ROME – Fiat Auto SPA and Ford Motors have reached an agreement to work together to develop new models in the small cars segment. The move comes seven months after Fiat broke off from an alliance with General Motors Corp.

Both Fiat and Ford confirmed that a memorandum of understanding had been signed between the two companies to develop Fiat’s “Cinquecento”, which would be revived and a new model of Ford’s “Ka.”

Both these cars would be developed as two-door hatchbacks and would be sold at “entry-level” prices. Both the companies have been hit hard in recent times with falling sales and revenues and analysts say that these agreement would give both the companies some breathing space as far as competing on a global scale is concerned. Patrick Juchemich, auto analyst for the Sal. Oppenheim bank was of the opinion that this partnership made a lot of sense, “The volumes of the respective cars are too low to justify that they go their own way,” he said. Both the above-mentioned cars would be designed differently, though they would have the same engines, chassis, and bodywork, he added.

Ford’s European division appeared to agree with him for it released a statement saying, “By working together on this project, both companies would envisage reduced development and material costs, while providing highly competitive products to the marketplace.” Lapo Elkann, in charge of brand promotion at Fiat said that the two cars would basically be made on the platform of the Fiat Panda, but that the agreement could be broadened in future. “The industrial agreement will be on one line of product. I can’t tell if they will do more as they are still in talks,” said Elkann.

Fiat’s chief executive Sergio Marchionne had hinted on Tuesday that the Turin-based company was on the verge of signing another deal with a reputed manufacturer, but had not given any details. Fiat had emerged better off after the deal with General Motors collapsed, since GM had to pay $2 billion to cancel out a clause in the agreement.

LONDON: A former pensions minister has warned that the Child Support Agency, which collects maintenance from absent parents, is in a state of “meltdown”, is refusing to publish data and has written off more than 1 billion pound in maintenance that is due from absent parents.

Frank Field, Labour M.P. representing Birkenhead, and former pensions minister, said he had conducted his own investigation into the agency’s performance and found that it is refusing to publish data which would reveal the extent of its shortcomings.

Field has written a letter to prime minister Tony Blair saying organisations in meltdown “typically bolt down the hatches to the outside world”. He said he has official statistics, correspondence and previous annual reports of the organisation for basing his interpretation that there is chaos inside the agency.

He told Blair that the uncollected maintenance amount that had been written off had crossed the 1 billion-pound mark, the total sum of maintenance still to be collected had gone up by a third to 1.26 billion pounds and the backlog of parents waiting for a maintenance assessment is soaring.

Field said the CSA was refusing to publish data to show how many cases were cleared through its work or how many were cleared because the cases were closed before it had got round to calculating the maintenance figure. He wants the agency’s collection functions to be transferred to the Inland Revenue and divert its staff to the task of chasing the non-payers.

Field’s findings also indicate that the proportion of lone parents receiving a first payment where the maintenance assessment had been made, dropped by a third — from 72 per cent to 52 per cent, while the total backlog of parents waiting for a maintenance assessment continued to rise — by 20 per cent in the past six months. As much as 40 per cent of all applications for child support on the new scheme are waiting for an assessment.

He said it now costs the tax payers 54 pence for every pound the agency collects.

Field’s letter to Blair says: “The 2003 reforms, while costing the taxpayer 456 million pounds for the new IT alone, have added to the agency’s general chaos and declining performance, and made an intolerably poor service even worse.”

Lord Hunt, minister responsible for the agency, said the agency is now dealing with one million extra child support cases, a workload which would test any organisation. He said the government is determined to ensure that the maintenance flows for those children whose parents live apart. For advise further afield it could be worth contacting an orange county ca child support lawyer.

LONDON: Dublin-headquartered budget airline Ryanair has overtaken British Airways in the total number of passengers carried in August. The airline reported a passenger growth of 27 per cent for the month to 3.26 million passengers from 2.57 million a year earlier. It claimed it now carries more passengers in Europe than British Airways does across its entire worldwide network.

Ryanair operates 250 routes across 21 countries.

British Airways had said earlier that it had a passenger load of 3.1 million in August, a fall of 3.9 per cent compared with figures for August last year. The airline’s performance has been hampered by a strike by 1,000 employees at London’s Heathrow Airport in support of fellow workers at the Gate Gourmet catering contractor. It had to cancel some 700 flights and the business class travel was the most affected segment.

British Airways is ranked third in Europe after Air France-KLM Group and Deutsche Lufthansa AG in terms of passenger traffic.

