LITTLE ROCK — QUOTE OF THE DAY
“We do not believe any conflicts of interest
exist but if any arise there are numerous mechanisms to counteract any such conflict.”
Henry Hood,
Chesapeake Energy Corp. general counsel, in a statement Article, 1D
Daimler targets India’s truck market
BOMBAY, India - Germany’s Daimler opened a new factory in the south Indian auto hub of Chennai on Wednesday, the centerpiece of its $850 million investment in India.
This is the first time Daimler, which also makes Mercedes Benz cars, will be building trucks designed for the Indian market in India, bringing it into competition with Tata Motors, India’s top commercial vehicle manufacturer.
The company said the factory will start commercial vehicle production in the third quarter of this year, with an initial capacity of 36,000 vehicles. The maximum capacity of the factory is more than 70,000 vehicles.
The factory in Oragadam employs 1,400 people and will allow Daimler to build trucks using 85 percent local components, crucial for containing costs.
Company submits new pipeline route
WASHINGTON - TransCanada says it has submitted a proposal for a new route through Nebraska for the Keystone XL oil pipeline.
The company said in a statement Wednesday that it has submitted a planned route for the pipeline to Nebraska officials.
The 1,700-mile pipeline would carry oil from Canada to the Texas Gulf Coast. President Barack Obama blocked the pipeline earlier this year, citing uncertainty over a planned route intended to avoid Nebraska’s environmentally sensitive Sandhills region.
Details of the new route were not immediately available. A spokesman for the State Department said officials had not received notification of a new route. State Department approval is needed because the $7 billion pipeline crosses the U.S. border into Canada.
Google CEO wraps up in Android suit
SAN FRANCISCO - Google Inc. Chief Executive Officer Larry Page completed his testimony in federal court Wednesday morning after an hour of grilling by an attorney for tech rival Oracle Corp. in the high-stakes lawsuit claiming Google misused Oracle’s Java technology to build the popular Android mobile software.
Under repeated questioning, Page eventually acknowledged that Google never obtained a license for using Java.
But he added that Google ultimately felt it didn’t need one because, he said, Google only used elements of the Java programming language that are freely available in the public domain.
“When we weren’t able to reach terms on a partnership, we went down our own path,” he testified.
That is a key theme of Google’s defense in the case, while Oracle is seeking nearly $1 billion in damages for what it says are violations of Java copyrights and patents that Oracle acquired when it bought Sun Microsystems, which created Java.
Throughout his testimony, however, Page repeatedly balked at giving direct answers to a number of questions posed by Oracle attorney David Boies. U.S. District Judge William Alsup interrupted several times to order Page to answer simply “yes or no.”
Exxon not leading project, Iraq says
Iraq said Exxon Mobil Corp. will no longer lead a project for injecting water into oil fields in the country’s south and that the company will await government approval before drilling in the semi-autonomous Kurdish north.
“It will not be Exxon Mobil that will run that project, as it was originally agreed,” Hussain al-Shahristani, Iraq’s deputy prime minister for energy, told reporters Wednesday at a conference in London. The Irving, Texas-based company will participate in the water-injection effort in other ways, he said, without elaborating.
Shahristani said Exxon has sent a letter to the oil ministry saying it won’t “take any action on the ground” to drill in or develop fields in Iraq’s Kurdish region without first securing the ministry’s authorization.
A dispute over oil revenue between Iraq’s government and Kurdish authorities led to a year-long halt in exports from the region that ended in February 2011. The central government refuses to do business with companies working in the Kurdish region and said on March 22 that Exxon had agreed to freeze business that the company had arranged with the Kurds. Iraq holds the world’s fifth-biggest crude reserves.
Veterans system plans to hire 100
The Veterans Health Care System of the Ozarks, formerly the VA Medical Center, will hire 100 workers to support a soon-to-be completed 144,000-square-foot addition on its College Avenue campus in Fayetteville.
The affiliate of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is recruiting for half of the available positions. The remaining jobs will become available this summer with hiring to be completed in the fall, a news release said Tuesday.
“We’re staggering the hiring ... as various areas become activated,” said Susan Hansen, a spokesman for the healthcare center.
Construction is expected to be completed in the fall.
The VA is hiring nurses, medical technologists, housekeepers, mechanics and carpenters to staff outpatient services at the new building. The $93 million facility will offer pharmacy, optometry, orthopedics, and gastroenterology services, among others.
Business, Pages 26 on 04/19/2012