FedEx Corp yesterday said an operational error prevented a Huawei Technologies Co (華為) package from being delivered to the US, just weeks after the US delivery firm said an error led to the Chinese firm’s packages being misdirected.
“The package in question was mistakenly returned to the shipper, and we apologize for this operational error,” FedEx told reporters in an e-mailed statement.
A company spokeswoman confirmed that the package was US bound, but declined to say what it contained.
Huawei, the world’s biggest telecoms gear maker, is at the center of a bruising trade dispute between Washington and Beijing.
China launched an investigation into FedEx earlier this month over Huawei parcels delivered to the wrong address, without giving details about the deliveries in question.
Xinhua news agency had said back then that the investigation into FedEx over misdirected mail should not be regarded as retaliation against the US company, amid the trade spat.
The US and China have been engaged in a trade dispute for months on issues such as tariffs, subsidies, technology, regulations and cyber security, among others, with Washington putting Huawei on a blacklist last month citing national security.
“FedEx can accept and transport all Huawei products except for any shipments to listed Huawei entities on the US Entity List,” the company said yesterday.
The missed delivery was earlier reported by China’s Global Times, a tabloid published by the Chinese Communist Party’s People’s Daily.
On Friday, the US Department of Commerce said it was adding several Chinese companies and a government-owned institute involved in supercomputing with military applications to its national security “entity list” that bars them from buying US parts and components without government approval.
These companies include supercomputer maker Sugon Information Industry Co Ltd (中科曙光) and Wuxi Jiangnan Institute of Computing Technology (無錫江南計算技術).
Huawei, which said it was reviewing its relationship with FedEx after the mishandling of its packages earlier, did not immediately respond yesterday to a request for comment.
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