Toyota, Honda and Nissan recall 150,000 cars in UK over fears airbag may BURST sending plastic flying

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Safety alert: Toyota is recalling thousands of cars in  the UK, including the Corolla model from 2001 (above) due to a problem with the  passenger-side airbag

• Problem  relates to inflator device in the passenger-side airbag
• Toyota: Affects 76,000 vehicles  bought from  November 2000 to March 2004
• Honda: Around  15,000 UK-bought vehicles made between 2001 and 2004
• Nissan: 60,000 cars involved including X-Trail,  Patrol, Almera and  Navara
• Three manufacturers are recalling more than  two million cars worldwide

By  Simon Tomlinson

More than 150,000 cars are being recalled in  the UK due to safety fears over the passenger-side airbag, it emerged  today.

The problem, which affects Toyota, Honda and  Nissan models, relates to the airbag  inflator, which may burst and send pieces of plastic flying.

There have been five incidents – in the USA  and Japan – but no injuries.

Worldwide, the three companies are recalling  more than two million vehicles.

Toyota is recalling 76,000 vehicles  bought  in the UK in the period November 2000 to March 2004, while Honda  is recalling  15,400 UK-bought vehicles made between 2001 and 2004.

Nissan said that 59,058 of its cars  sold in  the UK are affected by the recall, including the X-Trail,  Patrol, Almera, and  Navara models.

The recall also involves 1,913 of the Mazda 6  models bought in the UK in 2002-03.

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• EPA  nominee to get tough questions about why she approved new car air-conditioning  refrigerant that caused ENGINE FIRES in Mercedes-Benz tests

 

Nissan is also recalling some vehicles  manufactured between 2000 and 2004 in the UK.

The Toyota recall involves models such as the  Corolla and the Yaris, while the Honda recall involves the  Civic, the CRV and  the FRV.

The recall for air bags made by  Japan’s  Takata Corp affects other automakers, including non-Japanese  manufacturers,  Takata spokesman Akiko Watanabe said today, but she declined to give details.

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Fears: Honda is recalling 15,400 UK-bought vehicles made  between 2001 and 2004, including the Civic

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Concerns: Nissan said that 59,058 of its cars sold in  the UK are affected by the recall, including the X-Trail, Patrol, Almera, and  Navara models (file picture)

Toyota Motor Corp is recalling 1.7  million  vehicles with some 580,000 in North America, 490,000 in Europe  and 320,000 in  Japan. Affected models include the Corolla, Tundra, Lexus SC, produced between  November 2000, and March 2004.

Honda Motor Co. is recalling 1.1  million  vehicles. About 680,000 are in North America, 270,000 in Japan  and 64,000 in  Europe. The models include Civic and Odyssey.

Toyota has been battling to re-build trust  after a series of recalls since  2009.

In November, Toyota recalled 2.7 million vehicles worldwide, including 75,000 in Britain, because of a steering wheel fault  which could result in a ‘loss of steering ability’.

It said part of the lower steering column  innards near the driver’s knee may ‘deform’ under certain conditions.

A month earlier, it was involved in the  biggest single recall since 1996 when it revealed 7.43  million vehicles had been affected by malfunctioning power window switches.

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ta-Honda-Nissan-recall-150-000-cars-UK-fears-airbag-BURST-
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China floods Iran with cheap consumer goods in exchange for oil

Rush-hour traffic in Tehran. China is angling for a large slice of the consumer market in Iran, including cars. Photograph: Morteza Nikoubazl/Reuters

 

China picks up slack created by U.N. sanctions

 

On the north Tehran stretch of the busy Shariati Street, the newly opened car dealership, Geelran, offers a range of Chinese-made vehicles to middle-class city dwellers. A stone’s throw from the former grounds of the British embassy, left vacant after a hostile takeover by anti-western demonstrators in late 2011, the new headquarters of the Geely brand is the second Chinese automobile manufacturer in Iran. Another company, Chery Motors, has been active here for five years, and produces several of its low-range vehicles on Iranian assembly lines.

The price of the French-made Renault Mégane, until recently a staple for local car buyers, has tripled since 2011. It now sells for around 42.2m tomans (£22,450), and spare parts are becoming scarce.

Meanwhile, Geely’s Emgrand EC7 hatchback has a slightly lower price range (38.7m tomans), suggesting that Zhejiang Geely Holding Group is angling to attract a slice of the local consumer market as sanctions make western-made goods difficult to come by – but at a quality experts say is far lower than the European-made cars it imitates.

“It’s an appalling car manufacturer, and yet another one flooding Iran with cars made on old platforms,” said a Tehran-based financial analyst with close links to Sino-Iranian trade. “Instead of hard cash, China is bartering for Iranian oil with cheap consumer items.”

With Iran increasingly cut off from global markets due to sanctions, China is in prime position to capitalise on what is left of the ailing economy. As the world’s largest importer of Iranian oil, China has long used the Islamic republic’s global isolation to sate its business interests, which have a wider scope than just the energy sector. The United States’ latest instalment of sanctions, which on 6 February imposed additional restrictions on international entities that do business with Iran, are likely to further add to this trend.

Importing 441,000 barrels of Iranian oil each day, China is Iran’s top trade partner. Some 70 Chinese businesses are currently active in the country, and the Heritage Foundation lists it as the Middle East’s largest recipient of Chinese non-bond investment. While primarily energy-focused, the relationship stretches to key non-oil sectors like construction, transportation and manufacturing and has a strategic importance for Beijing’s efforts to balance its position in the Middle East vis-a-vis US interests. Although China’s oil imports from Iran declined by nearly 21% last year, few in Iran view this as the onset of a long-term weakening of Sino-Persian ties.

