■METALS
Aluminum refinery opens
Brazilian mining giant Vale opened the world’s biggest aluminum refinery on Thursday and said it would invest US$20 billion in the region to boost output of several metals. The refinery, in the northern Brazilian town of Barcarena, will provide 7 percent of global aluminum production, with annual output of 5.78 million tonnes, the company said. The company would invest US$5 billion this year in the state of Para, where the refinery is located, with another US$15 billion following over the next four years, Vale said.
■Automakers
Toyota adjusts production
Toyota Motor Corp, the world’s second-largest automaker, will concentrate Tundra pickup truck production in Texas about six months earlier than scheduled. Toyota will make the Tundra at its Texas plant and stop production of the model in Indiana from November, spokesman Hideaki Homma said by telephone yesterday. The Indiana plant will only build the Sequoia sport-utility vehicle until next year, when it is also expected to make Highlander SUVs. “We’re responding swiftly to changing demand in North America,” Homma said, confirming an earlier report by the Nikkei Shimbun.
■METALS
Citigroup bullish on gold
Gold may rebound from a slump and rally through 2010 as fabrication demand rises and on expectation the dollar will resume its decline against the euro, Citigroup Inc said. “Longer term, we would not be surprised to see gold double,” the bank’s analysts John Hill and Graham Wark wrote in a report. “We would be aggressive buyers at current levels expecting gold to work higher through 2009/10.” Gold for immediate delivery is down 4.9 percent this year, after climbing for seven straight years. Bullion dropped below US$800 an ounce for the first time in almost eight months yesterday as the dollar reached a five-and-a-half-month high against the euro, heading for its fifth weekly gain.
■Internet
Biondi, Chapple join Yahoo
Yahoo on Thursday added to its board of directors two executives picked by corporate raider Carl Icahn, fulfilling a condition of a truce it struck with the corporate raider. Former Universal Studios chief Frank Biondi and John Chapple, whose resume includes stints at telecom firms Nextel and AT&T Wireless, were appointed to the struggling Internet pioneer’s board. “Frank’s extensive experience in the entertainment and media industries, combined with John’s deep management experience in telecommunications, will provide valuable perspectives to our already diverse board,” Yahoo chairman Roy Bostock said in a statement.
■IPR
Peru cleared to tighten laws
A South American trade group gave member states the go-ahead to set their own intellectual property laws on Thursday, letting Peru clear a key hurdle toward implementing a free-trade deal with the US. The change gives member states the right to make their own intellectual property laws, allowing Peru to tighten copyright, trademark and patent protections, which the US required it to do before enacting a free-trade deal signed in 2006. The group, known as the Andean Community, has been divided over a possible trade deal with the EU and over member nations’ separate trade pacts with other countries, including the US. The group also has its own agreement on intellectual property laws and must approve any changes that members might make to their own laws.
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)