FINANCE
US should lead: Zoellick
The head of the World Bank said yesterday it was right for the US to take a leading role in some global institutions and that the right US candidate for the post of the bank’s next president would be good for the US and the bank. In an interview in Singapore, World Bank President Robert Zoellick also said he did not believe Spain, Italy or Portugal needed bailouts to ease massive debt burdens, but that reforms needed the critical support of Germany and other leading European nations. The World Bank last week launched the nomination process to select a new president to succeed Zoellick when he steps down in June, inviting names from any of its 187 member countries. Some nations say it is time for a non-US candidate to take the helm of the bank, pointing to the growing economic clout of the developing world.
INTERNET
Google sells Clearwire stake
Google Inc on Friday said it would sell its stake in Clearwire Corp, the struggling operator of a wireless data network. The search company is taking a 94 percent loss on the originally US$500 million investment made in 2008. Google said in a regulatory filing that it was seeking to sell its stake starting tomorrow for US$1.60 per share, or US$47 million total. Clearwire shares fell US$0.16, or 6.8 percent, to close on Friday at US$2.11. Google was part of a consortium that included cable companies and equipment provider Intel Corp that injected US$3.2 billion into Clearwire when it merged with a Sprint Nextel Corp unit in 2008. The hope was that Clearwire would be a powerful competitor to the established cellphone companies, providing fast wireless data at low prices.
UNITED STATES
Officials oppose QE3
Two US Federal Reserve officials opposed additional mortgage-bond purchases by the Fed, saying the measure was not needed and that the US central bank should not interfere in credit markets. Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis President James Bullard said he did not favor additional debt buying as inflation risks are “to the upside” and a damaged housing market limits the effectiveness of monetary policy. Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia President Charles Plosser said targeting a specific industry such as housing should be left to the US Treasury. “I am worried that if you try to push so hard on monetary policy even when the mechanism isn’t really working, the whole thing blows up on you,” said Bullard, who does not vote on the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) this year. He also said that the FOMC would need to mark down its economic forecasts to warrant another program of large-scale asset purchases, known as quantitative easing.
SPORTING GOODS
Nike selling Lin shoes
Nike Inc will start selling Jeremy Lin (林書豪)-themed shoes this weekend, cashing in on the New York Knicks point guard’s recent rise to worldwide fame. Priced at US$130, the shoes will be available on Nike’s Web site. Nike said it would launch the Nike Zoom Hyperfuse Low basketball shoes, made especially for Lin, this weekend in Orlando, Florida, where the NBA is holding its All-Star festivities. “It’s not a signature line, but a version of the shoe that he’s been wearing this season,” the company said. The world’s biggest sporting goods company, headquartered in Beaverton, Oregon, signed Lin in 2010, and launched its “Linsanity” line of clothes at Foot Locker Inc stores last week.
MARKET LEADERSHIP: Investors are flocking to Nvidia, drawn by the company’s long-term fundamntals, dominant position in the AI sector, and pricing and margin power Two years after Nvidia Corp made history by becoming the first chipmaker to achieve a US$1 trillion market capitalization, an even more remarkable milestone is within its grasp: becoming the first company to reach US$4 trillion. After the emergence of China’s DeepSeek (深度求索) sent the stock plunging earlier this year and stoked concerns that outlays on artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure were set to slow, Nvidia shares have rallied back to a record. The company’s biggest customers remain full steam ahead on spending, much of which is flowing to its computing systems. Microsoft Corp, Meta Platforms Inc, Amazon.com Inc and Alphabet Inc are
Luxury fashion powerhouse Prada SpA has acknowledged the ancient Indian roots of its new sandal design after the debut of the open-toe footwear sparked a furor among Indian artisans and politicians thousands of miles from the catwalk in Italy. Images from Prada’s fashion show in Milan last weekend showed models wearing leather sandals with a braided design that resembled handmade Kolhapuri slippers with designs dating back to the 12th century. A wave of criticism in the media and from lawmakers followed over the Italian brand’s lack of public acknowledgement of the Indian sandal design, which is named after a city in the
The US overtaking China as Taiwan’s top export destination could boost industrial development and wage growth, given the US is a high-income economy, an economist said yesterday. However, Taiwan still needs to diversify its export markets due to the unpredictability of US President Donald Trump’s administration, said Chiou Jiunn-rong (邱俊榮), an economics professor at National Central University. Taiwan’s exports soared to a record US$51.74 billion last month, driven by strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) products and continued orders, with information and communication technology (ICT) and audio/video products leading all sectors. The US reclaimed its position as Taiwan’s top export market, accounting for
NEW MODELS: AI researchers are facing challenges in managing deceptive behaviors, with limited regulation and testing, as the race for advanced models intensifies The world’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) models are exhibiting troubling new behaviors — lying, scheming and even threatening their creators to achieve their goals. In one particularly jarring example, under threat of being unplugged, Anthropic PBC’s latest creation, Claude 4, lashed back by blackmailing an engineer and threatening to reveal an extramarital affair. Meanwhile, ChatGPT creator OpenAI’s o1 tried to download itself onto external servers and denied it when caught red-handed. These episodes highlight a sobering reality: More than two years after ChatGPT shook the world, AI researchers still do not fully understand how their own creations work. Yet the race to
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