■ Computer
Dell hungry for Asian market
Dell Inc, the world's largest PC maker, said it aims to double its share of the Asia-Pacific computer and server market as it increases sales in the region. "Asia Pacific will continue to be a vehicle of growth for Dell for a long time," the company's president and chief executive Kevin Rollins told reporters in Kuala Lumpur yesterday. "What I would hope is Dell's share of the Asia-Pacific market will go from about 10 percent today and grow over time to maybe 20 percent," he said, declining to give a timeframe for achieving the target. The US is Dell's largest market, while the Asia-Pacific and Japan account for 11 percent of its revenue. The company this week announced plans to open a second factory in China in the first quarter of next year. Dell's plants in Malaysia, its manufacturing base for Asia outside Japan and China and producer of more than 95 percent of the company's notebook computers sold in the US, are increasing output at 30 percent a year.
■ Fuel
China imposes rationing
Surging demand for fuel in China's southern province of Guangdong, an export-oriented manufacturing center, has led to severe shortages of gasoline and diesel, prompting officials to impose rationing, news reports said yesterday. Many filling stations in the Guangdong provincial capital of Guangzhou were limiting each car or truck to adding 50 yuan (US$6) worth of fuel, newspapers said. They said some stations were completely sold out and cheaper types of fuel weren't available anywhere. Officials blamed the shortages on surging demand, plus the reluctance of Chinese refineries to raise output at a time when soaring world crude oil prices have cut into profits, according to the reports. There was no immediate indication that the shortages were hurting businesses in Guangdong.
■ Oil industry
Countries mull cooperation
Venezuela's state oil company plans to process Ecuadorean crude at its refineries to help supply Ecuador's domestic demand, an official said. "The plan we are discussing with Ecuador is to place its crude in our refining system ... We can process [Ecuador's] oil to meet its domestic requirements," Rafael Ramirez, president of state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela SA, said on Thursday. He said the company could also sell products produced from Ecuadorean crude in the international market. Oil is Ecuador's main export product, but the country has no oil refineries.
■ Automakers
Honda praises India
Despite unrest at a Honda factory near New Delhi, the chief of Honda Motor says India carries fewer risks than China due to its relative political transparency and lack of anti-Japanese sentiment. In an interview with Japanese media, Honda Motor president Takeo Fukui said that China, for all of its economic growth, was just beginning to come of age as a hub to produce cars for export. Late last month, at least 130 people were injured as police clashed with striking workers at a Honda group motorcycle factory in Gurgaon near the Indian capital to protest the sacking of employees. "I acknowledge that India often has strikes but the strike has calmed down and the environment for talks with the union is almost ready," Fukui said, as quoted by yesterday's Tokyo Shimbun daily. He doubted the fallout would last long.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat
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