The state of the UK car industry

Link to the article: Channel 4

Last Modified: 20 Mar 2009
By: Channel 4 News

UK car makers have responded to the economic downturn by cutting jobs, reducing working hours and suspending production.

Here are the latest figures.

Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) vehicle production figures across the UK:

• The number of new cars produced in February in the UK crashed 59 per cent from February 2008 to just 59,777 cars
• Only 5,870 commercial vehicles were made in February, down 71.6 per cent on February 2008
• The number of vehicles exported also fell by 58.4 per cent to 51,067
• The number of new cars and commercial vehicles bought in the UK plummeted by 66.7 per cent to 14,580
  

Toyota

• Reducing working hours and cutting pay by 10 per cent from 1 April for one year
• Cut 200 temporary jobs and opened a voluntary redundancy scheme
• Cutting one in two shifts at the Burnaston plant in Derbyshire producing the Auris model
• Suspending production for two weeks in February, a week in March, and again for two weeks in April

BMW

• 850 jobs cut from the the Mini plant in Oxford
• The Christmas shutdown was extended by 10 days, and the factory closed for one week in February
• Around 300 agency staff lost their jobs and the plant a Cowley will also cut production from seven days a week to five

UK entrepreneur bowls over U.S.

Link to the article: Reuters Video

Mar. 19 - Natalie Ellis defied the odds to make more than a million dollars in the U.S. with her non-spill dog bowl invention.

For a while it looked like Natalie Ellis was the underdog with her innovative Road Refresher dog bowl.

She had suffered a devastating illness which lost her one business.

She was rejected from the British entrepreneurs show "Dragon's Den", then along came the global recession. But Natalie overcame all to create a very successful business.

The bowl has gone on to become the fastest selling dog bowl on one of America's leading internet sites.

Hayley Platt reports.

SOUNDBITES:
# Sheila Beelam, dog owner.
# Natalie Ellis, businesswoman and entrepreneur

What will Google Street View show?

Link to the article: Channel 4

Last Modified: 19 Mar 2009
By: Krishnan Guru-Murthy

Krishnan Guru-Murthy reports on Google's new ground-level imaging system Street View. Will it give businesses a chance to market themselves or just offer an outlet for nosey parkers?

Google's latest online offering builds on the Google Maps application by allowing users to take a 360 degree journey along the street of their choice.

It allows you to take a virtual tour of cities and see the streets and lanes you did not even know were there.

Street View was launched in the US two years ago and has since been expanded to cities in France, Japan, Italy, Australia New Zealand and Spain. Channel 4 News first spotted a Google Street View car in London in July 2008.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy interviews Ed Parson, Google's geospatial technologist about their Street View project which has now launched in the UK.

World economy 'to shrink in 2009'

Link to the full article: BBC News



By Steve Schifferes
Economics reporter, BBC News

The world economy is set to shrink by between 0.5% and 1.0% in 2009, the first global contraction in 60 years.

In its gloomiest forecast yet, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) says that developed countries will suffer a "deep recession".

The global economic body says "the prolonged financial crisis has battered global economic activity beyond what was previously anticipated".

Just two months ago, the IMF predicted world output would increase by 0.5%.

Google privacy row

Link to the article & video: Channel 4 (posted 21.07.07)

Last Modified: 21 Jun 2007
By: Benjamin Cohen

Channel 4 News has learned that Google could be forced to carry a cigarette box style warning about privacy on its website.

You can make money without doing evil - it's Google's famous mission statement. But the world's biggest search engine is the focus of mounting concern over the growing scope of its power.

FactCheck: trading recession stats

Link to the article: Channel 4

Last Modified: 18 Mar 2009
By: Channel 4 News

Gordon Brown makes international comparisons on unemployment and haggles with David Cameron about the start of the recession, but have they got their facts straight?
The claim

"Unemployment is higher in France, in Germany, in Japan, in America. It is higher in most of the other countries that we are dealing with."

