Mobile phones: Siemens to cut 2,300 jobs
Siemens AG, the world's fourth-largest mobile-phone maker, plans to cut 2,300 jobs at the headquarters of its phone networks unit, Financial Times Deutschland said, citing unidentified people at labor unions. Those positions will be slashed at the unit's site on Hofmannstrasse in Munich, which has a total of 7,000 workers, the newspaper reported. Siemens will establish a separate company that will help the people affected find new jobs, the newspaper said. Siemens unions earlier this month said the company plans to shed 4,000 positions at the business, and the 2,300 jobs are part of that plan. IG Metall last month also said the Munich-based company's mobile-phone unit will cut another 1,000 positions. The latest cuts would bring the total announced in the past two years to 42,000, or 9 percent of the company's workforce.
US economy: Key indicator declines
Concern over the US economic outlook mounted Monday as a key barometer of future activity weakened for the second month in a row in July. The Conference Board's composite index of leading economic indicators slipped 0.4 percent in July as the economy took a pounding from investors fleeing the scandal-tainted stock market. The index had eased 0.2 percent in June. "The second consecutive decline in the leading economic indicators raises fears about the current recovery," said Ken Goldstein, economist with the Conference Board, a private economic research group. "Volatile financial markets, corporate scandals and sagging consumer expectations are trouble spots," he said. "But latest evidence shows no significant weakening in the consumer markets, with home and car buying continuing to be strong."
Auto parts: Continental recalls tires
Continental AG recalled 595,000 tires, most installed on Ford Motor Co. Expedition and Lincoln Navigator sport-utility vehicles, after warranty claims triggered a warning system the US created following Firestone tire defects two years ago. There was a fatal accident involving the tires on a Ford Expedition, said Mark Sowka, a vice president of the German tiremaker's Continental Tire North America. A police report said six people were killed in the California accident, spokeswoman Katharina Konowalski said, adding that the tiremaker hasn't had a chance to investigate whether its tires were at fault.
Drug research: Blueberry powder studied
A powder made of freeze-dried blueberries slows harmful mental changes in mice bred to develop dementia, according to research presented at the American Chemical Society's annual meeting Monday. Mice designed to develop a condition similar to Alzheimer's disease retained healthy communication between nervous-system cells after they were fed the powder, according to study leader Jim Joseph, a research physiologist at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts. "This shows that there are ways to use nutrition like it hasn't been used before: to strengthen the brain," Johnson said. Alzheimer's disease affects 4 million Americans. Studies show antioxidants, such as those found in blueberries, may prevent the degradation of nerve cells by highly reactive oxide molecules.
A subsidiary of a Hong Kong-based company that has lost control of two critical ports on the Panama Canal said it is seeking US$2 billion of compensation in damages from Panama over its “illegal” takeover of the ports. Panama Ports Co, a unit of Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison Holdings (長江和記實業), on Friday said in a statement that it is demanding the sum under international arbitration proceedings that it had already started. The Panamanian government last week seized control of the Balboa and Cristobal ports on each end of the Panama Canal, after the country’s Supreme Court declared earlier that a concession allowing
DETERRENCE: With 1,000 indigenous Hsiung Feng II and III missiles and 400 Harpoon missiles, the nation would boast the highest anti-ship missile density in the world With Taiwan wrapping up mass production of Hsiung Feng II and III missiles by December and an influx of Harpoon missiles from the US, Taiwan would have the highest density of anti-ship missiles in the world, a source said yesterday. Taiwan is to wrap up mass production of the indigenous anti-ship missiles by the end of year, as the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology has been meeting production targets ahead of schedule, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said. Combined with the 400 Harpoon anti-ship missiles Taiwan expects to receive from the US by 2028, the nation would have
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
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