■ TRANSPORT
Alstom slams Beijing
Alstom Transport, the world’s second-largest train maker, is calling on nations not to buy Chinese-made trains, accusing the country of shutting foreign firms out of domestic bids, a report said yesterday. Alstom chief executive Philippe Mellier told the Financial Times that China is also exporting trains with some foreign technology that was supplied on condition that it not be used outside China. “The [Chinese] market is gradually shutting down to let the Chinese companies prosper,” Mellier said. “We don’t think it’s a good idea for other countries to open their markets to such a technology, because there’s no reciprocity any more.”
■ELECTRONICS
Creative posts a loss
Creative Technology Ltd, the Singaporean maker of accessories for Apple Inc’s iPod, eliminated 2,700 jobs, almost half its workforce, last fiscal year after demand for its own music players tumbled. The company had 3,100 full-time workers at the end of June, down 47 percent from a year earlier, Creative said in an annual report filed to Singapore’s stock exchange on Dec. 31. “The markets that Creative targets are highly competitive,” the company said in the report. “Many of Creative’s current and potential competitors have substantially greater financial, manufacturing, marketing, distribution and other resources.” Creative posted a net loss of US$19.7 million on sales of US$736.8 million for the year ended June 30. That’s the lowest revenue in five years as sales of its music players slumped.
■AUTOMAKERS
Hyundai leads sales decline
Hyundai Motor Co, South Korea’s biggest automaker, led a decline in the country’s automobile sales last month, marking the second straight monthly decline, as a global recession sapped demand for new vehicles. Hyundai, Kia Motors Corp, GM Daewoo Auto & Technology Co, Renault Samsung Motors Co and Ssangyong Motor Co sold a combined 406,051 vehicles last month, 13 percent less than a year earlier, Bloomberg calculations based on company data released yesterday showed. Sales last year gained 2.4 percent to 5.35 million units, as sales in emerging markets offset sluggish sales in the US, Europe and at home. “This year, the impact from the global economic crisis is expected to deepen and we’re standing in the middle of cut-throat competition for survival,” Hyundai chairman Chung Mong-koo told employees yesterday in Seoul. Last year, their local sales dropped 5.1 percent to 1.15 million units and overseas sales rose 4.7 percent to 4.2 million, the firms’ data showed.
■MEDIA
Subscribers keep shows
Millions of subscribers to the Time Warner Cable television network kept their favorite shows into the new year on Thursday after an agreement in principle on rights fees was reached in a bitter dispute with entertainment giant Viacom Inc. Viacom had threatened to pull Nickelodeon, MTV, Comedy Central, VH1 and 15 other channels from Time Warner and its 13.3 million subscribers at 12:01am on Thursday if a deal had not been reached. The companies said they expect to finalize the agreement details over the next several days.
■BEVERAGES
Pepsi to invest in India
India’s government approved a plan by PepsiCo Inc, the world’s second-biggest beverage maker, to invest an additional US$50 million in its local unit, Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal said. Sibal was speaking to reporters after a Cabinet meeting in New Delhi.
Authorities have detained three former Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TMSC, 台積電) employees on suspicion of compromising classified technology used in making 2-nanometer chips, the Taiwan High Prosecutors’ Office said yesterday. Prosecutors are holding a former TSMC engineer surnamed Chen (陳) and two recently sacked TSMC engineers, including one person surnamed Wu (吳) in detention with restricted communication, following an investigation launched on July 25, a statement said. The announcement came a day after Nikkei Asia reported on the technology theft in an exclusive story, saying TSMC had fired two workers for contravening data rules on advanced chipmaking technology. Two-nanometer wafers are the most
NEW GEAR: On top of the new Tien Kung IV air defense missiles, the military is expected to place orders for a new combat vehicle next year for delivery in 2028 Mass production of Tien Kung IV (Sky Bow IV) missiles is expected to start next year, with plans to order 122 pods, the Ministry of National Defense’s (MND) latest list of regulated military material showed. The document said that the armed forces would obtain 46 pods of the air defense missiles next year and 76 pods the year after that. The Tien Kung IV is designed to intercept cruise missiles and ballistic missiles to an altitude of 70km, compared with the 60km maximum altitude achieved by the Missile Segment Enhancement variant of PAC-3 systems. A defense source said yesterday that the number of
A bipartisan group of US representatives have introduced a draft US-Taiwan Defense Innovation Partnership bill, aimed at accelerating defense technology collaboration between Taiwan and the US in response to ongoing aggression by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The bill was introduced by US representatives Zach Nunn and Jill Tokuda, with US House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party Chairman John Moolenaar and US Representative Ashley Hinson joining as original cosponsors, a news release issued by Tokuda’s office on Thursday said. The draft bill “directs the US Department of Defense to work directly with Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense through their respective
Tsunami waves were possible in three areas of Kamchatka in Russia’s Far East, the Russian Ministry for Emergency Services said yesterday after a magnitude 7.0 earthquake hit the nearby Kuril Islands. “The expected wave heights are low, but you must still move away from the shore,” the ministry said on the Telegram messaging app, after the latest seismic activity in the area. However, the Pacific Tsunami Warning System in Hawaii said there was no tsunami warning after the quake. The Russian tsunami alert was later canceled. Overnight, the Krasheninnikov volcano in Kamchatka erupted for the first time in 600 years, Russia’s RIA
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