ENERGY
Cyclone closes terminal
Australia’s largest coal export terminal, Dalrymple Bay, shut down operations yesterday because of an approaching cyclone, which is expected to hit the region early today. The closure is the latest disruption to coal exports from Queensland and follows devastating summer floods across eastern Australia. The weather bureau said Cyclone Anthony was gaining strength to a Category 2 cyclone as it approached the northern Queensland coast and would lead to high tides, rough seas and destructive wind gusts. The cyclone is to make landfall between the northern Queensland towns of Townsville and Mackay.
ARGENTINA
Strike enters fourth day
A strike involving thousands of workers that has paralyzed operations at the nation’s main soy and grain export harbor dragged into its fourth day on Saturday with no resolution in sight. Guilds representing truck drivers, stevedores and other port workers launched the open-ended demonstrations demanding a minimum monthly wage at a major port near the industrial hub of Rosario on Wednesday. The strike affected the nine port terminals of San Lorenzo, located just outside Rosario. Argentina is the third-largest exporter of soybeans, second for corn and fourth for wheat. Total Argentine exports of grains, derivatives, oils and -biodiesel last year were worth more than US$20 billion, more than one third of the country’s total exports.
CHINA
Food security addressed
Beijing will ensure sufficient supplies of natural gas for fertilizer producers during spring crop planting this year as part of efforts to guarantee food security, the National Development and Reform Commission said. China National Petroleum Corp (中國石油天然氣), China Petrochemical Corp (中國石化) and China National Offshore Oil Corp (中國海洋石油) won’t be allowed to offer natural gas to other companies before completing planned supplies to fertilizer producers, the commission said in statement yesterday. Making sure there is enough fertilizer was “a precondition for the grain harvest” and “essential for stabilizing prices of agricultural products and managing inflation expectation,” the commission said.
HEDGE FUNDS
Group appeals Porsche case
A group of hedge funds led by Elliott Associates and Black Diamond Offshore Ltd appealed the dismissal of their US$2 billion lawsuit against German automaker Porsche SE. The hedge funds filed notices of their appeal in Manhattan federal court late on Friday. The hedge funds had claimed the -Stuttgart-based carmaker deliberately deceived the market about its intentions to acquire Volkswagen (VW), publicly denying plans to take over the company while quietly buying nearly all the freely traded ordinary shares of VW. When Porsche revealed its holdings in October 2008, shares of VW soared, triggering losses at the hedge funds, which had bet on a decline in VW shares.
AVIATION
Airline merger suspended
Officials have suspended a merger between Chile’s LAN Airlines and Brazil’s TAM Airlines while they investigate whether it complies with antitrust laws, Brazilian news media reported on Saturday. The five-member Court for the Defense of Free Competition issued the decision on Friday in response to a request from the private National Consumer Corp, the daily Tercera newspaper reported.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained