FRANCE
Livestock industry falters
President Francois Hollande on Saturday called on retailers to give higher prices to livestock producers to help support them. The nation’s cattle, pork and milk sectors are in crisis due to stagnating prices and falling exports, with about 10 percent of the nation’s producers on the brink of bankruptcy, Minister of Agriculture Stephane Le Foll said on Friday. Farmers said a deteriorating international market, marked by a Russian food embargo, slowing Chinese demand and cheaper supply from other EU countries, has exposed long-standing pressures from business costs and retail consolidation in the nation.
AVIATION
Compensation offer rejected
Families of Germans killed in the crash of a Germanwings jet in the French Alps have turned down the airline’s compensation offer, demanding a higher amount of at least 100,000 euros (US$108,300), their lawyer said on Saturday. Lufthansa, the parent company of low-cost carrier Germanwings, announced on June 30 that it would offer compensation of 25,000 euros to the families of each of 72 Germans killed in the disaster in March. In addition, each of the victim’s immediate surviving kin — parents, children, adopted children, spouses and partners — would receive 10,000 euros. After the crash, Lufthansa offered aid of up to 50,000 euros per passenger to their relatives, independent of any eventual compensation payments. In addition, children and teenagers who had lost one or both parents are to receive support toward their education from a special fund of up to 7.8 million euros.
SOVEREIGN DEBT
Germans pan Greek bailout
More than half of Germans think the planned deal with Greece is bad and many would have preferred that the crisis-stricken country left the eurozone rather than getting the chance for further aid, according to an opinion poll. Lawmakers in Germany, the biggest contributor to eurozone bailouts, on Friday gave their go-ahead for the currency bloc to negotiate a third bailout for Greece that could total 86 billion euros (US$93.14 billion) over three years. In the YouGov survey seen by German newspaper Welt am Sonntag, 56 percent of respondents said they thought the plan for such a deal with Greece was bad, with just over one fifth of those saying it was very bad. Only 2 percent deemed it to be positive while another 27 percent said they thought it was somewhat positive. The poll of 1,380 Germans showed there was a lack of enthusiasm in Europe’s largest economy about the result of Friday’s vote, Welt am Sonntag said on Sunday, adding that the poll showed 48 percent of Germans would have liked to see Greece quit the eurozone.
APPS
Suit against Uber proceeds
Uber Technologies Inc lost a bid to dismiss a lawsuit over its claims to being safer than taxis. US District Judge Jon Tigar in San Francisco on Friday allowed the case to proceed, finding that the app-based ride-hailing service has advertised itself as “objectively and measurably safer” than competitors. Yellow Cab Co and 18 other taxi services that operate in Californian metropolitan areas including San Francisco and Los Angeles sued Uber in March, alleging it misleads customers about its background checks for drivers and driver safety. While letting the case move forward under a federal false advertising law, Tigar tossed the taxi companies’ unfair competition allegations and their demand for restitution under state law.
TECH RACE: The Chinese firm showed off its new Mate XT hours after the latest iPhone launch, but its price tag and limited supply could be drawbacks China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) yesterday unveiled the world’s first tri-foldable phone, as it seeks to expand its lead in the world’s biggest smartphone market and steal the spotlight from Apple Inc hours after it debuted a new iPhone. The Chinese tech giant showed off its new Mate XT, which users can fold three ways like an accordion screen door, during a launch ceremony in Shenzhen. The Mate XT comes in red and black and has a 10.2-inch display screen. At 3.6mm thick, it is the world’s slimmest foldable smartphone, Huawei said. The company’s Web site showed that it has garnered more than
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp (世界先進) and Episil Technologies Inc (漢磊) yesterday announced plans to jointly build an 8-inch fab to produce silicon carbide (SiC) chips through an equity acquisition deal. SiC chips offer higher efficiency and lower energy loss than pure silicon chips, and they are able to operate at higher temperatures. They have become crucial to the development of electric vehicles, artificial intelligence data centers, green energy storage and industrial devices. Vanguard, a contract chipmaker focused on making power management chips and driver ICs for displays, is to acquire a 13 percent stake in Episil for NT$2.48 billion (US$77.1 million).
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