In what Iran’s official media interpreted as an outward defiance of western sanctions, the Chinese oil firm Zhuhai Zhenrong announced in December it would keep importing 230,000 Iranian oil barrels a day in 2013, and that the end purchaser of this crude would be the China Petroleum and Oil Corporation (Sinopec). In addition, Zhenrong introduced plans to import gas condensate from South Pars gas field in the Persian Gulf, according to Iran’s state-run PressTV.

“Since Zhenrong is already on the [US] blacklist, it feels no political pressure to cut Iranian oil imports,” an unnamed Chinese oil trader reportedly told the news service.

As international sanctions make it increasingly difficult for Iran to get cash for these energy exports, China is likely to find novel ways to provide goods and services in exchange, which will likely be to the detriment of the already crippled non-oil sectors. By threatening to cut off companies that transfer money to Iran’s central bank (even those from countries that currently enjoy waivers to the previous oil sanctions) from the US banking system, the United States’ February sanctions aim to trap much of Iran’s oil revenues in Chinese bank accounts. This, in effect, gives China a double advantage, allowing it to gain premium access to Iran’s energy as well as investment opportunities in its non-oil sectors.

“These reserves will provide [China] with more bargaining power, since now the only way the Iranian government could receive its money is to accept barter products in return,” said an economist based in Tehran.

These policies have a profound impact on ordinary Iranians. Chinese consumer products have long crammed local storefronts, and Iranian manufacturers are finding it increasingly difficult to compete, especially since the plummeting national currency drove up the cost of imported raw materials.

In addition, the Iran-China chamber of commerce last year announced it was receiving member complaints about the types of goods China was sending to Iran, which “usually … contradicted the ordered goods.”

Tehran’s roads are thus full of taxi drivers who until recently owned businesses, but went bankrupt because they could no longer afford to pay for imports while competing with cheap Chinese merchandise.

“Unlike with most GCC economies, the craft, small and medium industries play an important role in the Iranian economy, but the flow of cheap Chinese goods, [which are] in some cases low-quality, generated a popular resentment against China and a backlash from merchants and factories that are exposed to significant competition from Chinese goods,” UK-based Middle East expert Naser al-Tamimi recently wrote for al-Arabia.

Small business owners are not the only ones losing out. In a country where the state plays a significant role as an employer, the outsourcing of major infrastructure projects to Chinese businesses takes construction and engineering jobs away from the already struggling local labour pool. Over the past two decades of fortifying bilateral ties, Chinese engineers have spearheaded countless infrastructural projects, most prominently the Tehran metro system – a trend both Iranian and Chinese officials have been keen to encourage.

“The new agreement seems to be, no more consumer goods. If we’re going to barter, build us motorways, bridges and dams,” said the Sino-Iranian trade analyst.

As Iran’s inflation and unemployment levels climb, the growing visibility of Chinese workers at public construction sites is thus likely to further foment public resentment. Presently, the massive expansion of Tehran’s Sadr expressway – touted as a pre-election achievement of the mayor, Mohammad Qalibaf – may give enough cause for local ire. Easily the most visible infrastructural endeavour in Tehran, the two-level, four-mile project is sponsored by China.

 

Lottery: $550 million will buy you a lot of … misery

By Melissa Dahl

NBC News

You surely know by now that the Powerball jackpot is set to hit at least $550 million tonight. You should also know that your odds of winning the grand prize are somewhere around 1 in 176 million (at least, we really hope you know that). So here’s a bit of comfort for you tonight as you stare dejectedly at your losing ticket: Most lottery winners don’t end up any happier than the rest of us.

Yeah, yeah, you can probably name 550 million reasons why winning the jackpot tonight will make you happy. But here’s the truth: A handful of psychology studies over the years have evaluated the happiness of lottery winners over time, and found that after the initial glee of getting one of those big giant checks has faded away, most winners actually end up no happier than they were before hitting the jackpot.

Arguably the most famous paper on this subject was published the late 1970s, and it’s a doozy: Psychologists interviewed winners of the Illinois State Lottery and compared them with non-winners — and, just for good measure, people who had suffered some terrible accident that left them paraplegic or quadriplegic. (You can find the abstract here, but you’ll have to pay to read the full report.) Each group answered a series of questions designed to measure their level of happiness.

Stefanie Graef holds what she hopes is the winning Powerball ticket she just bought at Circle News Stand on Tuesday in Hollywood, Fla. If she’s lucky, she won’t win.  Joe Raedle / Getty Images

What they found was counterintuitive, to say the least: In terms of overall happiness, the lottery winners were not significantly happier than the non-lottery winners. (The accident victims were less happy, but not by much.) But when it came to rating everyday happiness, the lottery winners took “significantly less pleasure” in the simple things like chatting with a friend, reading a magazine or receiving a compliment.

“Humans tend to have a relatively set point of mood,” explains Gail Saltz, a New York City psychiatrist and frequent TODAY contributor. Most people tend to bounce back to that set point after a major life event, whether it’s something negative or positive. But for some lottery winners, psychologists believe hitting an especially huge jackpot may alter that happiness baseline, making it harder to see the joy in everyday things.

