said yesterday, in a bid to earn much-needed foreign currency for the cash-strapped junta. Some 1,250 merchants, including 500 foreigners mainly from neighboring China and Thailand, attended the auction last week, the official newspaper New Light of Myanmar said. While Myanmar sold over 70 percent of jade and precious stones offered at its biggest-ever gem auction in July, the daily said the government sold just 40 percent of jade and gems at the latest sale.
■ Trade
Mercosur wants clout in IMF
The South American trade bloc Mercosur on Friday demanded greater voting power in the IMF. "We think that as a bloc of South American countries, our participation should be bigger," Brazil's Finance Minister Guido Mantega said after meeting with Mercosur finance ministers in Rio de Janeiro. "Our representation is not proportional to our political or economic importance." The IMF is expected to finalize a decision to grant China, Turkey, Mexico and South Korea a greater voting share in its operations at a meeting this month in Singapore. Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Venezuela are full members of Mercosur.
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