■ MANUFACTURING
Steel plant halts work
Steelmaking is on hold at the ArcelorMittal plant in Cleveland, Ohio, because of a drop in business. Both blast furnaces were idled last week, and the company plans to offer voluntary layoffs with partial pay starting this week. About 1,450 union members work at the plant. Mark Granakis, president of the United Steelworkers local in Cleveland said there could be as many as 400 job reductions. ArcelorMittal spokeswoman Katie Patterson says updated information could come on Wednesday when the company announces third quarter earnings.
■MINING
Vale slashes output
Brazilian mining giant Vale, the world’s largest producer of iron ore, said it was to slash output at mines in Brazil and elsewhere by up to 10 percent from Saturday to adjust to shrinking demand caused by the global financial crisis. Vale will cut production at facilities in Brazil, China, France, Indonesia and Norway, and some 2,300 workers — nearly four percent of the company’s workforce of 62,600 — will be put on temporary leave, it said in a statement. The company decided to reduce “the mineral production of iron by the equivalent of 30 million metric tons per year,” Rio-based Vale said in its statement on Friday.
■GERMANY
Merkel touts rescue plan
Chancellor Angela Merkel on Saturday called on banks struggling to cope with the fallout from the global financial crisis to take advantage of a state rescue package. The help was available to the banks and financial institutions to ensure they could continue with their primary functions of “lending and managing savings,” Merkel said in a video message on her Web site. Weekly news magazine Der Spiegel said on Saturday that the government was considering new measures based on the British government’s bank rescue plan, to be applied in the coming days. On Friday troubled German property lender Hypo Real Estate became the first private financial institution to take advantage of the government package.
■SOUTH KOREA
Bank of Korea confident
The nation is unlikely to fall into a financial crisis because of unstable financial market conditions stemming from the global credit turmoil, the Bank of Korea said. “Households, companies and banks’ ability to endure a crisis is maintained at a good level in general,” the central bank said in its semiannual Financial Stability Report. “Chances aren’t high it will lead to an overall crisis of our financial system.” The bank cut interest rates by a record in an emergency move last week after the won plunged to a 10-year low and the Kospi stock index fell the most in two decades.
■ELECTRONICS
Sanyo eyes Panasonic shares
Sanyo Electric Co is largely in agreement with a bid by Panasonic Corp to take a majority stake in the company and thereby become Japan’s largest electronics manufacturer, a press report said yesterday. Panasonic president Fumio Otsubo and Sanyo president Seiichiro Sano reached the “broad agreement” last month, public broadcaster NHK without naming its sources. Panasonic would make the bid public, possibly this week, if it managed to reach agreement with Sanyo’s top shareholders, the network said. The major shareholders — Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp, the Daiwa Securities SMBC group and the Goldman Sachs group — hold a total of nearly 430 million preferred shares in Sanyo.
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
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
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