■ Airlines
EU OKs Lufthansa deal
The EU gave a conditional green light yesterday to German airline Lufthansa AG's 310 million euro (US$374.7 million) takeover of Swiss International Air Lines. EU regulators said approval of the deal was conditional "upon the parties surrendering slots" at several airports including hubs at Zurich and Frankfurt airports. It said beyond these concessions the deal "would not significantly impede effective competition" in the European airline sector. The EU head office said the two airlines committed to give up additional slots at Munich, Dusseldorf, Berlin, Vienna, Stockholm and Copenhagen, after the EU investigation showed competition on routes to those airports would be reduced "significantly" due to the takeover of Swiss.
■ Internet
Virus-writer goes on trial
A German teenager who confessed to creating the Internet Sasser worm that waylaid millions of computers around the globe last year went on trial yesterday charged with sabotage. Sven Jaschan, now 19, was known locally as a friendly high school student until police knocked at his parents' door in the northern village of Waffensen in May last year. The Sasser worm struck on May last year, and in less than a week hit thousands of companies and as many as 18 million computers worldwide, forcing some businesses to shut temporarily in order to debug their systems. Posts affected were as far flung as the European Commission in Brussels, Taiwan's postal service and Australian rail traffic controllers. US airline Delta was forced to cancel several flights and Finland's third-largest bank shut its 130 branch offices in a preventive move to keep the worm from infecting its computers.
■ Logistics
FedEx to set up new hub
US logistics giant, FedEx, will sign an agreement early next month to make Guangzhou's Baiyun Airport its second Asia-Pacific hub, a report said yesterday. Citing unnamed sources close to the deal, the Standard newspaper said the Guangzhou Baiyun Airport Authority would spend up to 1.5 billion yuan (US$181 million) to build a warehouse and runway for the company. Construction would start in August next year and be completed in October 2008 if the deal is approved by China's State Council and its aviation authority. FedEx's other hub is in Subic Bay, north of Manila. Last year, FedEx signed a framework deal with the Baiyun airport with a view of making it its sole Asia-Pacific hub, but decided to adopt a dual-hub policy after the Philippines made concessions to the keep the logistics firm in the country, the paper said.
■ Employee safety
Worker deaths announced
Japanese insulation materials maker Nichias Corp said yesterday that 141 employees, mostly plant and construction workers, have died over the last three decades after developing cancer and lung disease likely caused by the company's production of asbestos insulation. The Nichias employees who died of methothelioma -- a deadly asbestos-related cancer -- as well as black lung were employed at five domestic factories and other construction sites, where sealing materials, thermal insulation and other building materials are made, company spokesman Ikuo Kawamura said. The disclosure comes only days after Japanese industrial equipment maker Kubota Corp revealed that 79 employees died of illnesses caused by asbestos produced at its plants.
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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