BRAZIL
Facebook suspension halted
A court on Saturday reversed an order that would have blocked access to Facebook in the country for a day after the popular social media site allegedly refused to pull a page including illegal political material. An electoral court in Florianopolis, capital of the southern state of Santa Catarina, voided the ruling, which also included a fine of about US$25,000. Facebook was accused last week by electoral court judge Felipe Siegert Schuch of refusing to comply with an order to take down a page deemed offensive to local councilman Dalmo Menezes, who is seeking reelection in October. The US company said it was pleased with the new ruling.
EUROZONE
Spanish economy talked-up
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said he does not think Spain’s government will need help from European relief funds, according to an interview in a newspaper yesterday. Speaking to the Bild am Sonntag, he said that “the Spanish government with its Prime Minister [Mariano] Rajoy shows great determination in implementing its reforms. This is why I am optimistic. I consider Spain a very strong country with a strong economy.” The eurozone in the middle of last month approved an aid package for Spanish banks with funds of up to 100 billion euros (US$122.9 billion).
BANKING
Goldman Sachs avoid court
Goldman Sachs escaped prosecution over its sales of high-risk mortgage securities on Friday when the US Department of Justice closed a probe without action despite a damning report on the bank’s practices. Following a two-year inquiry, senators concluded in April last year that the Wall Street investment banking giant misled clients ahead of the US financial crash by offloading securities its traders fully expected to lose value, but the Justice Department said there was “not a viable basis” for a criminal prosecution against Goldman or its employees.
AUTOMAKERS
Mercedes in floor mat recall
Mercedes-Benz is recalling all-season accessory floor mats sold in this year’s and next year’s model ML-Class vehicles because they could cause the car’s gas pedal to get stuck. Mercedes said on Saturday that the mats may not conform to the contours of the car’s floor. As a result, the gas pedal may not fully retract after the driver stops applying pressure and the car may not slow down as expected. The company is advising ML-Class owners to remove the accessory floor mats. A spokesman for Mercedes-Benz says the company is not aware of any crashes or injuries caused by the floor mat problem.
MIDDLE EAST
Qatar donates cash to Egypt
Qatar has decided to give US$2 billion in financial support to Egypt, which is plagued by serious economic challenges, Egyptian state news agency MENA reported on Saturday. The announcement follows a Cairo meeting between Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi and Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani. “Qatar has decided to deposit two billion dollars in the Central Bank of Egypt,” the report said. The central bank’s reserves have fallen to US$14.4 billion, against US$36 billion a year and a half ago, since the fall of former president Hosni Mubarak in February last year. The cash shortfall raises fears about Egypt’s ability to maintain imports of basic commodities such as wheat and refined fuel and to honor its international financial commitments.
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
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
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],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts