Spain’s next PM: Very tough times lie ahead
Warning that very hard times lie ahead for Spain, the country’s next prime minister said his incoming conservative government aims to reduce Spain’s deficit by euro16.5 billion ($21.6 billion) next year.
Read More →Automaker Saab files for bankruptcy in Sweden
STOCKHOLM – Saab Automobile filed for bankruptcy on Monday, giving up a desperate struggle to stay in business after previous owner General Motors Co. blocked takeover attempts by Chinese investors.
Saab CEO Victor Muller personally handed in the bankruptcy application to a court in southwestern Sweden, ending his two-year effort to revive the carmaker that over more than six decades has become known for its rounded sedans and quirky design features.
While experts say the company is likely to be chopped up and sold in parts, local officials in the town of Trollhattan, where Saab employs more than 3,000 people, were holding out hope that a new buyer would emerge to salvage the brand.
Russian oil platform capsizes; 4 dead, 49 missing
MOSCOW – Rescue workers are searching for 49 men in freezing, remote waters off Russia’s east coast after their oil drilling platform capsized and sank amid fierce storms Sunday.
By nightfall, four men had been confirmed dead, and 14 others had been plucked from the churning, icy waters by the ship that had been towing the Kolskaya platform.
Dmitry Dmitriyenko, governor of the Murmansk region in Russia’s north-west where 33 of the men come from, urged friends and families not to lose hope late Sunday, but admitted the chance of the men surviving in the one degree Celsius (33.8 Fahrenheit) water is approaching zero.
AP Enterprise: Russia oil spills wreak devastation
USINSK, Russia – On the bright yellow tundra outside this oil town near the Arctic Circle, a pitch-black pool of crude stretches toward the horizon.
This is the face of Russia’s oil country, a sprawling, inhospitable zone that experts say represents the world’s worst ecological oil catastrophe.
Environmentalists estimate at least 1 percent of Russia’s annual oil production, or 5 million tons, is spilled every year.
Radiation traces found in Japanese baby formula
TOKYO – Traces of radiation spilled from Japan’s hobbled nuclear plant were detected in baby formula Tuesday in the latest case of contaminated food in the nation.
Major food and candy maker Meiji Co. said it was recalling canned powdered milk for infants, with expiration dates of October 2012, as a precaution.
“There is no problem because the levels are within the government limit,” Kazuhiko Tsurumi, a Health Ministry official in charge of food safety, said of the radiation in Meiji milk.
EU in antitrust probe of Apple, e-book publishers
BRUSSELS – The European Union’s antitrust watchdog is probing whether Apple and five major publishing houses have colluded to restrict competition in the market for e-books.
The European Commission probe announced Tuesday focuses on potentially anticompetitive practices by publishers Hachette Livre, a unit of France’s Lagardere Publishing; Harper Collins, owned by Rupert Murdoch’s U.S.-based News Corp.; CBS Corp.’s Simon & Schuster; Penguin, which is owned by U.K. publishing house Pearson Group; and Germany’s Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck.
“The Commission will in particular investigate whether these publishing groups and Apple have engaged in illegal agreements or practices that would have the object or the effect of restricting competition” in Europe, it said in a statement.
India wants websites to screen derogatory content
NEW DELHI – India’s top telecommunications official said Tuesday that Internet giants such as Facebook and Google have ignored his demands to screen derogatory material from their sites, so the government would have to act on its own.
Government officials are upset about Web pages that are insulting to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, ruling Congress party leader Sonia Gandhi and major religious figures.
Kapil Sibal, India’s telecommunications minister, said he spoke repeatedly with officials from major Internet companies over the past three months and asked them to come up with a voluntary framework to keep offensive material off the Internet.
UK auditors warn Olympic budget is on the edge
LONDON – U.K. Olympic organizers run a risk of exceeding their 9.3 billion-pound ($14.6 billion) budget for hosting the 2012 London games and have little room left for unforeseen costs, Britain’s spending watchdog warned Tuesday.
The report came as British Olympic officials announced that they had doubled the funding for security operations at venues, raising overall security costs for the 2012 Games to more than 1 billion pounds ($1.6 billion).
“The government is confident that there is money available to meet known risks, but, in my view, the likelihood that the games can still be funded within the existing 9.3 billion-pound public sector funding package is so finely balanced that there is a real risk more money will be needed,” said Amyas Morse, the head of the National Audit Office.
Probe finds elaborate cover-up at “rotten” Olympus
TOKYO – A panel probing an accounting scandal at Japan’s Olympus Corp. said Tuesday an elaborate scheme to cover up $1.5 billion of investment losses was orchestrated by a group of top executives who were “rotten to the core.”
Woodford, a Briton, was fired in October after questioning the dubious transactions that have become one of Japan’s biggest corporate fiascos.
“The management was rotten to the core and contaminated what was around it, creating in the worst sense a group mentality of the typical salarymen,” the report said in a reference to Japan’s culture of corporate loyalty.
China braces as European crisis adds to strains
HONG KONG – Europe’s festering debt crisis is adding to strains on China just as the country is pricking its property bubble and facing a manufacturing downturn, limiting the ability of the world’s No.
It would also prompt Beijing to slow the rise of its currency to a crawl – exacerbating trade tensions with the U.S. and other nations that say China’s yuan is already too cheap.
Even if the euro common currency shared by 17 nations remains mostly intact, China and other Asian countries will still face the daunting prospect of a recession in Europe next year and anemic growth in the U.S. – both crucial markets for the region’s cars, electronics, textiles and other exports.
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