■ TECHNOLOGY
Texas Instruments cuts jobs
US microchip maker Texas Instruments Inc is slashing 400 jobs in the Philippines to cope with falling orders amid the global economic crunch, labor officials said yesterday. The Dallas-based company notified the Philippine Labor Department of its plan to seek 400 volunteers to take “generous” severance packages among 2,300 employees in its plant in the northern city of Baguio, said Ana Dione, a Labor Department official. Apart from 400 workers, another 100 employees were to be transferred to Texas Instruments’ other plant north of Manila, she said.
■ELECTRONICS
Polaroid files for bankruptcy
Polaroid Corp and its subsidiaries filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Thursday, saying that allegations of fraud at its parent company are to blame. In a statement, Concord, Massachusetts-based Polaroid said its ongoing financial restructuring process and Thursday’s filing in US Bankruptcy Court in Minnesota are the result of the federal investigation into its parent, Petters Group Worldwide. Petters Group has owned Polaroid since 2005. Petters Group and its venture capital unit Petters Co Inc filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in October following a federal investigation into a US$3 billion fraud scheme allegedly run by the company’s founder, Tom Petters.
■AVIATION
ANA postpones purchase
Japan’s All Nippon Airways said yesterday it was putting on hold plans to buy any new giant aircraft, either Boeing’s 747-8 or the Airbus A380 superjumbo, because of the global economic downturn. The purchase plan “will remain on hold until the company deems market conditions conducive to resuming the selection process,” said Rob Henderson, a spokesman for ANA, Japan’s second largest carrier. The decision does not affect All Nippon Airways’ plans to be the launch customer of Boeing’s next-generation Dreamliner. European consortium Airbus had been pushing hard to win the order since ANA launched the search in July, seeing it as a chance to break into the Japanese market.
■LOGISTICS
FedEx cuts salaries
US delivery giant FedEx said on Thursday it was slashing salaries for many employees to cope with the global economic downturn. “Our financial performance is increasingly being challenged by some of the worst economic conditions in the company’s 35-year operating history,” said Frederick Smith, who is chairman, president and chief executive. Smith will take a 20 percent cut in base pay while other senior executives will see a reduction of between 7.5 percent and 10 percent and other salaried personnel will get a 5.0 percent cut. The company also said it was freezing hiring and eliminating merit pay increases for next year.
■CHINA
Unemployment increases
The real number of unemployed in China is much more severe than statistics show after 670,000 small firms closed this year under pressure from the global financial crisis, an adviser to China’s Cabinet said yesterday. About 6.7 million jobs vanished, many in the export hub of Guangdong, pushing unemployment well above the official figure of 8.3 million, State Council adviser Chen Quansheng (陳全生) said at a forum in Beijing. “The real employment situation is much more grave than the official statistics, which only show the registered urban jobless number,” he said. Chen urged official support for labor-intensive industries to create jobs.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique