■ MINING
Sterlite to buy Asarco
India’s metals and mining company Sterlite Industries said it has signed a deal to buy US copper mining company Asarco for US$2.6 billion. Sterlite, a subsidiary of British mining group Vedanta Resources, will acquire three open-pit copper mines, a copper smelter and a refinery among other assets, the company said in a statement on Saturday. “We are delighted to have reached agreement on this important acquisition. which is a significant milestone for our group,” Sterlite chairman Anil Agarwal said in the statement. The acquisition will make Sterlite the world’s third largest copper producer. Asarco, formerly known as American Smelting and Refining Company, is the third largest copper producer in the US. The agreement with Asarco marks the biggest takeover of a US firm by an Indian company.
■ INTERNET
Students sue Facebook
Students at the University of Ottawa have filed an official complaint against Facebook, accusing the social networking Web site of violating Canada’s privacy laws, Radio-Canada reported on Saturday. In a complaint to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, the students said the popular US-based site sends users’ personal information to third parties for advertising and marketing activities without the users’ knowledge or consent, the report on the public broadcaster said. The students, many of whom are dedicated Facebook users, filed the complaint after studying the company’s policies and business practices in their university course, Radio-Canada reported. Launched in 2004 and now claiming 70 million active users worldwide, including seven million in Canada, Facebook is the globe’s second-most popular networking site after MySpace.
■ INVESTMENT
Aldar sells dirham bonds
Aldar Properties PJSC, Abu Dhabi’s biggest developer, started marketing its first Islamic bonds in United Arab Emirates dirhams that will help pay for new projects. The five-year Ijarah sukuk will pay a profit distribution of between 1.5 percentage points and 1.75 percentage points more than the three-month Emirates interbank offered rate, Aldar said in a filing to Abu Dhabi’s stock exchange yesterday, without indicating the size of the sale. The rate was last at 1.8875 percent, data compiled by Bloomberg News showed. Aldar on May 25 said it hired eight banks including Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank PJSC, Credit Suisse Group AG and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc to help it sell dirham sukuk.
■ ELECTRONICS
Panasonic workers strike
About 1,000 workers at a Panasonic factory in northern Vietnam have gone on strike to demand higher pay to keep pace with the rising cost of living, state media reported yesterday. The workers at Panasonic Communications Vietnam Co, Ltd walked off the job on Saturday in Hanoi, the Dan Tri newspaper’s Web site reported. Consumer prices in Vietnam have climbed 25.2 percent in the past year, government figures showed. About 300 strikes have hit companies across the country in the first quarter of the year. It was unclear how much of a wage increase the Panasonic workers were demanding. The company has been paying its workers an average monthly salary of 1,050,000 dong (US$66), 50,000 dong higher than the minimum wage required by the government, the Dan Tri report said.
US President Donald Trump yesterday announced sweeping "reciprocal tariffs" on US trading partners, including a 32 percent tax on goods from Taiwan that is set to take effect on Wednesday. At a Rose Garden event, Trump declared a 10 percent baseline tax on imports from all countries, with the White House saying it would take effect on Saturday. Countries with larger trade surpluses with the US would face higher duties beginning on Wednesday, including Taiwan (32 percent), China (34 percent), Japan (24 percent), South Korea (25 percent), Vietnam (46 percent) and Thailand (36 percent). Canada and Mexico, the two largest US trading
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
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