■AUTOMOBILES
Toyota to slash output
Toyota Motor Corp plans to slash its global production capacity by up to 10 percent to cope with weak sales, reports said yesterday. Toyota will cut its output capacity by 1 million vehicles from the current level of 10 million, the Nikkei Shimbun said. A spokeswoman confirmed the company plans to suspend a line at its Takaoka plant in Aichi Prefecture from early next year until late 2011, but said no other cuts had been decided. Reports said Toyota will also reduce its capacity by shutting a US joint venture with General Motors Co and by halting some production lines at factories in Britain and Japan. Closing down the California joint venture, New United Motor Manufacturing Inc would reduce output capacity by 300,000 vehicles a year, while a further cut of 200,000 will come from halting one of two lines at a plant in Derbyshire, Britain, the reports said. Toyota will idle the affected production lines in Japan and Britain so that it can quickly raise production in the event of a recovery in demand, the Nikkei said.
■MANUFACTURING
OC Oerlikon cutting jobs
Swiss industrial group OC Oerlikon said on Tuesday it is cutting 2,500 jobs and replacing its chief executive after posting a 99 million Swiss franc (US$93 million) loss for the first half of the year. Oerlikon, which makes industrial coatings and components for cars, solar panels and pumps, cut 1,500 jobs earlier this year. The additional cuts are part of a plan to reduce costs by SF400 million compared with last year, and will largely affect Oerlikon’s textile and drive systems units. Spokesman Burkhard Boendel said several hundred jobs would likely go in the US, while Italy and Germany will also face cuts. Oerlikon said it had 18,385 employees last year. The company also said Hans Ziegler would take over as acting CEO immediately, replacing Uwe Krueger. Ziegler will take charge for four to six months as the board seeks a permanent CEO.
■BANKING
France wants new pay rules
The French government will not work with banks that refuse to bring in new pay rules for traders, with both bonuses and penalties based on their performance, French President Nicolas Sarkozy warned on Tuesday. France’s banking federation said the country’s banks had agreed to the new rules following talks with Sarkozy on Tuesday, and that trader bonuses could be replaced by penalties in the event banks lose money. “I want banks who do not play by the rules to be punished,” Sarkozy said.
■ENERGY
Gazprom Q1 profits plunge
Russian energy giant Gazprom said yesterday its net profits fell 61 percent in the first quarter to 110.2 billion rubles (US$3.5 billion) due to higher expenses. It said three months to March sales of gas increased 14 percent from the same period a year earlier due to higher prices across the world. Operating expenses and financial charges rose sharply as the cost of purchased gas soared 174 percent, reflecting an increase in prices for gas from Central Asia.
■INTERNET
US downloads too slow
The US ranks 28th in the world in average Internet connection speed and is not making significant progress in building a faster network, a report released on Tuesday by the Communications Workers of America said. It said tests by speedmatters.org found the average US download speed had improved by only nine-tenths of a megabit per second between last year and this year, from 4.2mbps to 5.1mbps.
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
RETHINK? The defense ministry and Navy Command Headquarters could take over the indigenous submarine project and change its production timeline, a source said Admiral Huang Shu-kuang’s (黃曙光) resignation as head of the Indigenous Submarine Program and as a member of the National Security Council could affect the production of submarines, a source said yesterday. Huang in a statement last night said he had decided to resign due to national security concerns while expressing the hope that it would put a stop to political wrangling that only undermines the advancement of the nation’s defense capabilities. Taiwan People’s Party Legislator Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) yesterday said that the admiral, her older brother, felt it was time for him to step down and that he had completed what he
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
CHINA REACTS: The patrol and reconnaissance plane ‘transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,’ the 7th Fleet said, while Taipei said it saw nothing unusual The US 7th Fleet yesterday said that a US Navy P-8A Poseidon flew through the Taiwan Strait, a day after US and Chinese defense heads held their first talks since November 2022 in an effort to reduce regional tensions. The patrol and reconnaissance plane “transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,” the 7th Fleet said in a news release. “By operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law, the United States upholds the navigational rights and freedoms of all nations.” In a separate statement, the Ministry of National Defense said that it monitored nearby waters and airspace as the aircraft