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World Business Quick Take

■ Internet
Stars deliver Amazon orders
Clay Aiken lurked outside a house, Emmylou Harris stopped by a university, Nick Lachey dropped in on a stranger's workplace and Moby played with dogs while making special deliveries in honor of online retailer Amazon.com's 10th anniversary. Over 10 days, 23 Amazon customers received a surprise visit from a celebrity associated with their order. American Idol runner-up Aiken dropped off his memoir, Learning to Sing. Lachey delivered all three seasons of MTV's Newlyweds: Nick & Jessica on DVD, while musicians Moby and Harris showed up with their CDs. The moments were captured on tape and the videos are available to view on Amazon.com. Other celebrities who participated in the surprises included Harrison Ford, Don Cheadle, Jeff Bridges, Minnie Driver, Fat Joe and Michael J. Fox.

■ Semiconductors
New Infineon scandal erupts
Following the resignation of board member Andreas von Zitzewitz amid bribery allegations, German chipmaker Infineon now faces a new scandal over the multi-million-dollar contract to build its new headquarters, the daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported yesterday. An internal audit found that the 500-million-euro (US$610 million) project to build a campus-like headquarters on 150,000m2 of land just outside Munich could have been a lot cheaper, the newspaper reported. The auditors had pointed the finger at Infineon's former chairman Ulrich Schumacher, who had turned a blind eye to the "overly generous" architects' bills. Indeed, "the immensely high costs of the project played a key role in the removal of Schumacher from his position as chairman" in 2001, the paper reported.

■ Oil industry
Marshall Islands face crisis
The Marshall Islands has appealed to the US for help in a dispute with its sole fuel oil supplier, ExxonMobil, that could lead to power cuts in the capital Majuro next month. The Marshalls Energy Company (MEC) and local businesses said they wanted the US to intervene before the dispute leaves the capital's 25,000 people without power. A diesel supply contract between ExxonMobil subsidiary Mobil Oil Micronesia and the MEC expired last year and negotiations for a new contract have stalled. Mobil told the MEC in June it will raise prices and expect shipments to be paid for in advance. It says the hike is necessary because of higher global prices. But the MEC says it cannot meet the prices being asked, alleging Mobil's action amounts to price-gouging.

■ Semiconductors
Chartered limits loss
Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing Ltd (特許), the world's fourth-largest contract chip maker, said yesterday it swung to a smaller-than-expected loss of US$67.1 million in the second quarter of the year on communications and computer segments sales. Chartered Semiconductor customers include Motorola Inc and Broadcom. The chipmaker said its net loss for the quarter ending June 30 was better than its losses in the first quarter of US$84.5 million. It had made a US$15.3 million net profit in the same period a year earlier. The chipmaker is 60 percent owned by Temasek Holdings, the Singapore government's investment arm. Its major competitors include Taiwan's United Microelectronics Corp (聯電), Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) and China's Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (中芯).

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