■ AVIATION
Embraer delivers jets
Brazilian aircraft manufacturer Embraer said on Friday it delivered the first of eight regional jets to Mandarin Airlines (華信航空) of Taiwan. The 104-seat E-Jet will be the base of Mandarin's fleet and is equipped for domestic and short international flights, Embraer said in a statement. The Brazilian company is targeting the Asian Pacific region as a market for its E-jets, including the Embraer 190 and 195 models, said Mauro Kern, executive vice president for the commercial aviation market. The Embraer 190 is a 96 to 106-seat regional jet that has proved popular for short-haul flights. The 108 to 118-seat Embraer 195 is part of the same regional jet line.
■ INVESTMENT
Carlyle to sell shares
Private-equity firm the Carlyle Group LP will for the first time sell shares to the public in one of its investment funds, a person familiar with the matter said on Friday. After a planned initial public offering of stock next month or July, the Carlyle Capital Corp fund, could have up to US$1 billion to invest, the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The fund, which will focus on mortgage-backed securities, has already raised private capital. Carlyle plans to list the fund on the Euronext Amsterdam exchange.
■ INTERNET
MySpace blocks clips
The social-networking Internet site MySpace on Friday announced a system that prevents users from reposting video clips that have been removed from the Web site at copyright-holders' request. The new copyright technology, called "Take Down Stay Down," is alerted upon a copyright owner's request to remove a video clip, takes a digital fingerprint of the video and adds it to a copyright filter that prevents uploading again on Myspace users' personal pages. The technology is offered to copyright owners free of charge, MySpace said in a statement.
■ AUTOMOBILES
VW rejects takeover bid
Management at Volkswagen (VW), Europe's biggest car maker, said on Friday it had unanimously rejected a takeover offer from German luxury sports car maker Porsche. VW said in a statement following a special session of its supervisory board that management was convinced that "the value of Volkswagen shares is superior to the price offered." Stuttgart-based Porsche announced in late March that it would exercise an option to buy an additional 3.6-percent stake in VW. The additional shares raised Porsche's interest in VW to 30.9 percent, effectively obliging it under German law to launch a public takeover for all outstanding VW shares.
■ PATENTS
PRC joins patent efforts
China will join Japan, the US, Europe and South Korea in efforts to create an integrated patent system, a report said yesterday. In a weekend meeting in Hawaii, patent commissioners from the countries concerned were due to agree on China's participation in the efforts, the leading business Nikkei Shimbun said. The existing participants have already agreed on standardization of patent application formats, joint use of patent examination results, mutual training opportunities for examiners, and information sharing, the report said. Japan, the US, Europe, South Korea and China account for three quarters of the world's patent applications.
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