■ TECHNOLOGY
Texas Instruments cuts jobs
US microchip maker Texas Instruments Inc is slashing 400 jobs in the Philippines to cope with falling orders amid the global economic crunch, labor officials said yesterday. The Dallas-based company notified the Philippine Labor Department of its plan to seek 400 volunteers to take “generous” severance packages among 2,300 employees in its plant in the northern city of Baguio, said Ana Dione, a Labor Department official. Apart from 400 workers, another 100 employees were to be transferred to Texas Instruments’ other plant north of Manila, she said.
■ELECTRONICS
Polaroid files for bankruptcy
Polaroid Corp and its subsidiaries filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Thursday, saying that allegations of fraud at its parent company are to blame. In a statement, Concord, Massachusetts-based Polaroid said its ongoing financial restructuring process and Thursday’s filing in US Bankruptcy Court in Minnesota are the result of the federal investigation into its parent, Petters Group Worldwide. Petters Group has owned Polaroid since 2005. Petters Group and its venture capital unit Petters Co Inc filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in October following a federal investigation into a US$3 billion fraud scheme allegedly run by the company’s founder, Tom Petters.
■AVIATION
ANA postpones purchase
Japan’s All Nippon Airways said yesterday it was putting on hold plans to buy any new giant aircraft, either Boeing’s 747-8 or the Airbus A380 superjumbo, because of the global economic downturn. The purchase plan “will remain on hold until the company deems market conditions conducive to resuming the selection process,” said Rob Henderson, a spokesman for ANA, Japan’s second largest carrier. The decision does not affect All Nippon Airways’ plans to be the launch customer of Boeing’s next-generation Dreamliner. European consortium Airbus had been pushing hard to win the order since ANA launched the search in July, seeing it as a chance to break into the Japanese market.
■LOGISTICS
FedEx cuts salaries
US delivery giant FedEx said on Thursday it was slashing salaries for many employees to cope with the global economic downturn. “Our financial performance is increasingly being challenged by some of the worst economic conditions in the company’s 35-year operating history,” said Frederick Smith, who is chairman, president and chief executive. Smith will take a 20 percent cut in base pay while other senior executives will see a reduction of between 7.5 percent and 10 percent and other salaried personnel will get a 5.0 percent cut. The company also said it was freezing hiring and eliminating merit pay increases for next year.
■CHINA
Unemployment increases
The real number of unemployed in China is much more severe than statistics show after 670,000 small firms closed this year under pressure from the global financial crisis, an adviser to China’s Cabinet said yesterday. About 6.7 million jobs vanished, many in the export hub of Guangdong, pushing unemployment well above the official figure of 8.3 million, State Council adviser Chen Quansheng (陳全生) said at a forum in Beijing. “The real employment situation is much more grave than the official statistics, which only show the registered urban jobless number,” he said. Chen urged official support for labor-intensive industries to create jobs.
STILL COMMITTED: The US opposes any forced change to the ‘status quo’ in the Strait, but also does not seek conflict, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said US President Donald Trump’s administration released US$5.3 billion in previously frozen foreign aid, including US$870 million in security exemptions for programs in Taiwan, a list of exemptions reviewed by Reuters showed. Trump ordered a 90-day pause on foreign aid shortly after taking office on Jan. 20, halting funding for everything from programs that fight starvation and deadly diseases to providing shelters for millions of displaced people across the globe. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has said that all foreign assistance must align with Trump’s “America First” priorities, issued waivers late last month on military aid to Israel and Egypt, the
France’s nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and accompanying warships were in the Philippines yesterday after holding combat drills with Philippine forces in the disputed South China Sea in a show of firepower that would likely antagonize China. The Charles de Gaulle on Friday docked at Subic Bay, a former US naval base northwest of Manila, for a break after more than two months of deployment in the Indo-Pacific region. The French carrier engaged with security allies for contingency readiness and to promote regional security, including with Philippine forces, navy ships and fighter jets. They held anti-submarine warfare drills and aerial combat training on Friday in
COMBAT READINESS: The military is reviewing weaponry, personnel resources, and mobilization and recovery forces to adjust defense strategies, the defense minister said The military has released a photograph of Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) appearing to sit beside a US general during the annual Han Kuang military exercises on Friday last week in a historic first. In the photo, Koo, who was presiding over the drills with high-level officers, appears to be sitting next to US Marine Corps Major General Jay Bargeron, the director of strategic planning and policy of the US Indo-Pacific Command, although only Bargeron’s name tag is visible in the seat as “J5 Maj General.” It is the first time the military has released a photo of an active
CHANGE OF MIND: The Chinese crew at first showed a willingness to cooperate, but later regretted that when the ship arrived at the port and refused to enter Togolese Republic-registered Chinese freighter Hong Tai (宏泰號) and its crew have been detained on suspicion of deliberately damaging a submarine cable connecting Taiwan proper and Penghu County, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement yesterday. The case would be subject to a “national security-level investigation” by the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office, it added. The administration said that it had been monitoring the ship since 7:10pm on Saturday when it appeared to be loitering in waters about 6 nautical miles (11km) northwest of Tainan’s Chiang Chun Fishing Port, adding that the ship’s location was about 0.5 nautical miles north of the No.
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