■ JAPAN
Tokyo tells US to heal itself
Finance Minister Fukushiro Nukaga yesterday ruled out any plan to introduce a stimulus package or tax cuts despite growing calls for concerted efforts to help combat a US mortgage crisis. "Fiscal stimulus or tax cuts used to be called for when our economy deteriorated, but we are not in a situation that we need to use a conventional, knee-jerk approach," Nukaga said in an interview with TV Asahi. "We have to adapt ourselves to the present situation." He called on Washington to concentrate on its own efforts to subdue the mortgage crisis. "The epicenter of the subprime loan problem is in the United States," he said. "The United States has to resolve the problem by itself."
■ AVIATION
A380 slides malfunction
Airbus' A380 super jumbo, the world's largest passenger aircraft, has encountered problems with its inflatable escape slides, the Internet site of the Germany weekly Stern reported on Saturday. The escape slides had to be revised after just a few flights, the magazine said, citing reports from clients of the European aircraft maker. The article quoted an Airbus spokesman confirming that there had been a problem. The explosive charges meant to inflate the slides in just a few seconds during an emergency evacuation were deteriorating over time and becoming unusable, the report said. To replace the faulty charges, all the slides had to be dismantled in what was a time-consuming operation, Stern reported.
■ MINING
Workers end strike
Workers at Mexico's largest lead mine have ended a nearly month-long strike after receiving a 6 percent wage hike, Mexico's Labor Department said. The strike at the Naica mine in the border state of Chihuahua ended on Friday night after owner Industrias Penoles SAB agreed to the hike and said it would pay 50 percent of the salaries lost during the walkout, the department said in a statement late on Friday. About 350 members of the National Mining and Metal Workers Union stopped work on Jan. 15, arguing that their wages didn't reflect corporate profits from high metal prices.
■ AUTOMOBILES
GM tries to rein-in states
General Motors Corp CEO Rick Wagoner urged the National Automobile Dealers Association to lobby against individual US states trying to set their own limits on greenhouse gas emissions. Wagoner, speaking on Saturday group's convention in San Francisco, said several states want to go beyond requirements passed by the US Congress. If that happens and automakers must focus on state regulations, they won't be able to focus as much on alternative fuel vehicles to reduce oil consumption and pollution, he said. "We're not going to be able to accomplish everything that we otherwise could," he said. He also said dealers and automakers should push for infrastructure to handle new technologies, including hydrogen and ethanol fueling stations and charging stations for electric vehicles.
■ MYANMAR
Junta to auction gems
The military government will hold a new sale of gems, pearls and jade next month in a bid to earn much-needed foreign currency, despite calls to boycott the auctions, state media said yesterday. The official New Light of Myanmar said the sale would be held from March 9 to March 20, just two months after the last auction. The sale last month drew about 280 foreign buyers, despite calls from the US and rights groups for a boycott because of a bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protests last year. The government did not reveal how much it earned off the sale, but last November, the junta earned US$150 million from a gem emporium.
RSS