■ LCD displays
Fuji to build new plant
The world's number two film-maker Fuji Photo said yesterday that it will spend more than US$950 million to build a new factory in Japan to make parts for liquid crystal displays (LCDs). The company will spend more than ¥100 billion (US$950 million) for the factory, which will come on line by the end of 2006 in Kumamoto prefecture in southern Japan. "We have decided [to build the new plant] to deal with an expanding market for LCD televisions as computer monitors and laptop PCs become larger," the company said in a statement. The factory will produce parts related to polarizing sheet film, a core part of LCDs, the company said.
■ laptop computers
Toshiba to swap modules
Toshiba Corp said it will exchange defective memory modules in 650,000 of its laptop computers worldwide starting yesterday. The faulty modules, supplied by a third party, could cause blue screens, lockups or data corruption, although the probability of the problems was "extremely low," the major laptop maker said in a statement. An online program could be downloaded to detect which of the 25 models made since April 2002 had problems, it said. No computers are currently being made with the faulty parts, a spokeswoman said. The exchange program was free to customers and would end in April, it said. The company did not say how much it would spend on the program.
■ Airlines
AirAsia sets issue price
Malaysian budget carrier AirAsia said yesterday it has set the issue price for the institutional portion of its initial public offering (IPO) at 1.25 ringgit (US$0.33) per share and the retail portion at 1.16 ringgit, well below the indicated price of 1.40 ringgit. The institutional portion comprised 560.41 million shares while the public portion of the IPO was 140.1 million shares. The institutional tranche was 3.5 times subscribed, with 392.3 million placement shares allocated to international institutions and 168.1 million allocated to domestic institutions, AirAsia said in a statement. It said the public portion represented the largest ever retail tranche for a Malaysian IPO and was 1.5 times subscribed. AirAsia said it raised 717.4 million ringgit from the IPO. It will list on Nov. 22. AirAsia, which has a fleet of 24 Boeing 737 aircraft, currently operates 322 flights a week from Kuala Lumpur International Airport to 22 destinations.
■ Auto industry
VW workers stage strike
Thousands of workers at German car maker Volkswagen began another series of warning strikes yesterday to coincide with a sixth round of wage talks. Around 3,500 employees stopped work at the Baunatal plant near Kassel yesterday morning, and similar stoppages were underway or planned at other western German plants. Some 600 Volkswagen night-shift workers stayed off the job at the company's Braunschweig plant. Their numbers were set to be swelled by day-shift workers in a stoppage set to last four hours. Workers planned similar limited stoppages at VW factories in Salzgitter, Emden and Wolfsburg. The warning strikes, which began on Friday, are to press union demands for higher wages and job guarantees. A sixth round of talks was due to begin later in the day in Hanover. Differences between the two sides had remained unresolved after a fifth round of talks Friday on a new wage deal for the firm's 103,000 VW workers.
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said it is expected to issue a sea warning for Typhoon Fung-wong this afternoon and a land warning tomorrow. As of 1pm, the storm was about 1,070km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, and was moving west-northwest at 28 to 32kph, according to CWA data. The storm had a radius of 250km, with maximum sustained winds of 173kph and gusts reaching 209kph, the CWA added. The storm is forecast to pass near Luzon in the Philippines before entering the South China Sea and potentially turning northward toward Taiwan, the CWA said. CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張峻堯) said
PREPARATION: Ferry lines and flights were canceled ahead of only the second storm to hit the nation in November, while many areas canceled classes and work Authorities yesterday evacuated more than 3,000 people ahead of approaching Tropical Storm Fung-wong, which is expected to make landfall between Kaohsiung and Pingtung County this evening. Fung-wong was yesterday morning downgraded from a typhoon to a tropical storm as it approached the nation’s southwest coast, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, as it issued a land alert for the storm. The alert applies to residents in Tainan, Kaohsiung, Pingtung and Taitung counties, and the Hengchun Peninsula (恆春). As of press time last night, Taichung, Tainan, Kaohsiung, and Yilan, Miaoli, Changhua, Yunlin, Pingtung and Penghu counties, as well as Chiayi city and county had
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday issued a sea alert for Typhoon Fung-wong (鳳凰) as it threatened vessels operating in waters off the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島), the Bashi Channel and south of the Taiwan Strait. A land alert is expected to be announced some time between late last night and early this morning, the CWA said. As of press time last night, Taoyuan, as well as Yilan, Hualien and Penghu counties had declared today a typhoon day, canceling work and classes. Except for a few select districts in Taipei and New Taipei City, all other areas and city
VIOLATION OF NORMS: China’s CCTV broadcast claimed that Beijing could use Interpol to issue arrest warrants, which the MAC slammed as an affront to order The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for attempts to intimidate Taiwanese through “transnational repression.” The council issued the remarks after state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) yesterday during a news broadcast aired a video targeting Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Puma Shen (沈伯洋), threatening him with “cross-border repression” and saying: “Stop now, or you will be next,” in what Taipei officials said was an attempt to intimidate not only Shen, but also the broader Taiwanese public. The MAC in a statement condemned the threat, accusing Beijing of trying to instill fear and self-censorship among Taiwanese and
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