More recently than the ’70s research, a 2008 University of California, Santa Barbara, paper measured people’s happiness six months after winning a relatively modest lottery prize — a lump sum equivalent to about eight months’ worth of income. “We found that this had zero detectable effect on happiness at that time,” says Peter Kuhn, one of the study authors and a professor of economics at the university.

Andrew Jackson “Jack” Whittaker Jr., his wife Jewell, right, and their granddaughter Brandi Bragg, left, pose for a photograph after being interviewed by TODAY in this December 2002. In his darkest moments, Whittaker has said he sometimes wondered if winning the nearly $315 million Powerball game was really worth it.

You’ve heard the stories of lottery winners whose post-jackpot lives turned sour. There’s Jack Whittaker, the West Virginia man who in 2002 won the nearly $315 million Powerball jackpot. Initially, he generously gave millions to charities, including $14 million to start his own Jack Whittaker Foundation. But later, the dream turned to nightmare: A briefcase with $545,000 in cash and cashier’s checks was stolen from his car while it was parked outside of a Cross Lanes, W. Va., strip club. His office and home were broken into, he was arrested twice for drunken-driving — and the list goes on.

Or there’s Alex Toth, a Florida man who in 1990 won $13 million to be doled out in 20-year-payments of $666,666. (Seriously.) At his death in 2008, the Tampa Bay Times reported on the sad direction his life had taken: Years of living it up led to a split from his wife and charges of fradulent tax returns, among other serious woes.

What gives? Behavior experts have a couple theories. One is simply that we humans just tend to get used to stuff — the good and the bad. The psychological concept is called “happiness adaptation,” and Michael Norton, associate professor at Harvard Business School, co-authored a 2007 paper that sought to uncover why hitting major life goals –

including the dreamlike goal of winning the lottery and the more down-to-earth goal of getting married — don’t end up making us as happy as we expect them to.

“The idea of adaptation seems like a negative thing —  it’s a shame that we have to get used to the good things in our life, from lottery winnings to ice cream. But adaptation also helps us when bad things happen to us, making the impact of losing our job or getting divorced less painful over time,” explains Norton, who is also the coauthor of the forthcoming book, “Happy Money: The Science of Smarter Spending.”

He continues, “Big positive and negative events can have a lasting impact on our happiness, but this impact tends to decrease over time. In some sense, because people have so many facets of their life – from their job to their friends to their family to their hobbies – the impact of a change in any one of those facets is less extreme than we think, because many of the other things in our lives stay the same. (We win the lottery but we are still stuck with our same siblings, for example.) As a result of this, people tend to adapt to life events and end up closer to where they were than they think they’d be.”

This is partially because we are terrible at predicting how happy more money is going to make us. The truth is, money can make you happy — but only up to a point. ”Research shows that the impact of additional income on happiness begins to level off around $75,000 of income – but people keep trying to make more and more money in the mistaken belief that their happiness will continue to increase,” Norton says. “As a result of this mistaken belief, people think that big windfalls will change their happiness dramatically – and may end up with less happiness than they expected.”

On the other end of the spectrum, landing a windfall that lifts you out of a financial pit really can provide significant, lasting happiness. In 2006, Sandra Hayes, then a 46-year-old social worker making $25,000 a year, and 12 of her coworkers won the $224 million Powerball jackpot. After taxes and splitting the money with her coworkers, Hayes had won $10 million. She bought her dream car (a brand-new Lexus) and her dream home (a half-million dollar house in St. Louis). But first, she paid off her current home and then gave that house to her daughter and grandchildren, who’d been living in a rough neighborhood. She quit her job and now spends her days writing — she’s already published one book and is working on a second one.

“Yes, my life is different, and it feels good,” says Hayes. “This summer I had a $900 water bill. Six years ago, well, if I had a substantially huge bill, I would’ve had to make payment arrangements. That’s one of the things I like, that I’m able to pay my bills in full and not scuffle.”

The first secret, as Hayes tells it, to winning the lottery without losing your mind is to immediately meet with a financial planner you trust and make a plan that works for you. The second is a little simpler. She says, “Just because you win the lottery, it does not change you as a person.”

Related:

Hey, Powerball winner: Here’s your holiday shopping list

Advice for the Powerball winner: Pay taxes

11 crazy things more likely to happen than winning the Powerball jackpot

Follow NBCNews.com health writer Melissa Dahl on Twitter: @melissadahl. 

China, Japan Remain in East China Sea Stand Off

By: Eamonn Sheridan
FX News

This has quietened down, but it wont seem to go away … China taunts Japan with ‘aircraft carrier’ exercise A Chinese naval flotilla sailed between two islands in the Okinawa chain Nov. 28, a maneuver that the state Xinhua News Agency called an exercise to escort a “large surface vessel.” … the area is Japan’s exclusive economic zone, and under certain circumstances foreign military exercises there could be seen as a challenge to Japanese territorial integrity.

Related:

Japan Is Flexing Its Military Muscle to Counter a Rising China

In East China Sea: “China Never Has and Never Will Accept Japan’s Claims”

Related:

Disputed Islands With 45 Years of Oil Split China, Japan

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TOKYO, Nov 29, 2012 (AFP) — Three of Japan’s biggest carmakers said Thursday that output in China slumped again last month as they continue to feel the effects of a bitter territorial dispute between Tokyo and Beijing.

Toyota, the world’s best-selling auto maker in the first six months of the year, produced 61 percent fewer cars in China year-on-year in October, it said, while Nissan cut output by 44 percent and Honda by 54 percent.

