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By Julie Johnsson | American Airlines postponed the launch of its Chicago-to-Beijing service hours before the first flight was due to depart Monday because of a dispute with the Chinese government over landing slots.
The Texas-based carrier, which operates a major international hub at O’Hare, said it had postponed the start of service until May 4, and would rebook or provide refunds to passengers who had purchased tickets for the Monday flight.
Associated Press | China’s passenger car sales jumped 63 percent in March from a year earlier as manufacturers scrambled to meet strong demand driven by tax cuts and government subsidies, a state-affiliated industry group reported Friday.
Passenger car sales rose to 1.26 million vehicles in March, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.
GM reported earlier that its sales in China jumped 68 percent in March
over a year earlier to a new monthly record of 230,048 vehicles. First
quarter sales surged 71 percent to 623,546 units. Ford said first quarter sales jumped 84 percent to a record
153,362 units, while Toyota’s sales in China rose 33 percent in March.
From BusinessWeek | Discover Financial Services and other credit card companies are complaining that China is violating trade rules by blocking them from its $723 billion payment-processing market. According to Trade Representative Ron Kirk, the U.S. hasn’t decided whether to file a complaint with the World Trade Organization about restrictions that block U.S. credit card companies like Riverwoods-based Discover from processing credit- and debit-card transactions in China.
Get the full story: businessweek.com.
A group of Chinese college students hold a candlelight vigil outside Google’s head office in Beijing on March 23. The placards say “We Love Google.” (STR/AFP/Getty Images)
Associated Press | China issued a blistering public attack against Google on Wednesday and appeared to quietly begin getting businesses to abandon the U.S. Internet giant after it moved its controversial Chinese search engine offshore.
The critical remarks in a high-profile Communist Party newspaper, coupled with souring business deals, underscored Beijing’s determination to settle scores with Google after a public two-month dispute over stringent Chinese censorship policies. By challenging the often tetchy government, Google appears to have violated an unspoken rule of doing business in China, especially in the Internet industry, whose control Beijing sees as crucial to maintaining its authoritarian rule.
| Associated Press | Google Inc.’s partial withdrawal from the China market brought swift condemnation from the government Tuesday while leaving Chinese Web surfers to wonder whether they would be able to access a new offshore search engine site or be blocked by censors.
Google’s decision to move most of its China-based search functions to Hong Kong opened a new phase in a two-month-long fracas pitting the world’s most powerful Internet company against a government that tightly restricts the Web in the planet’s most populous market.. |
See also • Google wins key EU ruling on fake Vuitton link |
From the Peoria Journal-Star | Texas judge halves verdict against Caterpillar Inc. to $23.8 million in the injury of a construction worker who was injured while using a Caterpillar vehicle. The company said it plans to continue its appeal.
Get the full story: pjstar.com
The Wall Street Journal | U.S. investigators are focusing on a prominent Asian hacking group that is likely Chinese as the probable perpetrator of the recent attacks on Google. The group used sophisticated data-masking techniques to hack into the search giant’s computer systems. It is still unclear whether the hacking group has any connections to the Chinese government.
Get the full story: wsj.com.
