■INTERNET
Yahoo layoffs expected
Yahoo is preparing a new round of layoffs and several hundred employees could be affected, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times reported late on Tuesday. The newspapers said the layoffs, which would be the first since Carol Bartz took over in January as chief executive of the Internet company, could be announced as early as next week, when Yahoo reports its quarterly earnings. Sunnyvale, California-based Yahoo cut 2,400 jobs last year and had 13,600 employees at the end of last year.
■PHARMACEUTICALS
Sanofi-Aventis to buy BiPar
Sanofi-Aventis SA has agreed to pay up to US$500 million to buy California-based BiPar Sciences to strengthen its research and development in cancer treatments, the Paris-based pharmaceutical company said yesterday. BiPar Sciences, based in Brisbane, California, is focused on research into a new cancer treatment that blocks tumor cells from repairing their own DNA, causing the cancer cells to die, Sanofi-Aventis said in a statement. The final price paid for BiPar Sciences will depend on its achieving targets related to the development of the new treatment, known as BSI-201, Sanofi-Aventis said.
■ENERGY
Petrobras discovers crude
Brazilian state-run oil company Petrobras says it has made a new deep-water discovery of light crude in the Santos Basin off the coast of Sao Paulo state. Petroleo Brasileiro SA has yet to say how many barrels of oil the new discovery may hold. The field lies about 340km offshore in pre-salt reservoirs some 5km below sea level. Petrobras said on Tuesday that the discovery was made in partnership with the Spanish oil company Repsol YPF and Britain’s BG Group PLC.
■AVIATION
All Nippon hit by strike
A 24-hour strike by pilots at All Nippon Airways (ANA) forced Japan’s No. 2 carrier to cancel or delay more than 160 domestic flights yesterday, a company spokesman said. “A total of 149 flights have been canceled, with 14 flights delayed,” affecting some 7,300 passengers, the official said, after 610 union members went on strike from 2:45am yesterday. The affected flights, mostly services to provincial cities and remote islands, account for some 18 percent of ANA’s domestic operations. No international flights were affected by the dispute.
■MINING
Rio Tinto production down
Mining giant Rio Tinto yesterday said first-quarter iron ore production fell 15 percent but predicted a recovery in Chinese steel demand in the second half of this year. Rio said reduced market demand and heavy rainfall at its Pilbara operations in Western Australian meant iron ore production dropped 15 percent compared with the same period last year. Chief executive Tom Albanese said Rio remained committed to a proposed deal with Chinalco for the Chinese state-owned firm to take a major equity stake in return for US$19.5 billion.
■RETAIL
Wal-Mart may cut PRC staff
Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, said yesterday it is restructuring its management in China, which could lead to staff cuts. “We are slashing one layer of mid-level executives off the five-layer executive structure established when we entered China 13 years ago,” said Chen Lu, a Shenzhen-based Wal-Mart spokeswoman.
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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