The figures follow earlier data showing all three companies had seen large falls in sales in China over the month as a consumer boycott of Brand Japan lashed two-way trade.

Although in percentage terms Nissan was the least badly affected of the three, its exposure to China is greater, meaning its absolute production fell further.

Toyota made just 30,600 vehicles over the month, Honda produced 26,302 and Nissan 61,360.

Nissan Leaf

Last month, Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn told the Financial Times his company would think twice before making new investments in the country.

“Certainly beyond what we have decided, before going for further decisions in China, we will be very careful in assessing how much of an impact (the political situation) has on consumers’ minds,” Nissan’s top executive said.

Beijing and Tokyo have disagreed for decades over the sovereignty of an uninhabited archipelago in the East China Sea.

The Senkaku Islands are controlled by Japan, but claimed by China, which calls them the Diaoyus.

The Japanese government’s move to nationalise three of the islands in September sent relations tumbling, with sometimes violent protests erupting in cities across China.

Japanese businesses were frequently targeted in demonstrations commentators said must have had at least tacit state backing. Factories and shops were shuttered either because of actual damage or because of threatened violence.

Numerous Japanese cars were wrecked by mobs, another factor that could have led to a fall in sales.

But despite the gloom from China, Toyota and Honda logged rises in total overseas production, with Toyota seeing a 13 percent uptick in output at plants excluding those in Japan. Honda’s overseas production jumped 20 percent.

Nissan said its overseas production total fell 1.7 percent.

All three companies saw output fall in Japan.

Related:

China-Japan Dispute Spoils Nissan Sales

Above: China trouble in East China Sea. Japan’s Foreign Minister Koichiro Genba was trying to prevent China from owning one of the largest undersea oil deposits known to geologists, near the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea.

Chinese rioters broke into and seriously damaged this Japanese owned department store in China over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Island dispute. Sales of all items from Japan are way down in China.

Above: The sixth-generation semi-submersible CNOOC 981, China’s first deep-water oil rig, began operations at a depth of 1,500 meters in the South China Sea this morning, reported China Central Television.  The CNOOC 981, which was started in April 2008 and inaugurated in May 2011, is an advanced new oil platform designed to tap deep-sea petroleum resources.

Related:

For China Boss, Deep-Water Oil Rigs Are a ‘Strategic Weapon’

China Says Its Claim Over Vast Ocean Expanse is “Indisputable”

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Photo: Chinese ships on patrol near the islands Japan calls the Senkakus and China call the Diaoyu Islands

Bitain: Young drivers could be banned from carrying non-family passengers

Britain: Young drivers face a ban on carrying anyone other than family members as passengers under proposals being considered by the Government to cut the number of road accidents involving teenagers.

By David Millward and James Hall
The Daily Telegraph

Other options include banning novice drivers from carrying passengers altogether.

In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Mr McLoughlin said he was ready to look at measures which could reduce the the number of accidents involving novice motorists and cut the cost of providing them insurance cover.

According to the Association of British Insurers, which submitted the proposals to the Department for Transport, one in eight drivers is under 25, but they account for one third of the number of people who die on the country’s roads.

It estimates that an 18-year old driver is three times more likely to be involved in a crash than a motorist 30 years older. In 2011, drivers between 17 and 19 were involved in 12,000 crashes of which more than half resulted in serious or fatal injuries.

“I read regular reports where three or four young people have been killed in a car and it’s a new driver and you wonder what happened,” Mr McLoughlin said.

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“When I talk to young people who have recently passed their test what they say sometimes there is peer pressure is put on them to go fast, to show off.

“They are not anticipating an accident, but something goes wrong. They are not drivers with a huge amount of experience by the very fact of their being new drivers. I think we have got to look at that.

“There is a suggestion as to whether you should look at a restriction whether anyone could carry passengers for six or nine months when they have first passed their test,” Mr McLoughlin added.

“There are suggestions about them only perhaps being allowed to take a family member. To drive a car when you are learning, you have to have a qualified driver in the car. So these are all sorts of areas that I think we can we can look at,” he said.

“It is not an area I have closed my mind to, far from it.”

Mr McLoughlin’s remarks came against a backdrop of mounting concern at fatal accidents involving young drivers. Last month Eleanor Coleman, 19, from Great Yarmouth was sentenced to 15 months youth detention for killing her best by driving her Fiat Punto into a lorry parked in a layby following a Halloween party. The crash took place at 5 am.

Earlier this week Naimo Jones, 19, was jailed for six months after killing her best friend in a car crash in Blackpool. The court heard she was showing off when she lost control of her Vauxhall Corsa as it hurtled into a blind left-hand bend.

The proposals were given a “wholehearted welcome” by the road safety charity, Brake. “We have campaigned for many years for the Government to overhaul the system for training and testing drivers.

“Placing restrictions on newly qualified drivers would signficantly improve safety and help to reduce the appalling number of serious casualties that involve inexperienced novices.

“We know from research that young drivers are far more likely to crash when they have passengers of their age in the car. Placing this restriction makes sense.”

The ABI believes restricting the number of passengers is a move that the Government should take. A YouGov survey to be released next week by the insurance group will show significant public support for curbs on young drivers.

The survey will show that 71 per cent of Britons would back a limit on the number of young passengers that newly qualified young drivers are allowed to carry.

It will also show that 58 per cent of people support a curfew on night-time driving between 11pm and 4am for newly-qualified young drivers, unless they are driving to and from work.

