■ Aviation
We interview, you pay
Australia budget airline Jetstar has found a new way to cut costs and boost profits: charge job applicants for their interviews. "It's a cost recovery process for Jetstar," airline spokesman Simon Westaway told the Sydney Morning Herald yesterday. "We're making nothing on this." Jetstar charges prospective international flight attendants A$89 (US$66) for an interview. The Qantas Airways subsidiary expects to interview more than 1,000 applicants for the 240 jobs on offer.
■ Banking
Citibank punished for glitch
Japan's financial watchdog said yesterday it had punished Citibank Japan, ordering it to improve its computer system and submit a report, over a problem in May that botched hundreds of thousands of bank transactions and affected 97,000 individual customers for a week. The Financial Services Agency ordered Citibank, NA Japan branches to fundamentally re-evaluate and redevelop their current system of governance, internal control and outsourcing following a series of system failures involving transaction processing that affected thousands of individual and corporate customers earlier this year.
■ Computers
Apple drops legal action
Apple Computer has dropped its legal challenge against two Internet publishers who reported secret details about its new products, attorney Kurt Opsahl of the Electronic Freedom Foundation said on Thursday. Apple let the deadline to challenge an earlier appeals court ruling pass and filed court paperwork indicating it had abandoned the option, said Opsahl, who represented news Web sites PowerPage and AppleInsider in the case. Apple argued in court that the information could only have been leaked to the Web sites by someone who violated a confidentiality agreement with the company and that the Web site operators had to tell them who it was.
■ Automobiles
Ford halves dividend
Ford Motor Co, the second-largest US automaker, halved its dividend on Thursday to help stem losses at its North American unit. The payout for shareholders falls to US$0.05 a share from US$0.10 with the third quarter, Ford said in a statement. Ford is cutting spending after a US$1.6 billion pretax loss in its North American auto operations last year. The Dearborn, Michigan-based automaker in January announced a plan to cut 30,000 jobs and shut 14 North American plants by 2012.
■ Energy
Exploration bids invited
China will allow foreign companies a rare chance to conduct exploration for oil and gas in parts of the resource-rich Tarim Basin in the northwest of the country, the country's top energy company said yesterday. The China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC), the nation's largest oil and gas producer, said it will invite bids from foreign companies for exploration in nine potential oil and gas blocks in the basin. CNPC said in a statement on its Web site that several foreign oil companies had already expressed an interest in participating in projects in the Tarim Basin but provided no names. The statement suggested that a major motive of permitting foreign participation was to attract technological know-how from overseas.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
EYE ON STRAIT: The US spending bill ‘doubles security cooperation funding for Taiwan,’ while also seeking to counter the influence of China US President Joe Biden on Saturday signed into law a US$1.2 trillion spending package that includes US$300 million in foreign military financing to Taiwan, as well as funding for Taipei-Washington cooperative projects. The US Congress early on Saturday overwhelmingly passed the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act 2024 to avoid a partial shutdown and fund the government through September for a fiscal year that began six months ago. Under the package, the Defense Appropriations Act would provide a US$27 billion increase from the previous fiscal year to fund “critical national defense efforts, including countering the PRC [People’s Republic of China],” according to a summary
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)