Gordon Brown, prime minister's questions, 18 March 2009

Brown 'regrets' unemployment rise

Link to the article: Channel 4



Last Modified: 18 Mar 2009
By: Channel 4 News

Tory leader David Cameron today accused the Prime Minister of being "in denial" over the scale of the recession as Gordon Brown said the rising jobless queue was a "matter of personal regret".

With the unemployment figure surging past 2m, Mr Brown answered the first question from Labour MP Jim Sheridan by pledging that the Government would do "everything we can" to help people get back into work.

"Any person losing their job, or in fear of losing their job, is a matter of personal regret for me and for the whole Government," he said.

"I don't regard unemployment as a statistic. I regard it as one person, a second person, a third person, who needs our help."

FSA calls for culture change

Link to the article: Channel 4

Last Modified: 18 Mar 2009
By: Faisal Islam

The head of the Financial Services Authority, Lord Turner, calls for "profound" changes to bank behaviour and tougher regulation for hedge funds.

He also raised the prospect of regulating individual mortgages and reining in the culture of City bonuses and excessive pay, curbing reckless lending and excessive risk taking.

The city watchdog has set out plans to overhaul British banking rules and avoid another financial crisis.

Riz Khan - Richard Branson

Original interview 17th March 2009

Part 1


Part 2

Obama: AIG payments an 'outrage'

Link to the article: Channel 4

Last Modified: 16 Mar 2009
By: Sarah Smith

Barack Obama condemns as 'an outrage' a decision by bailed-out insurance company AIG to award $165m in bonus payments despite record losses.

The president said he would "pursue every legal avenue" to block the money, which he cited as recklessness and greed.

The US government has spent $170bn in taxpayer dollars keeping AIG afloat.

Now the administration is facing a growing public backlash over the bailout billions.

The 'Morph' mobile of the future

Link to the article: Reuters - 07/03/08
(03:51) Report

Mar. 7 - A concept phone now on display at New York's Museum of Modern Art demonstrates Nokia's vision for how handsets might evolve.

The Morph concept is the result of a collaboration between the Nokia Research Centre and Cambridge University's nanoscience centre.

Reuters Technology Correspondent Matt Cowan reports on the likelihood of it becoming a reality.

New camera identifies age and gender

Link to the article: Retuers - 07/03/08
(01:26) Report

Mar. 7 - Introducing the latest electronic invention in hi-tech Japan - a camera that recognises one's age, face and gender.

The camera debuted at the Tokyo Security Show and can also search and identify faces amongst a pool of pictures.

Frances Yoon reports.

AIG payments shock

(01:29) Report

Mar. 16 - Austan Goolsbee, a member of U.S. President Barack Obama's Council of Economic Advisers reacts angrily to the bonus payouts to executives announced on Sunday by US insurance giant AIG.

Austan Goolsbee, one of Obama's advisers tells Reuters TV that AIG bonus payments 'boggle the mind'.

Is a 1930s-style depression avoidable?

Link to the article: Channel 4

Last Modified: 16 Mar 2009
By: Faisal Islam

A 'depression era' deflationary spiral is avoidable if there is political will to tackle the crisis, say the US federal reserve and the Bank of England.

The good news is that we've avoided a 1930's style depression - that's what Ben Bernanke, chairman of the US Federal Reserve has said. He said that the he expects the US economy to decline less slowly at the end of this year, and recover in 2010.

He warned that the recovery will only happen if there is enough political will to solve the problem. Today the Bank of England said that a bout of falling prices doesn't necessarily have to turn into a 1930's style deflationary spiral - as long as the authorities act 'promptly and decisively'.

English councils sue RBS in US

Link to the article: Channel 4

Last Modified: 16 Mar 2009
By: Andrew Thomas

Royal Bank of Scotland is facing a class action law suit in New York as two English councils accuse the bank's board of misleading investors about the extent of its problems.

Merseyside and North Yorkshire councils are going to the courts in the US in an attempt to sue RBS for massive losses to their pension funds.