The ABI said that both limits should be in place for the first six months after a person between the ages of 17 and 24 gets their driving licence.

James Dalton, who overseas motor policy at the ABI, said that “radical action” is needed to “reduce the tragic waste of young lives on our roads, especially among the 17-24 age group”.

“A car is potentially a lethal weapon,” said Mr Dalton.

An ABI spokesman added: “Any restrictions to limit the number of passengers young newly qualified young drivers can carry for an initial period after passing their test would be a step in the right direction.”

The Government has faced calls from the ABI and road safety groups to introduce what is known as a graduated licence, which would impose additional restrictions on drivers who have just passed their test.

In Northern Ireland for example, novice motorists must carry an R-plate and are not allowed to drive faster than 45 mph until they have been driving for a year.

The only restriction faced by novice drivers – irrespective of their age – is that they can have their licence revoked if they accumulate six penalty points within two years of parking their test.

How new restrictions would be enforced remains unclear. Road safety experts believe that young drivers who infringe the rules could face points on their licence or being sent on a course aimed at novice motorists.

Up until now the Government has resisted moves to introduce a graduated licence in England and Wales despite calls from organisations, such as the RAC Foundation, for such a move.

“We need to stop young people killing themselves – and others – on the roads. Casualties have been in decline but this age group is still shockingly over-represented in the stats,” said the Foundation’s director, Professor Stephen Glaister.

“If a modest curb on driving privileges can lead to a meaningful drop in death and injuries – and evidence from abroad suggests it can – then we would support some form of graduated licencing.”

Edmund King, the AA’s president, however, voiced doubts on imposing a ban on carrying passengers.

“It is something we think is extremely impractical,” he said. “We think it is sometimes useful to have a designated driver, who takes three mates home rather than having them travel in separate cars.”

“I can’t see how this will be enforced. How can you tell whether somebody in the car is a family member or not? What family members are included? Do they mean someone older? What is their role?

“These things sound reasonable but in practical terms they are very tricky”

Robert Gifford, executive director of the Parliamentary Advisory Committee for Transport Safety, said more work needed to be done before young drivers took their test.

“Young drivers remain a key area where we need to make progress. They are the economic future of our country.

“As well as looking at post-test restrictions, we also need to improve driver training and instruction and the quality of learning. IN that way, we can build quality driver learning.”

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On Drunk Driving

By David Millward
The Daily Telegraph
November 11, 2012

The Government is already moving to toughen the law on drug-driving by making it a criminal offence simply to get behind the wheel having taken an illegal substance, without having to prove that driving was impaired as at present.

In addition, drivers who are only marginally over the limit when breathalysed will lose the right to demand a second blood or urine test.

This will close a loophole that allows them to sober up while they wait for the sample to be taken. In rural areas in particular, the delay can sometimes take an hour — occasionally more — meaning that they are more likely to be under the limit by the time the second reading is taken.

But it is the problem of the habitual drink-driver that is causing mounting concern in Whitehall. Government figures show a sharp rise in the number of motorists being convicted more than once for driving under the influence.

In 2000, 13,299 motorists received at least their second ban for drink driving. By 2009 this had risen to 19,605.

Over the same period the proportion of banned drivers disqualified for at least the second time rose from 16 per cent to 24 per cent.

The extent of the problem was underlined further in September when nearly one in 10 drivers interviewed in the Crime Survey of England and Wales admitted getting behind the wheel when over the drink-drive limit. According to Department of Transport figures, 280 people were killed in drink-drive accidents last year, 30 more than in the previous year. Even though the latest figure is half that of 2006, there is continued concern in Whitehall about the dangers posed by drink-driving.

It is not only repeat drink-drivers who are likely to be targeted under the proposals. A motorist repeatedly convicted for drug-driving is expected to face similar sanctions, with the car being confiscated and in most cases sold.

The same is likely to apply to motorists who, having taken drink or drugs, also recklessly disregard the rules of the road while driving.

“The police and the courts already have the power to seize vehicles in certain circumstances,” said Stephen Hammond, the roads minister. “We are currently exploring how we can make greater use of these powers to get the most dangerous and irresponsible motorists off the road.”

The move was given qualified backing by Andrew Howard, the AA’s head of road safety.

“We would accept the sanction being applied to repeat offenders,” he said. “But steps have to be taken to ensure it is applied fairly.

“A car is often vital for a household and it would be unfair for a family to lose its car for a one-off serious offence.”

The move was welcomed by Robert Gifford, executive director of the parliamentary advisory council for transport safety.

“The forfeiture of vehicles would send a clear message to repeat offenders that driving is a privilege and not a right,” he said.

“It would also give the courts another route through which to enforce the law.”

Japan automakers have lasting sales slump on islands row with China

By Fang Yan and Kazunori Takada

BEIJING/SHANGHAI, Nov 2 (Reuters) – Honda Motor Co Ltd’s China car sales plunged 54 percent in October from a year earlier, with the pace of decline accelerating from the previous month as Japanese automakers suffer the backlash from a territorial dispute between Beijing and Tokyo.

Smaller rival Nissan Motor Co. Ltd also reported a steepening slump in its China sales.

The hit taken by Japanese firms in the world’s biggest auto market has been a boon for some Asian and European rivals, with Hyundai reporting it sold more cars in China in October than Honda and Toyota Motor Corp could muster between them.

