■ECONOMY
Higher US debt limit urged
US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Friday formally requested that Congress raise the US$12.1 trillion statutory debt limit, saying that it could be breached as early as mid-October. “It is critically important that Congress act before the limit is reached so that citizens and investors here and around the world can remain confident that the United States will always meet its obligations,” Geithner said in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Treasury officials earlier this week said that the debt limit would be hit sometime in the October-December quarter.
■INTERNET
Publicis may buy Razorfish
Microsoft Corp is close to an agreement to sell its Razorfish Internet advertising agency to Publicis Groupe SA, owner of the Saatchi & Saatchi ad firm, said two people familiar with the talks. The deal could be signed as early as today, according to one of the people, who declined to be named because the discussions are private. Microsoft acquired Razorfish, which designs digital adverting campaigns, as part of its US$6 billion purchase of AQuantive Inc in 2007.
■TELECOMS
Nortel CEO may leave soon
Nortel Networks chief executive Mike Zafirovski is to leave the company as the Canadian telecoms stalwart fights for survival, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. The news came as a Canadian Parliamentary committee opened hearings into the sale of some of Nortel Networks Corp assets to Ericsson AB. Legislators have expressed concern the country might lose technology it helped develop. The Wall Street Journal reported that Zafirovski, 55, could leave the company within weeks. He joined Nortel in 2005 on his reputation for saving companies like Motorola Inc’s cellphone division.
■ECONOMY
Canada jobs figure static
Canada shed 45,000 jobs last month, leaving the unemployment rate unchanged at 8.6 percent, Statistics Canada reported, as the country’s finance minister said a recovery next year remained likely. The drop in employment was higher than expected by analysts, who had eyed loses of around 20,000 jobs. It is a substantial increase on 7,400 jobs lost in June. Since a peak in October last year, employment has fallen 414,000, mostly among young people (-205,000) and men aged 25 to 54 (-201,000), the agency said.
■BANKING
More US banks shut down
Regulators on Friday shut down two banks in Florida and one in Oregon, bringing to 72 the number of federally insured banks to fail this year under the weight of the weak economy and rising loan losses. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp was appointed receiver of the banks: First State Bank, of Sarasota, Florida; Venice, Florida-based Community National Bank of Sarasota County, and Community First Bank, of Prineville, Oregon. There were 25 bank failures in the US last year.
■WIND POWER
GE blocks Mitsubishi
General Electric Co (GE), the biggest maker of wind turbines in the US, won a key decision in its effort to block Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd from importing rival energy equipment to the US. US International Trade Commission Judge Carl Charneski said on Friday GE’s patent rights were violated by Mitsubishi Heavy, Japan’s largest heavy-machinery maker. His findings are subject to review by the six-member commission in Washington.
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