Said Ryanair’s chief executive Michael OLeary, “It’s official — Ryanair has today become the world’s favourite airline!” He said the airline’s passenger numbers is expected to grow 27 per cent in the year through March to 35 million travellers. It is launching its 14th European base at Pisa, Italy and may announce a new base each in September and October.

O’Leary said Ryanair’s decision not to impose a fuel surcharge had helped it to have more passengers.

A spokesperson for British Airways, however, disputed Ryanair’s claims saying the no-frills airline includes so called “no shows” in its figures (accounting for nearly 8 per cent of passengers).

“We carry our passengers much further than Ryanair does and, if you measure it in revenue passenger kilometers, we are a considerably larger airline,” he said.

LONDON: Lloyd’s of London insurance market has calculated that a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico like the Katrina could cause losses of the order of $60 billion — $10 billion in offshore energy losses and $50 billion in property losses. The insurer has done a study and the details are available on its website.

Meanwhile, quoting leaked documents from the insurer, newspapers said U.K. and U.S. insurers will face more than $40 billion in claims for damage from Katrina, the hurricane that made a landfall on the Gulf of Mexico coast on 29 August, when the levees that protect New Orleans city were damaged and the whole city was flooded, causing death and destruction on a vast scale.

Lloyd’s had done similar Realistic Disaster Scenario studies to assess the industry’s possible liability from natural disasters like a California earthquake and a typhoon in Japan.

Lloyd’s Chairman Peter Levene had said on record that Hurricane Katrina would cost a lot of money but was within normal business planning. The insurance market had its second-most-profitable year in
2004 even though there were four major hurricanes.

A Lloyd’s spokesperson said it is not for the company to give industry-wide loss estimates, but from what is assessed, there is not yet any consensus on how much Katrina will cost. However, its
syndicates are well equipped to deal with the catastrophe.

German reinsurance company Hannover Re says Katrina could be the costliest natural disaster in history.

Lloyd’s is expecting to receive “significant insurance claims,” largely from offshore oil and gas platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, property damage and claims from businesses forced to close. It has
sought supply claims estimates from all insurers by 12 September.

The insurance industry in Britain feels home insurance costs will go up. The Association of British Insurers says its members now feel hurricane has become part of a pattern of global climate change and it is going to have a serious impact on insurers. The association, however, said it is not expecting an immediate increase in premia.

Insurance companies with the highest exposure are believed to be Munich Re, Swiss Re and AIG. A spokesperson for Britain’s Prudential said it would be hard to say there would be nothing at all, but it would be minimal.

LONDON: The annual growth in price of houses in the U.K. has slowed down to its lowest in nine years in August — 2.3 per cent — according to Nationwide building society. The mortgage lender said that the house prices fell 0.2 per cent on the month, a reversal of July gain (2.6 per cent), indicating there is no housing market boom in sight.

The Bank of England had earlier released figures showing that mortgage lending grew at the weakest rate in three years in July. However, there was encouraging trend in evidence that the number of mortgage approvals had indeed gone up in July to its highest levels in the past year.

Nationwide said the central bank’s decision in reducing the interest rate to 4.50 per cent had led to spurt in inquiries by buyers for property. It also said the house prices will continue to fall but there is no likelihood of a crash.

Nationwide’s group economist Fionnuala Earley said while the market activity has apparently stabilised, it does not show the beginning of a further period of sustained growth the house prices. “Even though wage inflation is almost twice the rate of house price inflation, affordability is still an issue, particularly for first-time buyers, and it will take some time for the balance to be redressed.”

A year ago, the prices had been increasing at an annual rate of 20 per cent.

The average price of a home in the country fell to 157,310 pounds in August from 158,348 pounds the month before, said Nationwide.

Nationwide said the house price to earnings ratio is now higher than at its last peak in 1989. And an average first-time buyer has now to raise a deposit of 17,000 pounds, which is more than 50 per cent higher than the average deposit needed in 2003. This deposit works out to 62 per cent of the buyer’s annual earnings, compared with 20 per cent in 1969.

Earley said while average house prices of first-time buyers have increased by 161 per cent over the past 16 years, the average mortgage size is up 138 per cent.

LONDON – Computing Which?, the consumer magazine has warned parents that parental control software is not a foolproof method of ensuring that kids do not access unsafe content on the Internet. The magazine said that even with the best software around, blacklisted pornographic, violent or racist websites could still be accessed making it doubly difficult for parents to monitor their kids’ online habits.

