■RETAIL
Nook reader sold out
US bookstore giant Barnes & Noble said on Friday it had sold out of its new electronic book reader, the “Nook,” and the next shipments would not be available until after the holidays. “Nook continues to be the fastest-selling product at Barnes & Noble, and pre-orders have continued to exceed our expectations,” the company said in a statement. “All customers ordering a Nook beginning today, November 20, should expect their devices to ship beginning the week of January 4, 2010.” Barnes & Noble unveiled the Nook last month to compete with the Kindle from online retail giant Amazon and the Sony Reader from the Japanese electronics firm.
■MEXICO
Economy expanded in Q3
The economy grew 2.93 percent in the third quarter from the previous three months in a first sign of recovery from recession in Latin America’s second-largest economy, the national statistics institute said on Friday. Despite the quarterly improvement, GDP still shrank 6.2 percent compared with the same period last year, INEGI said in a statement. Mexico officially entered a recession in the first quarter of this year, with GDP declining 8.2 percent. It saw its worst performance on record, with a 10.3 percent drop, in the second quarter, during which the first outbreak of swine flu froze tourism and pounded the economy.
■MEDIA
Ex-Vivendi chief on trial
Vivendi’s former CEO said he made mistakes in his troubled bid to turn a French water company into a global media giant but never misled shareholders about the risks involved. Jean-Marie Messier told a federal jury on Friday in New York he did his “very best” to build the company and couldn’t foresee worldwide financial problems that contributed to its near-bankruptcy in 2002. Messier was on trial in a lawsuit filed for thousands of investors. They say what was then Vivendi Universal hid its worsening finances in 2001 and 2002. Messier led a buyout binge that saddled the company with billions of dollars of debt. Its shares lost more than 80 percent of their value. He was forced out in 2002.
■AUTOS
Porsche approves merger
German sports carmaker Porsche said on Friday its board had agreed to the group’s planned integration into Volkswagen (VW), Europe’s biggest auto manufacturer. The decision by the Porsche supervisory board came after German-based VW’s supervisory board agreed to the contracts paving the way for its planned takeover of the legendary sports car group. The next big step in the merger of the two carmakers will come at the end of this year when VW acquires a 49.9 percent stake in Porsche at a cost of about US$3.9 billion euros (US$5.8 billion). The integration of the two groups is expected to be completed in 2011.
■INTERNET
Judge sets Google hearing
A US judge set Feb. 18 for a hearing on the revised legal settlement between Google and US authors and publishers that would allow the Internet giant to scan and sell millions of books online. Judge Denny Chin also granted preliminary approval to the agreement in a move welcomed by Google but which opponents said was procedural and had no bearing on whether he would give a green light to the settlement in February. Chin on Thursday also set Jan. 28 as the date for groups to lodge objections to the class action settlement with his Southern District of New York court.
When Lika Megreladze was a child, life in her native western Georgian region of Guria revolved around tea. Her mother worked for decades as a scientist at the Soviet Union’s Institute of Tea and Subtropical Crops in the village of Anaseuli, Georgia, perfecting cultivation methods for a Georgian tea industry that supplied the bulk of the vast communist state’s brews. “When I was a child, this was only my mum’s workplace. Only later I realized that it was something big,” she said. Now, the institute lies abandoned. Yellowed papers are strewn around its decaying corridors, and a statue of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin
UNCERTAINTIES: Exports surged 34.1% and private investment grew 7.03% to outpace expectations in the first half, although US tariffs could stall momentum The Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) yesterday raised its GDP growth forecast to 3.05 percent this year on a robust first-half performance, but warned that US tariff threats and external uncertainty could stall momentum in the second half of the year. “The first half proved exceptionally strong, allowing room for optimism,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said. “But the growth momentum may slow moving forward due to US tariffs.” The tariff threat poses definite downside risks, although the scale of the impact remains unclear given the unpredictability of US President Donald Trump’s policies, Lien said. Despite the headwinds, Taiwan is likely
UNIFYING OPPOSITION: Numerous companies have registered complaints over the potential levies, bringing together rival automakers in voicing their reservations US President Donald Trump is readying plans for industry-specific tariffs to kick in alongside his country-by-country duties in two weeks, ramping up his push to reshape the US’ standing in the global trading system by penalizing purchases from abroad. Administration officials could release details of Trump’s planned 50 percent duty on copper in the days before they are set to take effect on Friday next week, a person familiar with the matter said. That is the same date Trump’s “reciprocal” levies on products from more than 100 nations are slated to begin. Trump on Tuesday said that he is likely to impose tariffs
HELPING HAND: Approving the sale of H20s could give China the edge it needs to capture market share and become the global standard, a US representative said The US President Donald Trump administration’s decision allowing Nvidia Corp to resume shipments of its H20 artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China risks bolstering Beijing’s military capabilities and expanding its capacity to compete with the US, the head of the US House Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party said. “The H20, which is a cost-effective and powerful AI inference chip, far surpasses China’s indigenous capability and would therefore provide a substantial increase to China’s AI development,” committee chairman John Moolenaar, a Michigan Republican, said on Friday in a letter to US Secretary of
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