■ 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 —
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
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
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