FOOD
New Delhi targets Nestle
The government has filed for damages from food group Nestle after a food scare involving reports of excess lead in Maggi noodles forced a nationwide recall, government officials said yesterday. “It is a serious matter concerning public health and the law allows us to take suo moto legal steps, or legal actions, against erring entities,” said one official in the consumer affairs department of the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution. The claim, made on behalf of domestic consumers, was not filed through the court system, but with the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, which has semi-judicial powers and is to decide on the merits of the case and the size of any damages. The officials said Nestle was being accused of unfair trade practices, adding that this is the first case in which the government has sought damages from a multinational firm.
ENERGY
Iranian oil heads to Russia
Russia is to begin importing Iranian oil under a long-heralded oil-for-goods barter arrangement in the coming week, Iranian Minister of Petroleum Bijan Zanganeh was quoted as saying on Saturday, more than a year after negotiations began. The Kremlin announced in April that it had begun to implement the deal, in which Iran is to export up to 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil to Russia in exchange for goods of an equivalent value, but traders said they saw no signs of it. “Russia will begin oil imports from Iran this week,” Iran’s Fars news agency quoted the oil minister as saying as he returned to Tehran from an OPEC meeting in Vienna. Iran’s oil exports have fallen by more than half to about 1.1 million bpd since 2012, when Western powers imposed sanctions aimed at curbing Tehran’s disputed nuclear program.
TELECOMS
Apology after Israel remark
Orange SA chief executive Stephane Richard apologized for saying that France’s largest telecommunications carrier would get out of Israel if it could. Richard “sincerely regrets” the controversy created by his comments and vowed that Orange would stay in the country, Agence France-Presse quoted Richard as saying on Saturday. Orange spokesman Tom Wright confirmed the statement. The apology came after Richard found himself at the center of a diplomatic storm over remarks he made at a news conference in Cairo on Wednesday. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had called Richard’s comments “despicable” and urged the government to publicly denounce any boycott of Israel.
SPACE
Airbus eyes reusable rocket
European aircraft and aerospace giant Airbus has unveiled plans for a reusable space rocket launcher that should be ready in 2025, it said, adding that its version would be radically different from the concept of US firm Space X. Airbus must overcome significant technical and financial challenges, while the Space X company owned by South African-born billionaire Elon Musk, cofounder of PayPal, is already experimenting with its model. Since 2010, a team of engineers has been secretly working at an Airbus warehouse at Les Mureaux, just outside Paris, looking for ways to reuse space rocket launchers. They have a difficult task ahead because they must ensure that reuse ends up costing less than sticking to classic single-use models. Airbus has baptized the two phases of its reusable launcher concept Adeline and Space Tugs.
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
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”