The magazine sounded out six popular “parental control” software kits and said that most of them were beyond the comprehension of parents thereby preventing them from fully utilizing the package. The magazine said that Apple’s Tiger operating system was the only one, which exercised some degree of control over unsafe content. These packages filter the content by using “blacklists”, that block out unwanted websites and “whitelists” that allow kids to view the said sites. However, Computing Which? found that out of 30 blacklisted sites several managed to bypass the controls.

“Software can help make the Internet a safer environment for children but there’s no substitute for parental involvement,” said Sarah Kidner, the acting editor of Computing Which? “Parents need to take an active role in monitoring what their children are looking at online so they don’t inadvertently put them at risk.” The magazine has advocated that parents should regularly monitor their kids’ activities on the Internet, only then they can ensure that the net is a safe place for their wards.

The magazine’s tests found that the parental control segment of Norton Internet Security 2005 had the lowest acceptance rate and was hence ranked at the bottom with an overall 31 percent. MSN Premium preceded it at 34 per cent. Cyber Patrol 7 scored 61 percent while McAfee Internet Security Suite scored 51 per cent.

Computing Which? has released the following tips to help parents monitor their kids’ Internet activities:
* Ensure that the PCs are not in the child’s bedroom
* Constantly monitor your child’s online activities
* Make sure you change your parental control access password regularly
* Encourage children to be open about any “bad” content that they found
* Do not depend heavily on parental control software
* Talk frankly to your kids about the dangers that lurk online

Global leader in cellular communications, Pantech, is all set to usher in a new wave of sophistication and style in this highly competitive mobile age with its fresh and innovative GSM handset, the PG-8000.

A phone with a digital camera, or the ‘dica’, PG-8000 has a 2-megapixel digital camera with a sizeable 260K TFT, 2.0’LCD screen. Presenting an MP3 player, AAC and the FM radio for music freaks, this phone makes an individual style statement with its refined look and innovative facilities.

Measuring 99.8×51.4×16.4 mm and weighing reasonably at 95g, the PG-8000 is adept for modern users with its support for both IrDA as well as Bluetooth wireless connectivity. This device additionally has the TTS operation, i.e. the text to speech function that puts the phone to its utmost use.

Moreover, the phone’s external memory card slot provides for added storage needs for music files. You will also notice a phonebook that capacitates effortless wireless transmission from mobile phones to computers. It has an ‘intenna’ or internal antenna along with a plethora of multimedia and entertainment functions, including messaging services like SMS, MMS and EMS. This new dica phone is expected to be available somewhere in the middle of September.

The Pantech group, which encompasses associates like Pantech Co., Ltd., Pantech & Curitel Communications Inc., Pantech C&I; Inc. and SKY Teletech, has won considerable acclaim for creating new “dica” mobile phones. For instance, Pantech & Curitel Communications, Inc. brought in a CDMA camera phone or the P1 handset in the previous year, which resembled a digital camera so strongly that it went on to win a “Good Design” prize awarded by the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy in Korea.

Pantech Co., Ltd. of the Pantech group that was created in 1991 as a pager production company managed to occupy a place in the Korean Stock Exchange list soon in 1997, after which it progressed to the manufacturing of CDMA and GSM mobile phones. Meanwhile, Pantech&Curitel; Communications, Inc., that enjoys public trading in the Korea Stock Exchange, also has an impressive record of turning out top Analog, CDMA, and GSM/GPRS items from 1980. It purchased a majority stake in mobile communication terminals specialist and handset producing branch of SK Telecom, viz. SK Teletech Co., Ltd., in May 2005.

Groundbreaking feats of its partners have led Pantech to carve a niche for itself in cellular technology, namely the group’s offering of the first ever fingerprint recognition camera phone to the world in 2004, besides its highly successful camcorders and phones with MP3. In total, Pantech boasts of 5,000 and more staff operating in 20 regional sales offices all across the world.

LONDON – The British Broadcasting Corporation has announced plans to telecast its programs on the web for the UK audience. The broadcaster plans to simulcast BBC One or BBC Two on the web so that viewers do not miss their favorite shows when they are away from their television sets.

BBC’s director of TV Jana Bennett revealed these plans and said that a decision to make video clips available on mobile phones was also on the anvil. The software to let viewers watch shows on the Internet is being developed. This player would allow viewers to view the show for upto one week after it has been broadcast on television. In an interview with the Guardian newspaper, Jana Bennett said that this plan was expected to take off within a year, “It’s a great way of getting public service content, which people have already paid for, out to people in a different way,” she said.