Honda, which earlier this week cut its full-year earnings forecast by a fifth, has warned it could be February before business returns to normal in its second-largest market, where consumers are turning to German, Korean and U.S. cars instead.

But such a forecast may be too optimistic.

“I think that’s Honda’s wishful thinking given the current circumstances,” said John Zeng, Asia Pacific director of industry consultancy LMC Automotive. “A diplomatic row is not something within its control. As long as the stand-off continues, I don’t think we will see any substantial recovery.”

Violent protests and calls for boycotts of Japanese products broke out across China in mid-September after Japan nationalized two disputed islands in the East China Sea, known as the Diaoyu in Chinese and the Senkaku in Japanese, by purchasing them from their private owners.

The street protests have since eased but diplomatic tensions continue to fester, with both Japan and China sending patrol ships to waters near the uninhabited islands in recent weeks.

The Chinese government has condemned violence against Japanese nationals and their property, but anti-Japanese coverage of the diplomatic row carried daily by state media is hurting the image of Japanese companies, industry observers say.

Indeed, Honda’s sales decline in October accelerated from September when they fell 41 percent from the year-ago level.

Honda, which builds cars in partnership with Dongfeng Motor Group Co and Guangzhou Automobile Group Co , sold 24,115 cars in China in October, down from 51,826 a year earlier.

Sales in the first 10 months climbed 2.7 percent to 494,108, the company said in a brief statement.

Nissan, which makes vehicles in China in partnership with Dongfeng Automobile Group Co, sold 64,300 vehicles in China in October, down 41 percent from a year earlier. That was worse than a 35 percent year-on-year fall the previous month.

In further evidence that South Korean and some European car makers were benefiting at the cost of their Japanese rivals, Hyundai Motor said its China sales climbed 37 percent in October from a year earlier, up from a 15 percent rise in the previous month.

Hyundai’s October China tally of 80,598 is more than the 69,715 combined sales of Honda and Toyota for the month, when Toyota’s China sales fell 44 percent.

Honda said on Monday that its two biggest China plants would continue to run on one shift, rather than two, until at least the middle of next month, with output then gradually picking up ahead of Lunar New Year in February – a traditional buying season.

It has cut its full-year China sales forecast by 17 percent to 620,000 vehicles, but said it would stick to the plan to invest $880 million to expand capacity at its factories in Guangzhou and Wuhan over the next few years. (Editing by Alex Richardson)

Chinese Auto Makers Feel Effects of Japan Dispute

By ROSE YU

SHANGHAI—Customers shunning Japanese brand autos are having the opposite effect on two Chinese domestic auto makers: Dongfeng Motor Group Co. is reducing production at its joint ventures with Japanese auto makers while Chongqing Changan Automobile Co. got a lift from its joint venture with U.S.-based Ford MotorCo.

Dongfeng, which has joint ventures with Nissan Motor Co. and Honda Motor Co.,didn’t elaborate the amount or duration of what it called production adjustments. The Wuhan-based auto maker said it has no plans to lay off employees at a joint-venture factory with Nissan, and expects its total sales volume in 2012 to exceed last year’s output.

Dongfeng, China’s second-largest domestic car maker by sales, made the moves after Japan’s Toyota Motor Corp. slashed its production in China by 42% in September.

Chongqing Changan said on Monday it swung to a third-quarter net profit, helped by demand for one of its sedans jointly produced with Ford. Chongqing Changan said sales of its Ford Focus sedan surged to the top spot in September sales in the world’s biggest passenger car market. Ford has said it plans to introduce more than a dozen new models in China in the next few years and double output.

“The Sino-Japanese tension has affected [demand for] Japanese automobiles, so we are trying our best to regain confidence from our dealers and customers,” Dongfeng said in a statement. The company said more customers visited its stores in October compared with September, when a territorial spat sparked widespread protests in China.

Dongfeng said it has asked its joint ventures with non-Japanese partners to shore up sales to cover the decline in sales at Dongfeng Honda Automobile Co. and Dongfeng Motor Co., a 50-50 venture between Dongfeng and Nissan.

“So far this year, the sales growth in Dongfeng Group has been higher than the average level of the industry. Compared with last year, we are expecting a higher sales volume for this year,” said Dongfeng, which also operates joint ventures withPSA Peugeot Citroën SA and Kia Motors Corp.

Last week, Dongfeng said its net profit for the January-September period fell 15% from a year earlier to 7.13 billion yuan ($1.1 billion), because of a 9.4% decline in third-quarter sales at its joint ventures with Nissan and Honda.

Tensions between China and Japan over the uninhabited East China Sea islets soured sentiment toward Japanese cars and took a toll on China’s auto industry.

Data from the semiofficial China Association of Automobile Manufacturers show sales of passenger cars in September fell 0.3% from a year earlier to 1.32 million vehicles, the first monthly sales decline in nine months. The decline, which coincides with a slowing Chinese economy and a surfeit of car factories, will pressure auto makers in China.

Dong Yang, CAAM’s secretary general, said on Sunday that China’s car sales growth will likely be below domestic economic growth, which economists peg to rise 7.5% to 8%.

In addition to a slowing domestic economy and the territorial spat between Beijing and Tokyo, Mr. Dong also cited the removal of government subsidies for smaller cars as a negative factor.

However, he said he remains upbeat about China’s auto industry, and expects domestic auto sales to grow at least 7% annually in the coming years.

