■SEMICONDUCTORS
Intel, France cooperating
Intel, the giant US chip manufacturer, plans to pursue research efforts for future technology for high performance computers in France in cooperation with the French Commission for Atomic Energy, the French government said late on Friday. The University of Versailles-Saint-Quentin near Paris is to be involved in the project, the presidential offices said after a meeting between French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Intel board chairman Craig Barrett. Sarkozy pledged state support for Intel’s involvement in the project.
■TELECOMS
Ex-CFO sues Motorola
Motorola Inc’s former chief financial officer has sued the company for firing him, claiming that it was a “retaliatory discharge.” Paul Liska sued the maker of telecommunications equipment in a county court in Chicago on Feb. 20, a day after he was fired. The suit is under seal, and no further details were available on Friday. Motorola said early last month that Liska was leaving after less than a year of service. It revealed in a filing this week that it had terminated Liska “for cause,” depriving him of his signing bonus, stock options and severance payment. It didn’t specify the cause.
■TELECOMS
HTC loses German suit
HTC Corp (宏達電), the world’s largest maker of mobile phones running on Microsoft Corp’s Windows software, lost a patent suit in Germany, threatening sales in the country. HTC was ordered by a court in Mannheim to stop selling products using technology based on IPCom GmbH’s patents in Germany. HTC is also liable for damages, according to a Feb. 27 ruling by the Mannheim Regional Court. The Taoyuan-based company said it would appeal the ruling and has filed a suit to invalidate IPCom’s patents before the German Federal Patents Court in Munich.
■ENERGY
Natural gas JV set up
Venezuela’s state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela said on Friday it had set up a joint venture with Argentine, Portuguese, US and Japanese firms to tap offshore natural gas fields. The venture will develop an estimated 28.8 trillion cubic feet of known natural gas reserves in the offshore Deltana platform and Paria Gulf, with marketing plans targeted to begin in 2014. The US$19.65 billion project includes building two trains, or production units, for liquefied natural gas, each with a projected annual yield of 4.7 million tonnes, as well as offshore extraction and pumping facilities.
■AVIATION
BA credit cut to junk
British Airways PLC’s corporate credit rating was cut to junk status on Friday by Standard & Poor’s amid mounting concerns about the airline’s ability to make money in the sharp global economic downturn. The credit ratings agency said it had lowered its rating on Britain’s flag carrier to BB+, the level below what it considers to be investment grade and warned that there could be further downgrades.
■BANKING
CEOs to meet in London
Chief executives of leading banks from Japan, Europe and the US will meet in London to discuss regulation of the financial sector, the Nikkei Shimbun said yesterday. The British government will host the talks on March 24, ahead of a summit next month of G20 leaders, the daily said, without naming sources. Invitations have been sent to the chiefs of leading institutions, including US-based JPMorgan Chase and Co and British bank HSBC, it 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