The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) yesterday said it does not expect any water, electricity or fuel supply shortages during the Lunar New Year holiday.
The ministry said state-run utilities have come up with contingency plans if workers at any of the firms take industrial action over the holiday to protest against legislators’ decision to cut their bonuses.
Members of the Taiwan Petroleum Workers’ Union held a march on Saturday to protest the legislators cutting the year-end bonuses for 2011 for state-run CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 中油) workers from the equivalent of 2.6 months’ salary to 1.2 months.
“Workers of CPC will follow the company’s working schedule during the holiday. CPC will supply a sufficient amount of fuel during the holidays,” CPC president Arthur Kung (孔祥雲) told a press conference yesterday.
Kung said some CPC gas stations will extend their working hours during the holiday, while some of those in popular tourist areas, such as Shitan Township (獅潭) and Nanjhuang (南庄) in Miaoli County, as well as Kenting (墾丁) in Pingtung County, will operate 24 hours a day.
Taiwan Power Co (台電) president Lee Han-shen (李漢申) and Taiwan Water Corp (台灣自來水) president Chen Fu-Tien (陳福田) promised stable power and water supplies during the holiday.
Consumers can call 1910, 1911 or 1912 during the holiday if they need assistance from the three firms.
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