Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Monday threatened to seek the arrest of Kimberly-Clark Corp representatives after the US paper products company shut down production in Venezuela amid a deep economic crisis.
The company, which halted operations two weeks ago, produced items that are in extremely short supply in Venezuela, such as toilet paper, diapers and feminine hygiene products.
Maduro accused the company of failing to fund social benefits that its workers had been promised. About 900 employees were laid off by the company.
Photo: AFP
“The ones who must go to jail will go to jail, no matter where they are,” Maduro said, adding that alerts for their arrests would be issued through Interpol.
The company’s factory in the northern Venezuelan city of Maracay has been turned over to its workers, and Maduro insisted that all production lines were in operation.
However, one worker at the plant, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters only one of 11 production lines was active.
The Venezuelan Federation of Chambers of Commerce estimates that 85 percent of the country’s industries were paralyzed in May due to a lack of raw materials.
The country has been mired in a deepening economic crisis under Maduro’s leftist government, with widespread shortages of basic goods, soaring inflation and rising insecurity.
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