The Daily Indian

Japanese automaker Nissan Motor Co. is recalling about 540,000 pickup trucks, sport utility vehicles and minivans to fix problems with brake pedals and fuel gauges.

Most of the recalled vehicles are in the US, with smaller numbers scattered across the globe.

The brake pedal recall affects 179,000 vehicles in the US and about 26,000 in the Middle East, Canada, Russia and several other countries.

A pin in the pedal assemblies on certain 2008 to 2010 Nissan Titan pickups, Infiniti QX56 and Nissan Armada Sports Utility Vehicles, and some 2008 and 2009 Nissan Quest minivans can come loose and cause reduced braking force, Nissan said Tuesday in a statement.

No injuries or crashes have been reported, the company said. Customers with loose brake pedals should contact their dealer.

Nissan blamed the problem on a manufacturing defect by a parts supplier. Dealers will inspect the vehicles for loose pins and repair them if necessary.

The company said in a statement that all vehicles now on sale do not have the problem.
Nissan also is recalling 419,000 vehicles in the US and 53,000 elsewhere because gas gauges can show fuel left in the tank when it’s actually empty.

The recall affects 2005 through 2008 Nissan Titan, Armada and Infiniti QX56s as well as Nissan Frontier pickups and Pathfinder and Xterra SUVs produced between January and March 2006 and between October 2007 and January 2008.

Due to a problem with a sensor inside the fuel tank, the gauges can show gas tanks a quarter full when they are in fact empty.

Nissan suggests keeping a half-tank of gas in the vehicles until the gauges can be repaired, eliminating the risk of running low on fuel.

Owners of vehicles in both recalls will be notified when to bring their cars and trucks in for repairs. In materials distributed to dealers, Nissan said the brake pedal recall begins on March 22, while the fuel-gauge recall will take place in two groups, one beginning March 22 and the other starting in April.

About 130,000 vehicles are covered by both recalls.

China’s fiscal revenue for the year 2009 was estimated at 6.85 trillion yuan (just over $1 trillion), an increase of 11.7 percent over the previous year, Finance Minister Xie Xuren said here Sunday.

China rolled out a massive investment plan worth 4 trillion yuan in November 2008 to cope with the international financial crisis, Xinhua reported.

Xie said the central government would fulfill the target of adding 1.18 trillion yuan for public investment in the time period between the fourth quarter of 2008 and 2010.

It is estimated that in 2009, the central government allocated about 924.3 billion yuan for public spending, up 503.8 billion yuan from the 2008 budget, according to the minister.

Washington, Jun 24 : The World Bank today approved a USD 24 million IDA credit to Sri Lanka to help it provide health service delivery program, with particular emphasis on the special health needs in north and east arising out of the recent conflict.

Twelve million dollars will go to the Northern and Eastern Provinces to help the Sri Lankan Government meet their special health needs arising from the conflict in the region.

About 280,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) currently reside in temporary camps.

“This reflects the Bank’s commitment to addressing consequences of the conflict whenever we can,” said Naoko Ishii, World Bank Country Director for Sri Lanka.

“An upcoming health needs assessment for the north and east will determine the specific activities the project will finance, but it could include mobile clinics at IDP camps, rehabilitation of disabled, treatment of traumatized persons, and other immediate priorities,” Ishii said.

Washington, June 11: The World Bank today said the global economy will shrink three per cent in 2009, much worse than expected earlier, with most of the developed nations projected to witness contraction.

“The global economy will decline this year by close to 3 per cent, a significant revision from a previous estimate of 1.75 per cent.

“Most developing country economies will contract this year and face increasingly bleak prospects unless the slump in their exports, remittances, and foreign direct investment is reversed by the end of 2010,” the World Bank said in a statement.

The World Bank Group President Robert B Zoellick said the world economy is set to contract this year by more than previously estimated, and “poor countries will continue to be hit hard by multiple waves of economic stress.” Even with the stabilisation of financial markets in many developed economies, unemployment and under-utilisation of capacity continue to rise, putting downward pressure on the global economy, the multilateral lending agency noted.

“Although growth is expected to revive during the course of 2010, the pace of the recovery is uncertain and the poor in many developing countries will continue to be buffeted by the aftershocks,” Zoellick said..

The overall financing gap for developing countries would be between USD 350 billion to USD 635 billion in 2009.

London, May 12: Workers of a recession-hit textile company in south-west France have been asked to shift to India to work in its factory in Bangalore for a pittance or face a sack, a media report has said.

Nine employees at Carreman textiles plant in Castres, south-west France, were told that they could continue working for the firm only if they relocated to Bangalore and accepted a meagre monthly salary of 48 pounds per month, The Daily Telegraph said in a report.

Under the proposal, condemned as “scandalous” by unions, the workers would be required to have eight-hour days, six days a week – instead of the current five.

A representative of the workers union said the offer was tantamount to “dressing up a straight dismissal”.

As an incentive, staff were offered an annual “bonus” of 50 pounds, plus 800 pounds relocation costs and free plane tickets, the paper said.

Chief of Carreman, Francois Morel, however, said he had offered the posts only to attract attention to the “stupidity” of French Labour rules.

