■ Automakers
VW to step up job cuts
Volkswagen (VW), Europe's biggest car maker, said yesterday that it planned to step up job-cutting measures, particularly at its main plant in Wolfsburg, north Germany. "Despite rising sales, the Volkswagen group still has considerable overcapacity and will therefore be intensifying its efforts to cut back manpower," the car maker said in a statement. "We have surplus manpower of the order of several thousand employees at our German sites, in particular Wolfsburg," VW said. The auto giant did not say exactly how many jobs were on the line, but a report in the latest edition of the weekly newsmagazine Der Spiegel quoted sources close to the company as saying that more than 10,000 jobs faced the chop. The cutbacks would be achieved via measures such as as early retirement.
■ Hong Kong
Record haul of fakes seized
Customs officers in Hong Kong have seized a record haul of 150,000 fake Burberry clothes and products in the city's biggest seizure of its kind. The high-quality items bearing the famous Burberry check design had a retail value of around US$16.7 million, according to the South China Morning Post yesterday. Eleven Hong Kong people including two alleged masterminds of a Hong Kong and Japan counterfeit clothing syndicate have been arrested in connection with the seizure, the newspaper said. The clothes are understood to have been made to order in factories in China and were seized in a Hong Kong warehouse where they were stored before being shipped to China. The items will be shredded and dumped in landfills after a court case involving the suspects ends in around a year's time, the newspaper said.
■ Japan
Business' investments rise
Investment levels of Japanese businesses rose 7.3 percent in the April to June period, according to the Japanese Finance Ministry's quarterly report released yesterday. Compared to the previous year, manufacturers spent 19.8 percent more on plant and equipment, which marked the highest rate of increase since the July to September period in 2001, when the ministry adopted its current calculation method. Meanwhile, expenditure by non-manufacturers rose 1.8 percent, the ministry's quarterly survey showed. As manufacturers' pretax profits increased 14.2 percent, those of non-manufacturers grew 11.9 percent. The combined pretax profits in both sectors gained 12.9 percent for the three-month period, compared to a year earlier. The survey results supported the government's announcement last month that Japan was making an economic recovery.
■ South Korea
Strikes hamper carmakers
Hyundai Motor Co and Kia Motors Corp, South Korea's two largest carmakers, have had total production losses of about 608 billion won (US$594 million) since workers went on strike last month. Hyundai Motor has suffered losses of 396.2 billion won as of last Friday from the 54-hour partial strikes that started on Aug. 25, the Korea Auto Industries Cooperation Association said in a statement yesterday. Kia incurred losses of 211.3 billion won from a total of 48-hour strike that began on Aug. 29. Losses of their parts suppliers reached about 518 billion won. Union workers at Hyundai Motor and Kia are on partial strikes as they demand higher wages and better working conditions.
National Taiwan University (NTU) yesterday said it disqualified a person from an entrance examination for using AI smart glasses to cheat, along with two others for making untruthful statements in their curriculum vitae. The three applicants were given null scores, Taiwan’s highest-ranked university said, calling on prospective students to be honest in the admissions process. NTU registrar Lee Hung-sen (李宏森) said that the cheating applicant wore a hat and thick-rimmed glasses to the second written exam for medical school, claiming that they felt cold. Suspicions were aroused when the applicant stared oddly at the test for long stretches while steadily bringing the paper
A magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck off the southern coast of Mindanao in the Philippines at 7:38am today, prompting the US Tsunami Warning System to issue an alert for neighboring countries, including Taiwan. The system issued a purple alert indicating a "tsunami threat." The potential threat zone includes Taiwan, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Yap and Palau. Philippine authorities were assessing the damage from the quake, with the office of civil defense seeking to verifying initial reports that 15 people had been killed and 129 injured in the region, mostly from falling debris. Arlene Hollero, disaster chief of Maasim town in the Philippines' Sarangani Province,
‘GRAY ZONE’ PRESSURE: Beijing’s activities are intended to create the deceitful impression that China has jurisdiction over the area around Taiwan, the CGA said Taiwan’s rights over its territorial waters and exclusive economic zone must not be violated by any country, the Mainland Affairs Council said yesterday, adding that it will not accept any unprovoked actions. The council issued the remarks in response to the China Coast Guard conducting maritime enforcement drills near eastern Taiwan and claiming to fully exercise China’s maritime administrative law enforcement authority. The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) has been closely monitoring the situation and is taking concrete steps to defend the nation’s sovereignty and secure its waters, the council said. China has no sovereign rights over the waters off eastern
Heavy rain is expected to affect parts of Taiwan this week, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday as a meteorologist said the active part of the annual plum rain season has started. A stationary plum rain front and southwesterly winds would bring unstable weather and abundant moisture to Taiwan from today for about a week, with the heaviest rainfall forecast for tomorrow and Wednesday, the CWA said. The agency said western and northeastern Taiwan, and mountainous areas in the east and southeast, could expect showers or thunderstorms on those two days, with localized heavy rain possible. Other parts of
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