■ FROZEN FOODS
General Mills recalls pizzas
US food giant General Mills said on Thursday that it was recalling 414,000 cases of frozen pizzas from supermarkets on concerns they may be contaminated with the E. coli bacteria. The company said the voluntary recall affected Totino's and Jeno's frozen pizzas with pepperoni toppings that were produced at the company's Wellston, Ohio, plant. The problem was uncovered by state and federal authorities investigating 21 occurrences of E. coli-related illnesses in 10 states as of July 20, General Mills said. About half of those who became ill were hospitalized as a result.
■ ELECTRONICS
EMC hikes China investment
Data storage vendor EMC Corp said on Thursday it would double its investment in China to US$1 billion over the next five years. The announcement expands a US$500 million commitment EMC made in June last year to invest in China through 2012. The additional money will cover expanding research and development operations and sales and services in China, a key market for EMC data storage software and hardware. Joe Tucci, the Hopkinton, Massachusetts-based company's chairman, president and chief executive, announced the increased investment at an event to open a new R&D center in Beijing.
■ REAL ESTATE
US foreclosures soar in Q3
Banks and mortgage firms filed foreclosure notices against 446,726 US homes in the third quarter, almost double the number lodged a year earlier, an industry report showed on Thursday. RealtyTrac, a California-based company that monitors the property market, said foreclosure notices had rocketed 30 percent during the quarter from the prior quarter. "August and September were the two highest monthly foreclosure filing totals we've seen since we began issuing our report in January 2005," RealtyTrac chief executive James Saccacio said.
■ ENERGY
Petrobras taps into Japan
Brazilian energy giant Petrobras is set to buy an oil refinery in southern Japan as it seeks to tap fast-growing demand for energy in China and other Asian markets, a report said yesterday. The state-run group will purchase a 87.5 percent stake in the refinery from TonenGeneral, a subsidiary of US oil giant ExxonMobil, for several billion yen, the Nikkei Business Daily said. After taking control of the refinery's operator, Nansei Sekiyu, Petrobras will spend ?100 billion (US$880 million) on upgrading the facilities, the paper said without naming its sources. The upgraded plant will likely go into operation in around 2010, the report said.
■ INTERNET
Hanarotelecom stock soars
Shares of South Korea's No. 2 broadband service provider Hanarotelecom Inc rose as much as 10 percent yesterday on talk that Australia's Macquarie Bank Ltd may become the preferred buyer of a controlling stake in the company. The JoongAng Ilbo daily reported yesterday that Macquarie had offered 12,000 Korean won (US$13.21) a share for a 39 percent stake in Hanarotelecom. In a recent round of bidding, Macquarie outbid other potential buyers offering around 10,000 won a share. Hanarotelecom's largest shareholding group, comprising American International Group, TPG Capital and TVG Capital Partners, wanted 14,000 won a share.
EXPRESSING GRATITUDE: Without its Taiwanese partners which are ‘working around the clock,’ Nvidia could not meet AI demand, CEO Jensen Huang said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and US-based artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Nvidia Corp have partnered with each other on silicon photonics development, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said. Speaking with reporters after he met with TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) in Taipei on Friday, Huang said his company was working with the world’s largest contract chipmaker on silicon photonics, but admitted it was unlikely for the cooperation to yield results any time soon, and both sides would need several years to achieve concrete outcomes. To have a stake in the silicon photonics supply chain, TSMC and
IDENTITY: Compared with other platforms, TikTok’s algorithm pushes a ‘disproportionately high ratio’ of pro-China content, a study has found Young Taiwanese are increasingly consuming Chinese content on TikTok, which is changing their views on identity and making them less resistant toward China, researchers and politicians were cited as saying by foreign media. Asked to suggest the best survival strategy for a small country facing a powerful neighbor, students at National Chia-Yi Girls’ Senior High School said “Taiwan must do everything to avoid provoking China into attacking it,” the Financial Times wrote on Friday. Young Taiwanese between the ages of 20 and 24 in the past were the group who most strongly espoused a Taiwanese identity, but that is no longer
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake and several aftershocks battered southern Taiwan early this morning, causing houses and roads to collapse and leaving dozens injured and 50 people isolated in their village. A total of 26 people were reported injured and sent to hospitals due to the earthquake as of late this morning, according to the latest Ministry of Health and Welfare figures. In Sising Village (西興) of Chiayi County's Dapu Township (大埔), the location of the quake's epicenter, severe damage was seen and roads entering the village were blocked, isolating about 50 villagers. Another eight people who were originally trapped inside buildings in Tainan
‘ARMED GROUP’: Two defendants used Chinese funds to form the ‘Republic of China Taiwan Military Government,’ posing a threat to national security, prosecutors said A retired lieutenant general has been charged after using funds from China to recruit military personnel for an “armed” group that would assist invading Chinese forces, prosecutors said yesterday. The retired officer, Kao An-kuo (高安國), was among six people indicted for contravening the National Security Act (國家安全法), the High Prosecutors’ Office said in a statement. The group visited China multiple times, separately and together, from 2018 to last year, where they met Chinese military intelligence personnel for instructions and funding “to initiate and develop organizations for China,” prosecutors said. Their actions posed a “serious threat” to “national security and social stability,” the statement
RSS