“French law obliges us to send a written offer to relocate workers if we possess other plants, even if these plants are in Papua New Guinea or Bangladesh,” he said.

Chicago, May 7: Job cut announcements by US employers fell for the third consecutive month in April to 1.3 lakh, the lowest in six months, signalling that recovery in the strained job market may be underway, a report said today.

Planned job cuts announced by US employers totaled 132,590 in April, a 12 per cent drop from the 150,411 layoffs recorded the previous month. This is the third consecutive decline in monthly job cut announcements and the lowest total since 112,884 cuts were announced last October, a report by global outplacement consultancy firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas said.

However, the pace of job cuts is still well ahead of last year. The April total was 47 per cent higher than the 90,015 job cuts announced in the same month in 2008, the city-based firm said. Employers have announced 711,100 job cuts this year, 145 per cent more than in the first four months of 2008 (290,671).

“Job cuts are still at recession levels, but the fact that they are falling is certainly promising and may suggest that employers are starting to feel a little more confident about future business conditions. Hopefully, the next few months will bring further relief, as we tend to see downsising activity slow during the summer months,” Challenger, Gray & Christmas CEO John Challenger said.

London, April 1: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh arrived here Tuesday on a four-day visit to attend the Group of 20 (G20) summit that will focus on finding collective solutions to the global financial downturn.

Besides participating in the summit of 20 major developed countries and emerging economies Thursday, Manmohan Singh will meet British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and US President Barack Obama on the sidelines of the meeting.

It will be Manmohan Singh’s first meeting with Obama.

This is his first trip abroad since his multiple heart bypass surgery in January. It is also his last scheduled international trip as head of the current United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government.

As he left for London Tuesday afternoon, the prime minister underlined the need for the summit to take “coordinated and purposeful action” and “coordinated fiscal stimulus by major economies” to offset the decline in private demand.

The prime minister also underlined the pitfalls of resorting to protectionism in the trade of both goods and services and reform and restructuring of international financial institutions.

Manmohan Singh will also attend a reception being hosted by the queen Wednesday and a banquet by the British prime minister.

Besides bilateral issues, terrorism and the situation in Afghanistan will figure prominently in Manmohan Singh’s discussions with Obama Thursday.

Dubai, Mar 25: The Kuwait government has said that it could push through a $5.15 billion stimulus bill as an emergency decree, bypassing parliament, in a bid to rescue the countrys ailing economy.

The country’s Finance Minister Mustafa Al Shamali told Kuwait Times newspaper that the “economic situation as well as public opinion” were pushing for quick action over the stimulus package.

He said that the package, along with the 2009-10 budget and a capital market authority bill, will be on the Cabinet’s agenda for this weeks meeting.

Earlier this week Kuwaits Emir dissolved parliament and called for new elections within the next two months, abating fears that the country would be without a legislature for years.

It is expected that the Emir may push through the stimulus bill under the country’s 1962 constitution that gives him the right to legislate by decree on “necessary” matters when parliament is not in session or dissolved.

The country’s central bank unveiled its stimulus plan in February, but it was held up in a parliamentary committee as MPs wrangled over its compatibility with Islamic law.

Washington, March 6: The US shed 651,000 jobs in February, the latest sign of a deepening recession and raising the unemployment rate to 8.1 percent, the US Labour Department said Friday.

The unemployment rate now stands at its highest level since 1983 and 4.4 million people have lost their jobs since the US recession began in December 2007.

The Labour Department also revised its figures over the last two months, now reporting 681,000 job cuts in December, the worst monthly loss since 1948, and 655,000 were lost in January. That compares to an earlier estimate of 577,000 and 598,000 for two months.

Job losses were “large and widespread” across nearly all sectors of the economy, led by manufacturing, construction and financial services, the department said. The only major exceptions were the health care industry and government.

The US economy, the world’s largest, shrank 6.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008 and many economists are expecting a similar contraction at the start of this year. The Federal Reserve has said it doesn’t expect a recovery until late this year or early 2010.

President Barack Obama will likely use the latest figures to tout the urgency of quickly disbursing an unprecedented $787-billion economic stimulus package approved last month.

The administration hopes its plan will save or create 3.5 million jobs over the next two years.

Washington, Mar 4: Observing that the H-1B work visa programme helps hire the best available talent of the world, American software giant Microsoft has said H-1B visa holders has contributed significantly to its success.

However, the company, which had recently announced to lay off some 5,000 jobs in the next 18 months, would be handing over pink slips to H-1B visa holders too.

Microsoft’s observation on H-1B visas and their significant contribution to its success was made by the company in a letter to Senator Charles Grassley.

H1-B employees have always accounted for less than 15 per cent of Microsoft’s US workforce, the level that is used in immigration law to determine whether a company is “H-1B dependent,” the letter said.

The Senator in a letter dated January 22 had sought information from Microsoft particularly about how its plan to fire 5,000 people would affect US workers and non-US citizens working for Microsoft.

The Microsoft letter dated March 3 written by Bradford L Smith, its general counsel, has been posted on its website http://microsoftontheissues.Com.