GREECE
Fire public servants: IMF
The country’s rescue creditors on Wednesday pressed the debt-shackled country to fire excess public servants and further scale back workers’ pay rights. The IMF’s top official in the country warned the government it would not escape high budget deficits unless it switches efforts to spending cuts, arguing that the country’s taxpayers had reached the limit. IMF mission chief Poul Thomsen told a financial conference in Athens that Greek government should “move aggressively” to reduce the size of the public sector.
AVIATION
Malaysia Air to cut routes
Loss-making national carrier Malaysia Airlines said it will cut eight routes to Europe, Africa, the Middle East and other destinations starting next month as it seeks to return to a profit. Routes servicing Rome, Johannesburg, Cape Town, Buenos Aires, Karachi, Dubai, the Saudi Arabian city of Dammam, and the city of Surabaya in Indonesia will be dropped, it said in a statement released on late on Wednesday. They will be phased out at different times throughout next month and February.
SEMICONDUCTORS
Lam to buy Novellus
Lam Research Corp agreed to buy Novellus Systems Inc for about US$3.3 billion, combining two of the biggest companies in the chip-equipment industry in a challenge to market leader Applied Materials Inc. The transaction values Novellus at US$44.42 a share, Fremont, California-based Lam said on Wednesday in a statement. The two companies make machinery used by chipmakers to build semiconductors out of disks of silicon. The combination will help the new business keep pace with the latest chipmaking technologies, Lam chief executive officer Steve Newberry said in the statement.
SOFTWARE
Gates rules out return
Microsoft founder Bill Gates yesterday ruled out ever returning to the helm of Microsoft while dismissing criticism by late Apple founder Steve Jobs, who he called “brilliant.” Gates, in Sydney for a family holiday, said recent rumors that he was considering a full-time comeback to the US software giant he founded, but stepped back from in 2006, were untrue. He told the Sydney Morning Herald he was busy working with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation “and that will be what I do for the rest of my life.”
SEMICONDUCTORS
Intel forms smartphone unit
Intel on Wednesday formed a new unit devoted to making chips for smartphones and tablets that have become must-have gadgets in a post-personal computer age. Four units were combined into a Mobile and Communications Group headed by Hermann Eul and Mike Bell, whose background includes having worked on the iPhone at Apple, Intel spokesman Robert Manetta said. “We are trying to speed and improve the development of Intel-based mobile devices,” Manetta said after the internal announcement was made at the California-based chip titan.
VIDEO GAMES
PlayStation Vita to hit stores
Sony’s long-awaited PlayStation Vita portable game machine hits stores in Japan tomorrow, with the company predicting brisk sales even though the launch has missed much of the holiday shopping season. Sony Computer Entertainment Inc president Andrew House said yesterday that enthusiasm among gamers could lead to some shortages at first. The PS Vita goes on sale in North America and Europe on Feb. 22.
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
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
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
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