“Looking ahead, I believe car demand will remain solid,” he said, as China’s steady economic growth will continue to boost transportation volume and help improve living standards.

 

Doing diplomacy, 140 characters at a time

By Marianne Barriaux (@MBarriaux) (AFP)

PARIS – When Canada’s ambassador to China posted photos of his car on the embassy’s Twitter-like weibo page, the instant, mass response boosted his country’s image in a way that surely stunned many diplomats.

Hundreds of Chinese netizens posted comments marvelling that the Canadian envoy at the time — David Mulroney — was driving a relatively inexpensive car compared to the luxury vehicles favoured by their own officials.

In just one click, Ottawa had managed to engage a wide audience in a debate about corruption and transparency, using one of China’s hugely popular social networks.

Chinese internet users were shocked by this post on the Canadian embassy in China’s Weibo microblog that shows Ambassador David Mulroney’s official car, a silver Camry.

“Digital tools — including social media — are being used by an increasing number of countries,” said Antonio Deruda, author of “Diplomazia Digitale”, a book on the topic.

“It is an important process that can be very useful for administrations… Through social media, the goal is to establish a dialogue with the foreign public.”

Dubbed “21st century statecraft” by the United States, the use of digital tools to help achieve diplomatic goals is on the rise in a world where the web has changed how people engage with each other and higher authorities.

Washington is at the forefront of this trend — led by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was made painfully aware of the power of social media when she lost the Democratic nomination to a tech-savvy Barack Obama in 2008.

There are now around 300 State Department-affiliated Twitter accounts globally — which include those run by ambassadors or embassies — over 400 Facebook pages and 180 YouTube channels.

US ambassador to Syria Robert Ford, for instance, has used the embassy’s Facebook page to post declassified satellite images showing troop movements in civilian locations, in a propaganda tug of war with the Damascus regime.

The State Department has also organised Google+ Hangouts — group video chats — to engage with people in Iran on issues such as sanctions and studying in the United States.

“One of the benefits of using these technologies is we’re in places where we don’t have a diplomatic presence on the ground,” said Victoria Esser, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Digital Strategy at the State Department.

– ‘It’s indispensable to engage with the world’ –

Other countries have also got in on the act in a bid to improve their political clout, or attract foreign investment and tourists.

Widely regarded as a symbol of the modern Arab woman, for instance, Queen Rania is a key asset in Jordan’s soft power push. With Twitter, she is an even more powerful force, with each post reaching over 2.3 million global followers.

“Queen Rania is followed not only by people interested in Middle East issues and political issues, but by people who are more interested in what she buys in shops or where she goes abroad,” said Deruda.

“This is a key point for digital diplomacy — the importance of reaching a broader audience, not just the same old people who usually follow foreign affairs.”

As such, top diplomats are increasingly holding live, virtual chats on social networks to engage with people whom they would otherwise never meet.

British foreign secretary William Hague took this a step further earlier this month, meeting five of his 109,000 Twitter followers to discuss Somalia, Europe and other issues in an effort to bring online interaction offline.

But for all its immediacy and accessibility, social media is a minefield where a misplaced comment can generate a whirlwind of controversy as fast as it takes to type 140 characters — the length limit for tweets.

Linda Sobeh Ali, the Palestinian representative to Canada, was recalled in October 2011 after she retweeted a video of a Palestinian girl reciting a poem that begins innocently enough, but later mentions “destroying Zionism”.

Social networks have also been used as platforms for public fighting matches.

In May, US ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul was severely rebuked on Twitter by Moscow about a speech he made on US-Russia ties.

Netizens watched with amusement as the Russian foreign ministry fired off nine consecutive tweets blasting McFaul, who was eventually forced to post a link to a blog post clarifying the message he had intended to get across.

Giuseppe Manzo, spokesman for Italy’s social media-savvy foreign ministry, acknowledged the risks involved.

“The outreach you achieve with social media is much greater — and thus the risks — but we’re still going through an adaptation process,” he said.

“I believe it’s indispensable to engage with the world out there… Why not exploit tools like social media networks to help us? That said, I believe traditional diplomacy remains key.”

But Deruda said it was also crucial for governments to act on this engagement.

“If you start a conversation and I tell you what I think about your policies, or about your image, your leaders… and then I see you don’t change anything, the dialogue is doomed to end,” he said.

 

Toyota to halt production at China plant: reports

A Chinese worker installs parts on a Toyota car at the Tianjin Toyota plant. Toyota plans to halt production next week at its biggest assembly plant in China, reports said Tuesday, with demand for Japanese cars slumping because of a bitter territorial row between Tokyo and Beijing.

AFP - Toyota plans to halt production next week at its biggest assembly plant in China, reports said Tuesday, with demand for Japanese cars slumping because of a bitter territorial row between Tokyo and Beijing.

Toyota, the world’s biggest automaker in the first half of 2012, said it will suspend production for a week starting Monday at its Tianjin FAW plant in the country’s northeast, the leading Asahi Shimbun reported.

The factory, one of nine Toyota plants in the country, accounts for about 60 percent of Toyota’s China production, the report said.

A Tokyo-based spokesman for Toyota declined to comment on the Asahi report, saying “production adjustments are part of the company’s normal practice and it does not disclose details of such adjustments”.

Toyota and other Japanese automakers including Honda and Nissan have cut output in China — the world’s biggest vehicle market — as sales plunge in the wake of a diplomatic row over a string of East China Sea islands controlled by Japan but claimed by China.

