JAL warns of cancelations
Japan Airlines Corp (JAL), Asia’s largest carrier by sales, said a strike tomorrow may lead to the cancelation of 152 domestic flights and affect about 14,000 passengers.
Three unions representing cockpit and cabin crew are planning a strike to protest salary cuts, the Tokyo-based company said in an e-mailed statement.
International flights would be unaffected, it said.
Pilots are threatening a strike as JAL struggles to save ¥10 billion (US$94 million) in labor costs by cutting jobs and salaries. The carrier plans to slash 400 jobs this fiscal year to bring its work force down to 48,800 by the end of March, following labor cost cuts of ¥52 billion last fiscal year.
Trans-Pacific cable completed
South Korea’s KT Corp said yesterday that an 18,000km high-speed cable aimed at meeting growing demand for trans-Pacific Internet services had been completed.
The firm, Korea’s largest fixed-line operator, set up a consortium in 2006 with Verizon Business of the US, China Telecom (中國電信), China Netcom (中國網通), China Unicom (中國聯通) and Taiwan’s Chunghwa Telecom (中華電信) to build the cable linking South Korea, China and Taiwan with the US. Work began on the cable in December 2006.
The fiber-optic cable has a delivery speed of 5.12 terabytes, capable of relaying data equal to 3,700 CD-ROMs per second, KT said in a statement.
It is about 70 times faster than the speed of the current US-South Korea cable.
Reports at the time the consortium was put together put the total cost of the link at US$500 million. But KT spokesman Kim Yong-wan said consortium members had agreed not to disclose the cost.
The new link, to be used for commercial services starting next year, will be extended to Japan next year.
Starbucks picks new suppliers
Starbucks Corp, the world’s biggest coffee-shop chain, named three Chinese milk suppliers for its outlets in the country after earlier dropping China Mengniu Dairy Co (中國蒙牛) because of concerns over melamine poisoning.
Starbucks will use Xinluyuan brand milk in east China, including Shanghai, Weiji brand milk made by Kowloon Dairy Ltd (九龍維紀牛奶) in southern markets, including Guangzhou, and Baxy brand milk made by Beijing Allied Faxi Food Co (北京艾萊發喜食品) in the rest of the country, Beijing-based public relations manager Annie Wang said by telephone yesterday.
All liquid milk was pulled from Starbucks’ China stores on Sept. 19 and the chain switched to soy milk after Chinese dairy makers, including Mengniu, were found to have sold products containing melamine.
Poll finds high typhoon losses
Average losses by Taiwanese companies whose businesses were closed because of inclement weather were estimated to reach NT$593,100 (US$18,500) per day, a survey by the Web-based 1111 Job Bank (1111人力銀行) showed yesterday.
The poll showed that 64 percent of respondents said they expected daily losses to reach below NT$500,000, while 19.5 percent predicted losses of between NT$500,000 and NT$1 million.
The survey also showed that more than 80 percent of businesses would follow local governments’ example and treat the typhoon breaks as non-working days, while 8.68 percent said they would not consider them as days off because of the nature of their business (service).
As for payment for staffers who were asked to work overtime, 67 percent of businesses would pay the daily rate, 10.7 percent would pay 1.33 to 1.66 times the average day rate, and 13.6 percent would give double pay, the survey said.
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
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
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