INTERNET
Mumsnet hit by ‘Heartbleed’
British parenting Web site Mumsnet is the latest organization to have been hacked due to the “Heartbleed” bug, founder Justine Roberts said on Monday. “Last week we became aware of the Heartbleed bug and immediately applied a fix to close the OpenSSL security hole,” she said in a statement. “However, it became apparent that users’ data submitted via our login page had been accessed prior to our applying this fix.” All 1.5 million registered users were asked to change their passwords. Roberts said she did not know how many users had data stolen. “The worst case scenario is that the data of every Mumsnet user account was accessed,” she said.
ITALY
Pay cap for state-run firms
The government named four new directors to state-controlled companies on Monday, including three women, and capped executive pay at such firms at 238,000 euros (US$329,000) a year. The shake-up affects some of the country’s largest state-controlled companies: oil firm Eni, energy company Enel, industrial giant Finmeccanica and the postal service. Prime Minister Matteo Renzi has said he is looking to cut 500 million euros from executive salaries at state-run companies.
UKRAINE
Interest rate hiked
The central bank increased its benchmark interest rate for the first time in eight months on Monday in a bid to defend its currency, which has lost almost two-fifths of its value since the start of the year due to the conflict with Russia. The bank hiked the benchmark rate to 9.5 percent from 6.5 percent in its first change since August last year. The rate change went into effect yesterday. The bank also raised its overnight loan rate to 14.5 percent from 7.5 percent.
INTERNET
Google buying dronemaker
Google on Monday announced that it is acquiring Titan Aerospace, a maker of solar-powered drones that could be used to boost Internet access to remote areas. Titan’s atmospheric satellites, which are still in development and not yet commercially available, can stay in the air for as long as five years, according to reports. “It’s still early days, but atmospheric satellites could help bring Internet access to millions of people, and help solve other problems, including disaster relief and environmental damage like deforestation,” a Google spokesman said in an e-mail. Financial terms of the transaction were not released.
TRADING
Twitter bosses keep shares
Twitter cofounders Jack Dorsey and Evan Williams and chief executive Dick Costolo have no short-term plans to sell their shares in the social network, according to documents released on Monday. The news comes weeks ahead of the so-called lockup expiration on May 5, the date after which insiders would be allowed to sell holdings following Twitter’s initial public offering last year.
FOODSTUFFS
Nestle sales rise 4.2%
Food company Nestle SA says sales rose 4.2 percent in the first quarter despite deflationary price pressures in Europe. The Switzerland-based maker of Lean Cuisine, Nespresso and Haagen-Dazs yesterday said that sales of 20.8 billion Swiss francs (US$23.6 billion) were held back by a strong franc and by a flat retail environment in Europe. Sales there fell 0.8 percent. Candy sales were reduced by a later Easter, which pushed sales of sweets into the second quarter.
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
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
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