The BBC was rudely shocked in March when it was discovered that the first episode of the new Doctor Who series was leaked on to the Internet. That’s when the broadcasting giant woke up to the exciting possibilities of the web, she added.

Commenting on their decision to introduce a simulcast, a BBC spokesman said that it planned to make it permanent, but as of now, the simulcast is restricted to UK viewers only, “These plans are subject to the approval of the board of governors and the resolution of rights clearance issues on content like music and imported shows,” he said.

The corporation also announced plans to make some selected shows available online first before they are telecast on television on the lines of BBC Three comedy The Mighty Boosh. Some shows, which are slated to debut on the Internet, include Titty Bang Bang, sitcom Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps and Johnny Vegas’ show Ideal.

LONDON: Centrica Plc, the U.K.’s largest natural gas distributor, appears to be a takeover target for European operators and speculation over this led to the shares of the company leaping by as much as 4 per cent on the London Stock Exchange, the company’s biggest over the year.

Names of Royal Dutch Shell, Gaz de France and Norsk Hydro are being mentioned as prospective claimants for Windsor-based Centrica, but spokespersons for the company as well as for the European rivals declined to comment on the speculative information. Gaz de France’s spokesperson categorically said in Paris, his firm has no intention to acquire Centrica.

The company’s shares gained 9.25 per cent, closing at 252.75 pence, giving a cap for the company at 9.4 billion pounds. At one time during the trading the price went up as high as 8 per cent.

Centrica meets 63 per cent of gas requirements and 23 per cent of electricity requirements of Britain and has a customer base of 11.7 million. It had increased its tariff last year to take care of rising fuel prices and in the bargain lost some one million customers.

Analysts have been predicting consolidation in the utilities sector in Europe prior to the opening up of the power and gas industries to full competition planned for 2007. An instance of things that are going to happen is the offer by Europe’s fourth largest power company, Suez SA, to buy 50 per of the holding in Electrabel SA of Belgium, which it does not own now at 11.4 billion euros.

Earlier in April this year, there was similar speculation that Centrica is being acquired by Norsk Hydro. Apparently the move did not materialise as the Norwegian government, which owns 44 per cent of the 11-billion-pound Norsk Hydro, was against the deal. Norsk Hydro is an off-shore producer of oil and gas and is also the world’s third-largest integrated aluminium supplier.

Besides British Gas, Centrica operates telecom business One. Tel and home service Dyno. It has its own upstream gas production and power generation facilities.

LONDON: Basic bank accounts, introduced five years ago to help the poor in the U.K., have failed to accomplish the aim — of closing the gap between rich and poor, says a research report prepared by the National Consumer Council (NCC) and Policis, a research consultancy. The poorest consumers still face financial exclusion and their only resort is high-cost borrowing, says the report.

The study revealed that half of low-income consumers wanted to manage their money in cash as the accounts did not fulfill most of their needs. Those having the accounts have been found to have fallen behind with household bills payments than those without the accounts.

The monthly cycle followed by banks and the hurdles in even opening an account mean that the poor still have problems in accessing affordable financial products, the study said.

NCC’s deputy head of policy Claire Whyley said there is a mismatch between the needs of the poorest to keep close track of their income and spending and to avoid debt, and the existing basic bank account design, which does not help them achieve this.

NCC said the lack of flexibility in automated payments could lead to problems for those with unpredictable circumstances. Penalty charges levied by banks and building societies, when there are no funds in accounts, to meet a direct debit often lead to serious short-term financial pressures.

Several mainstream banks like HSBC, Lloyds TSB and Nationwide building society offer basis bank accounts and by end-2004, there were some 5.7 million account holders.

Nationwide said it offered the same facilities under the basic bank account as it had for a standard current account, except for overdraft facility and debit card. Customers, however, enjoyed a 30-pound overdraft “buffer”.

The study covered 1,520 people with low incomes.

NCC recommends that the basic bank accounts should be more flexible, like offering weekly direct debit facilities and small free overdrafts to fit in with low-income budgeting cycles and even payment holidays.

The study also revealed that some eight million low-income consumers have no access to mainstream credit, while many use high-cost lenders as the government’s safety-net interest-free loans scheme for the poorest is not working effectively. One application in every five for social fund loans is rejected and one in four of those refused approach high-cost doorstep lenders or even unlicensed loan providers.

NCC and Policis will work with the Treasury’s Financial Inclusion Taskforce and other such organisations to address the problem and find out a solution.