The chain — known as Senkaku in Japan but called Diaoyu by Beijing — are located in rich fishing waters and believed to sit atop vast mineral reserves.

The sovereignty dispute prompted tens of thousands of Chinese to protest last month, with some urging a boycott of Japanese products.

Japanese factories and businesses across China closed or scaled back operations in September over fears they or their workers could be targeted by mobs protesting against Tokyo’s nationalisation of the islands.

Toyota earlier said production at its Tianjin FAW and Guangzhou-based GAC plants would be shuttered in the days leading up to and during a week-long national holiday in China at the start of October.

Together, the two plants produced about 770,000 of the approximately 800,000 vehicles that Toyota makes annually in China.

Japan’s top three automakers have said their sales in China plunged last month, with Toyota seeing the biggest drop as September sales slumped 48.9 percent year on year to 44,100 vehicles.

Nissan tumbled 35.3 percent to 76,066 vehicles and Honda dropped 40.5 percent to 33,931 units.

Romney and Obama focus on debate preparations

Republican vice presidential candidate, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., right, speaks as Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, listens during a campaign rally in Lancaster, Ohio, Friday, Oct. 12, 2012. (AP Photo/Paul Vernon)

By KASIE HUNT | Associated Press

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is preparing for his second debate with President Barack Obama but taking time to tell voters in Ohio that enthusiasm for him is surging both in this critical state and across the country.

Obama was hunkering down Saturday in Virginia to go over the game plan for the town hall-style debate with Romney. But his weekly radio and Internet address on Saturday spoke of an industry that’s critical to Ohio, another battleground state and perhaps the most important to his Republican opponent’s White House hopes.

“We refused to throw in the towel and do nothing. We refused to let Detroit go bankrupt,” Obama said in the address. “GM is back. Ford and Chrysler are growing again. Together, our auto industry has created nearly a quarter of a million new jobs right here in America.”

Romney opposed using government funds to help the auto industry go through bankruptcy. Many analysts believe the industry would not have survived if it had relied on private investment for rescue. It’s an issue that has dogged Romney in Ohio, where numerous auto parts suppliers benefited from the survival of the Detroit Three automakers.

The Obama campaign also released a new TV ad narrated by actor Morgan Freeman noting the challenges Obama inherited and highlighting the president’s successes, including saving jobs for American autoworkers and killing Osama bin Laden.

Romney is concluding a week of campaign rallies that saw him drawing larger, more excited crowds than he has through the fall campaign. More than 10,000 people turned out to several rallies, with the campaign saying that more people were signing up to attend events since Romney’s strong debate performance last week in Denver.

“I’ve had the fun of going back and forth across Ohio, and this week I was also in Florida and Iowa, I was in North Carolina and Virginia. And you know what? There is a growing crescendo of enthusiasm,” Romney told a crowd of thousands at a sunset rally Friday in Lancaster, south of Columbus, where he and running mate Paul Ryan appeared together. “There’s more energy and passion. People are getting behind this campaign. We are taking back this country.”

Saturday will be the fourth of the last five days Romney will spend campaigning in this industrial, Midwestern state — with 18 electoral votes, it’s critical to his hopes of winning the White House. His campaign swing comes as he and Republicans criticize Obama for the handling of the terrorist attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

Romney accused Vice President Joe Biden of “doubling down on denial” concerning security at the diplomatic post where the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans were killed. During the vice presidential debate Thursday, Biden said “we weren’t told” about the Benghazi consulate’s requests for additional security. Although a State Department official told Congress on Wednesday about the requests, the White House said Friday that Biden was speaking just for himself and for the president.

“The vice president directly contradicted the sworn testimony of State Department officials,” said Romney, who was eager to stoke a controversy that has flared periodically since the attack. “American citizens have a right to know just what’s going on. And we’re going to find out.”

Romney plans to spend Saturday morning at a hotel outside Columbus, where he’ll meet with top advisers and get ready for his showdown with Obama in Hempstead, N.Y., on Tuesday. He returns to Massachusetts in the evening but first makes two campaign stops in Ohio.

After his widely panned performance in the first presidential debate, polls show Obama still holds a slim edge in Ohio. The state is crucial for Romney because his path to winning the 270 electoral college votes he needs is far narrower if he can’t win Ohio. Losing here would mean he’d have to win almost all of the other up-for-grabs battleground states.

Obama was in Ohio this week, too, but he was spending the weekend in Williamsburg, Va., preparing for the debate. The president has acknowledged he needs to turn in a stronger performance when the two meet again.

Obama and top aides plan hours of practice sessions ahead of the town hall-style event, including some mock exchanges with Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who is playing the role of Romney.

Campaign officials sought to keep details of Obama’s preparations secret. But they said the president was working on being more aggressive in responding to Romney and calling the Republican out on issues as well as pointing out what they maintain are Romney’s true positions.

While Obama has no public events planned in Virginia over the next three days, his mere presence in the state will drive some local news coverage. And he may make unscheduled visits in the Williamsburg area.

The president practiced for the first debate in Nevada, another battleground state.

Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Bruce Springsteen will join former President Bill Clinton at an Obama rally in Parma, Ohio, on Tuesday, the day of the second presidential debate. Obama will not attend the rally.

Springsteen campaigned for Obama in 2008, but this is his first political appearance of the 2012 cycle. Clinton and Springsteen’s joint appearance in Ohio underscores the importance of the key swing state. Polls show Obama with a slight lead there over Mitt Romney.