The Star Online: World Updates
The Star Online: World Updates |
- CORRECTED - Blast at Intel Arizona microchip complex injures 7
- Heavy rain forecast for China's drought-hit regions
- ANALYSIS - OPEC could pour oil on troubled politics
| CORRECTED - Blast at Intel Arizona microchip complex injures 7 Posted: 07 Jun 2011 09:06 PM PDT (Corrects location of company headquarters in last paragraph)
By David Schwartz PHOENIX (Reuters) - Seven workers at an Intel Corp microchip manufacturing complex outside Phoenix were injured by a small explosion there on Tuesday, fire officials reported, but the company said production was unaffected. The blast of undetermined origin occurred shortly after 2 p.m. local time (4:00 p.m. EDT/2000 GMT) in a support building at the Intel site in Chandler, Arizona, just southeast of the state capital, said Chandler Fire Department Battalion Chief Brad Miller. A spokesman for the world's leading chipmaker said the accident site was under construction at the time and that production was uninterrupted. Miller told Reuters that four workers were taken to local hospitals with injuries ranging from concussions to shrapnel wounds, and three others were treated at the scene for less serious injuries. He described the incident as both a "small blast" and as a "flash explosion," adding that an automatic extinguishing system quickly doused flames with a mix of water and foam. The extent of damage was not immediately clear. Early indications were that the explosion occurred inside a chemical storage room of a single-level, 3,000-square-foot (280-sq-metre) building, Miller said. That building and an adjacent structure were evacuated of hundreds of employees, he said. Miller initially had reported the explosion occurred in a microchip fabrication plant but later said the structure involved was a support building. A preliminary account of the incident from a company spokesman differed from that furnished by fire officials. An Oregon-based Intel spokesman, Bill Calder, described the incident as a brief fire, not an explosion. Calder also said a nearby plant and support buildings were evacuated but workers soon returned to the complex and production was unaffected. The mishap took place at a separate fabrication complex under construction and designed to make Intel's new cutting-edge 22-nanometer chip, due to go into production later this year, Calder said. Miller said the building where the blast occurred would remain closed while authorities investigated the cause. "Until we identify everything involved, there's no way we can say when people will be back to work," he said, adding that the 10 other buildings at the site remained open. Intel's website said its fabrication facilities in Arizona focus primarily on high-volume microprocessor manufacturing. Shares in the Santa Clara, California-based company were holding steady in after-hours trading. (Additional reporting by Noel Randewich; Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Greg McCune and Eric Walsh) Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by USA Best Price. | ||
| Heavy rain forecast for China's drought-hit regions Posted: 07 Jun 2011 09:06 PM PDT SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Heavy rains are forecast for central and southern China over the next 10 days, bringing more relief to some of the drought-hit regions, a government department said. Citing a weather report by the Central Meteorological Observatory, it added that from June 9 to 12, 20-60 millimetres of rain may fall in the central and lower regions of the Yangtze River basin, with heavy storms predicted around June 14.
The rain may further increase water levels of the Poyang and Dongting Rivers, which run through Hunan, Jiangxi and Guizhou provinces. This follows downpours over the weekend that alleviated some parched areas. But the flood and drought management department warned that the drought was far from over, with the water level of the Yangtze River still below normal. Parts of China along the Yangtze River basin and nearby have endured their worst drought in 50 years or more, with rainfall 40 to 60 percent less than normal over recent months. The drought has damaged crops and exacerbated a power shortage by cutting power generation from dams, adding a slight bump to near three-year high consumer inflation. It has affected millions of hectares of farmland, mainly in the five provinces of Hunan, Hubei, Jiangxi, Anhui and Jiangsu along the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze. Rice acreage in these five provinces accounts for nearly half of China's total rice area, official data show. But early-season rice accounted for only 16 percent of China's total rice output of 196 million tonnes last year. (Reporting by Carrie Ho; Editing by Ken Wills) Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by USA Best Price. | ||
| ANALYSIS - OPEC could pour oil on troubled politics Posted: 07 Jun 2011 09:06 PM PDT VIENNA (Reuters) - War in Libya, Qatari support for its rebel army and rivalries between Saudi Arabia and Iran need not scupper OPEC's attempts to forge a new oil output deal in Vienna.
The 50 year-old group has held together through two Gulf wars involving its members and the protracted, bitter Iran-Iraq conflict that claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands. OPEC oil ministers still sat around the same table. On Wednesday the 12 members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries will draw on a tradition of finding common interest in staving off an oil price collapse or cooling an overheated market that can destroy demand for its multi-billion dollar exports. While Arab world turmoil has complicated the quest for an output deal and could limit the scope of any agreement, analysts say it has also made it important for OPEC to muster a show of unity. "Regional political issues are much further up the agenda for many countries than an OPEC meeting, but look at the solutions to those issues and they all boil back to the oil price," said Lawrence Eagles of J P Morgan. With prices around $115 a barrel for Brent , he said there could be an output increase to help meet an expected rise in demand and tightening of supply in the second half of this year, but the question was "how much?". On their arrival in Vienna, several ministers said very little, which in itself could be significant. The representative of Iran, holder of the rotating OPEC presidency and the group's second largest producer after Saudi Arabia, made a low-profile entrance through a hotel basement. He resisted the opportunity for anti-Western rhetoric, telling awaiting reporters through an interpreter that OPEC would make a decision after its meeting had reached a consensus. The risk rivalries would spill over into the Vienna OPEC meeting mounted when Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sacked his oil minister and seized control of his ministry. But Ahmedinejad later appointed his close political ally Mohammad Aliabadi as caretaker oil minister after parliament and Iran's constitutional watchdog said the president had no right to head the ministry. Aliabadi, whose last job was head of Iran's Olympic Committee, has scant experience of oil. Half the other ministers and country representatives who will be sitting with him around the negotiating table in Vienna are also new to the job, including Omran Abukraa, Libya's OPEC delegation head following the defection of top oil official Shokri Ghanem last week. No-one was expected to represent the Libyan rebels, removing one possible source of tension, although Abukraa could find himself at odds with Qatar, which has helped the rebels to market oil. SAUDI SUPREMACY In the context of so many new OPEC faces, Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi's status as the elder statesman is more established than ever. "There is only one vote that counts in OPEC and it is Saudi Arabia's," said Sadad al-Husseini, an oil analyst and former top official at oil giant Saudi Aramco. Whatever OPEC agrees on Wednesday, it remains the case that Saudi Arabia, the guardian of most of the world's spare output capacity, can continue its policy of adjusting supply to meet demand, moderating prices and ensuring future customers for its vast oil reserves. Already, Saudi Arabia plans to raise its production sharply this month. That leaves it up to other producers to decide whether to give tacit support by agreeing to an increase from the group as a whole, which would be the first formal rise since 2007 and the first policy change since December 2008 when OPEC decided on a record supply cut. The easiest option would be to make official leakage of well over one million barrels per day above the targets agreed in 2008 as the oil price crashed below $40 a barrel. With prices well above $100, even Shi'ite Iran, which has long supported much higher prices than Sunni Saudi Arabia, might be willing to overlook political differences and agree a production change that is only a confirmation of the status quo. But a formal output increase that officially adds new oil supplies would be a much grander gesture for both politics and oil markets. Copyright © 2011 Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by USA Best Price. |
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