■ TRADE
US beef to return to S Korea
South Korea announced it will resume US beef imports from today after negotiating extra safeguards against mad cow disease, despite protests by tens of thousands over recent weeks. Opponents vowed to continue the candlelit rallies, which sparked a political crisis for the new government of South Korean President Lee Myung-bak. Ministers said they have strengthened safety rules since Seoul reached a controversial April agreement to resume most imports after a five-year suspension. New rules on the imports will be posted today in the government gazette, the party said in a statement after meeting senior government officials.
■ MINING
Alcoa may buy into project
Aluminum producer Alcoa Inc announced on Tuesday that it would consider buying a stake in a refinery project with a state-owned minerals development company in Vietnam. Under an agreement with Vietnam National Coal-Mineral Industries Group, an Alcoa subsidiary will conduct due diligence on buying a 40 percent stake in the proposed Nhan Co alumina refinery. The facility, to be built in Dak Nong Province, would produce 600,000 tonnes per year of alumina. If the transaction goes ahead, Alcoa World Alumina and Chemicals will own 40 percent, the Vietnamese company 51 percent and other investors 9 percent of the Nhan Co refinery and bauxite mine.
■ MANAGEMENT
Siemens heads 'too German'
The chief of German industrial group Siemens, Peter Loescher, feels his company’s managers are too German, white and male, he said yesterday in an interview. “The management board are all white males,” the Austrian-born Siemens chief executive told the Financial Times and Financial Times Deutschland. Loescher said his priority this year would be to improve the group’s “cultural diversity,” after spending his first year trying to help it recover from a scandal sparked by widespread corruption. Failing to bring onboard top directors from countries like China and India would make Siemens less competitive, he added, noting: “Our top 600 managers are predominantly white German males. We are too one-dimensional.”
■ ELECTRONICS
Samsung unveils new policy
South Korea’s largest business group Samsung yesterday announced management changes in the wake of a scandal that saw its boss Lee Kun-hee step down. Lee announced in April he was quitting after prosecutors charged him with tax evasion and breach of trust. The strategic planning office, once seen as the “control tower” of the loose-knit group, was scrapped at the same time. A seven-member committee led by a Samsung Electronics vice chairman Lee Yoon-woo will decide on new projects and coordinate investment by subsidiaries, Samsung said in a statement.
■ COMMUNICATIONS
Nokia makes code available
Nokia said on Tuesday that it would make the software that runs its phones available to outside developers, as the company tries to head off competition and stimulate the use of mobile music, video, e-mail and other services. The company will spend 264 million euros (US$411 million), to buy the 52 percent it did not already own in Symbian, whose software runs two-thirds of the world’s smartphones and other advanced mobile devices, said Canalys, a researcher in Reading, England. The adoption of such phones, which include the Apple iPhone, has greatly increased the use of high-speed wireless data networks.
CLASH OF WORDS: While China’s foreign minister insisted the US play a constructive role with China, Rubio stressed Washington’s commitment to its allies in the region The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday affirmed and welcomed US Secretary of State Marco Rubio statements expressing the US’ “serious concern over China’s coercive actions against Taiwan” and aggressive behavior in the South China Sea, in a telephone call with his Chinese counterpart. The ministry in a news release yesterday also said that the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs had stated many fallacies about Taiwan in the call. “We solemnly emphasize again that our country and the People’s Republic of China are not subordinate to each other, and it has been an objective fact for a long time, as well as
‘CHARM OFFENSIVE’: Beijing has been sending senior Chinese officials to Okinawa as part of efforts to influence public opinion against the US, the ‘Telegraph’ reported Beijing is believed to be sowing divisions in Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture to better facilitate an invasion of Taiwan, British newspaper the Telegraph reported on Saturday. Less than 750km from Taiwan, Okinawa hosts nearly 30,000 US troops who would likely “play a pivotal role should Beijing order the invasion of Taiwan,” it wrote. To prevent US intervention in an invasion, China is carrying out a “silent invasion” of Okinawa by stoking the flames of discontent among locals toward the US presence in the prefecture, it said. Beijing is also allegedly funding separatists in the region, including Chosuke Yara, the head of the Ryukyu Independence
GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY: Taiwan must capitalize on the shock waves DeepSeek has sent through US markets to show it is a tech partner of Washington, a researcher said China’s reported breakthrough in artificial intelligence (AI) would prompt the US to seek a stronger alliance with Taiwan and Japan to secure its technological superiority, a Taiwanese researcher said yesterday. The launch of low-cost AI model DeepSeek (深度求索) on Monday sent US tech stocks tumbling, with chipmaker Nvidia Corp losing 16 percent of its value and the NASDAQ falling 612.46 points, or 3.07 percent, to close at 19,341.84 points. On the same day, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Sector index dropped 488.7 points, or 9.15 percent, to close at 4,853.24 points. The launch of the Chinese chatbot proves that a competitor can
‘VERY SHALLOW’: The center of Saturday’s quake in Tainan’s Dongshan District hit at a depth of 7.7km, while yesterday’s in Nansai was at a depth of 8.1km, the CWA said Two magnitude 5.7 earthquakes that struck on Saturday night and yesterday morning were aftershocks triggered by a magnitude 6.4 quake on Tuesday last week, a seismologist said, adding that the epicenters of the aftershocks are moving westward. Saturday and yesterday’s earthquakes occurred as people were preparing for the Lunar New Year holiday this week. As of 10am yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) recorded 110 aftershocks from last week’s main earthquake, including six magnitude 5 to 6 quakes and 32 magnitude 4 to 5 tremors. Seventy-one of the earthquakes were smaller than magnitude 4. Thirty-one of the aftershocks were felt nationwide, while 79
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