PUBLISHING
Digital book lawsuit warning
The US Department of Justice is threatening to sue Apple Inc and five major US publishers for allegedly colluding to raise the price of digital books, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. The newspaper, citing people familiar with the matter, said several of the parties have held talks to head off an antitrust case, but not every publisher is in settlement discussions. The Journal identified the five publishers as CBS Corp’s Simon & Schuster, Lagardere SCA’s Hachette Book Group, Pearson’s Penguin Group (USA); Macmillan, a unit of Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck, and HarperCollins, a unit of News Corp, which owns the Journal.
INSURANCE
US selling AIG shares
The US Treasury Department said on Wednesday it is selling US$6 billion worth of the US$41.8 billion in common stock it holds in insurance giant American International Group Inc (AIG), which received the biggest bailout of the financial crisis in 2008. The stock sale is a step by the government toward disentangling itself from AIG. It still owns 77 percent of the company’s common shares. Treasury said AIG plans to buy as much as US$3 billion of the stock being sold. A price for the common shares wasn’t specified.
AUTOMAKERS
Some Toyota trucks recalled
Toyota said on Wednesday it was recalling nearly 730,000 vehicles in the US and Canada to fix potential problems with the driver’s airbag and a switch that can prevent vehicles from starting. Toyota said it is not aware of “any accidents or injuries caused by these two conditions” and added that the affected models were not distributed outside North America. The faulty cable recall affects 495,000 Tacoma trucks in the US and 17,178 in Canada with model years of 2005 to 2009.
AUSTRALIA
Jobless rate rises to 5.2%
Unemployment rose to a seasonally adjusted 5.2 percent last month, with the slowing economy shedding 15,400 jobs as commodity prices cooled, figures showed yesterday. The Australian Bureau of Statistics said a drop in part-time work was to blame for the increase from a seasonally adjusted 5.1 percent in January. Analysts had expected the jobless rate to rise to 5.2 percent, but the economy had been tipped to create 5,000 extra jobs.
SOUTH KOREA
Borrowing costs hold steady
The Bank of Korea held off raising borrowing costs for a ninth straight month as policy makers balance the risks from Europe’s debt crisis against rising oil costs that are pushing prices higher. Bank Governor Kim Choong-soo and his board kept the benchmark seven-day repurchase rate unchanged at 3.25 percent, the central bank said in a statement in Seoul yesterday.
RETAIL
Carrefour profits fall 14.3%
Carrefour, the world’s second-biggest retailer, yesterday said its profit dropped by 14.3 percent last year, closing a year marked by multiple profit warnings and a pending management change. The group said it would scale back the planned European openings of new Planet hypermarkets, a concept that has turned in disappointing results so far. Carrefour’s net profit for last year came in at 371 million euros (US$488 million), according to a statement, which also said the group would divide its dividend in half to 0.52 euros per share.
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
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
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last