■ COMPUTERS
Siemens sells joint venture
German engineering group Siemens said yesterday it will sell its half of its computer joint venture with Fujitsu to the Japanese group for around 450 million euros (US$566 million). Fujitsu had held an option to buy all of the nine-year-old venture known as FSC. It had 6.6 billion euros in sales in its latest fiscal year, but faces stiff competition from US rivals Dell and Hewlett-Packard. FSC, which also makes mainframe computers and servers, posted a pre-tax profit of 105 million euros last year, and has forecast that figure could double this year.
■AUTOMOBILES
US sales plummet
US auto sales plunged 32 percent last month to lows unseen in a quarter-century, led by a 45 percent drop at General Motors Corp in a sales collapse that hit every major automaker and offered little sign that the industry has hit bottom in its largest market. US auto sales fell to their weakest month since February 1983, sales data released on Monday showed. Auto sales for four European countries reporting on Monday showed the spreading effect of the slowdown. Sales fell 40 percent in Spain and 19 percent in Italy.
■BANKING
Latin American giant created
Brazilian banks Itau and Unibanco announced on Monday they were merging to create the biggest bank in Latin America, with combined assets of more than US$260 billion. The new bank — to be called Itau Unibanco — will be among the 20 biggest in the world, they said. Itau is currently the second largest private-sector bank in Brazil, and Unibanco is ranked fourth. If the all-share transaction is approved by regulators, Itau Unibanco will overshadow state-owned Banco do Brasil, currently the biggest bank in Latin America, and Bradesco, the biggest private-sector bank in Brazil. Itau will hold the majority stake in the new enterprise.
■TELECOMS
Nokia targets new markets
Nokia Oyj, the world’s biggest maker of mobile phones, unveiled seven new handsets aimed at consumers in emerging markets as it starts wireless Internet services in those areas. Nokia’s offering of Internet-related services for emerging markets will be available at the start of next year, the Espoo, Finland-based company said yesterday in an e-mailed statement. The associated devices are priced between 25 euros and 90 euros, with several models starting to ship this year.
■INTERNET
Criminals target Chinese
Chinese computer users have become chief targets for online criminals, a security report released on Monday by Microsoft said. Its latest assessment of threats and vulnerabilities says attackers favor hiding malicious programs in seemingly innocent Web browser applications and that China is their preferred target. “The majority of [exploits] we are finding is where the local language is set to Chinese,” said Microsoft malware protection center general manager Vinny Gullotto. “It reflects a lot of what is happening in the Chinese market. There is so much going on out there with the Internet today that it seems to be somewhat natural that we might see this happen there.” Approximately 47 percent of software “exploits” found stalking the Internet in the first half of this year were in Chinese while 23 percent were in English, the second most common language for attack programs.
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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