3/Japanese Automaker Toyota Reports Record Earnings

Amy Bickers

Tokyo

07 Nov 2003, 14:31 UTC

Japan's largest automaker reports record earnings while the country's top cosmetic maker sees its profit slide.

Toyota Motor is powering ahead, becoming Japan's largest company by market value and reporting record sales and profit for the first six months of the year.

Toyota's market capitalization, the value of its shares, on the Tokyo Stock Exchange now totals about $112 billion, surpassing mobile phone giant NTT DoCoMo, the previous market leader

Toyota said this week that its net profit rose 23 percent to $4.8 billion for the first half of the year compared with the same period last year. Revenue rose eight percent to $75 billion. Toyota credits cost cutting and global marketing efforts for its strong results.

Managing Director Takeshi Suzuki tells reporters that he is pleased with the company's performance. He adds that the automaker is increasing local production around the world to minimize the effects of volatile currency exchange rates.

Toyota says it aims to control 15 percent of the world auto market by 2010, up from the current level of just over 10 percent.

Japan's second biggest automaker, Honda, is recalling almost 700,000 vehicles in the United States and Canada because of a defect.

Honda says it will recall five models including the popular Accord sedan because of a faulty mechanism that causes parked cars to roll. The recall will cost the company $32 million.

The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says there have been four injuries linked to the defect and more than 100 complaints have been made about it.

Japan's biggest cosmetics maker posted weak earnings. Shiseido say its net profit declined 34 percent in the first half of the fiscal year to $60 million, from the same period a year earlier.

Overseas sales, which account for a quarter of the company's revenue, were down sharply. Many Japanese women buy cosmetics overseas at duty-free shops where they are less expensive. But many would-be travelers stayed home this year because of the U.S.-led war in Iraq and the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome.

4/EU Warns of Multi-Billion Dollar Sanctions Against US

Scott Stearns

White House

05 Nov 2003, 20:14 UTC

The European Union says the United States is facing billions of dollars of trade sanctions if the US Congress does not eliminate overseas tax shelters for American exporters. The Bush administration says it is working with lawmakers to avoid those sanctions.

The trade dispute centers on a ruling three years ago that found the United States violating World Trade Organization rules by allowing overseas tax shelters.

European leaders say they have waited long enough for American legislators to change the law, and they are now threatening a series of sanctions if Congress does not act quickly.

Sanctions that could ultimately total $4 billion may gradually be imposed on American exports beginning next March.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan says President Bush is working with Congress to repeal those provisions and avoid what could be crippling trade sanctions at the start of an election year.

"We are continuing to work with Congress to address that issue and to avoid triggering sanctions and to insure that we are in compliance with the WTO decision," he said.

Mr. McClellan says the president is strongly urging both the House and Senate to pass legislation this year complying with the WTO decision.

But it is not just Congress that must act to avoid penalties. More than $2 billion worth of European-trade sanctions could begin in December if President Bush does not lift U.S. steel tariffs.

He imposed those tariffs to win support from steel-producing states that were losing jobs to cheaper imports, but those tariffs have also resulted in higher costs for American manufacturers that use steel.

5/

Another Judge Blocks US Law Banning Late-Term Abortion Method

Barbara Schoetzau

New York

07 Nov 2003, 00:34 UTC

A Federal Court judge in New York has blocked enforcement of the government's new ban on certain late-term abortions, signed by President Bush Wednesday

Judge Michael Casey is the second federal judge to temporarily block legal enforcement of a ban on a procedure known as partial birth abortion. Wednesday, an hour after President signed a measure making the procedure illegal, a federal judge in the midwestern state of Nebraska barred the government from enforcing the law in response to a lawsuit brought by four doctors who challenged its constitutionality.

Now Judge Casey has issued a similar restraining order at the request of seven doctors and the National Abortion Federation (NAF), which represents abortion clinics.

The ruling only applies to the plaintiffs, but NAF represents clinics, women's health centers and physicians in 47 states. Vicki Saporta, the head of the National Abortion Federation, says its members perform half of the abortions done in the United States.

"So the ban on the legislation is in effect throughout the country where our members are practicing. It does not necessarily cover other providers in those same states," she said.

Anti-abortion activists say the procedure, performed in the second and third trimesters of pregnancy, preserves the rights of unborn children. Pro-choice advocates say the new prohibition is too broad and fails to protect women's health. Judge Casey's injunction is for 10 days. The U.S. Department of Justice issued a statement opposing the injunction and said it would use "every resource necessary" to defend legislation banning partial birth abortion.

The U.S. Supreme Court has already ruled against a similar measure because it did not make an exception to protect a woman's health.

In his court injunction, Judge Casey said during a hearing Thursday that even the government made it clear that the medical community is uncertain about whether or not the procedure banned by the new legislation put a woman's health at risk.

The abortion issue has been a source of major controversy and confrontation in the United States since the Supreme Court first upheld the right to abortion in its landmark Roe versus Wade decision in 1973.

10/

India Increases Security in Ayodhya

Patricia Nunan

New Delhi

16 Oct 2003, 14:31 UTC

Indian police are increasing security in the northern city of Ayodhya, where controversy surrounding the site of a razed mosque repeatedly has led to violence between Muslims and Hindus. Tens of thousands of Hindu activists are expected to march Friday, in defiance of local authorities, who have forbidden any rallies.

Authorities say an estimated 10,000 security personnel have encircled Ayodhya, to prevent Hindu activists from entering the city.

Police are guarding some activists in camps outside the city's outskirts. They are also using schools to detain some of the 17,000 people arrested for trying to get into the city since Saturday.

Trains and buses to Ayodhya also have been canceled or diverted. But the World Hindu Council, or VHP, says 300,000 activists will attend a rally in Ayodhya, as part of their campaign to build a temple on a disputed holy site.

Authorities in the state of Uttar Pradesh have banned any rallies or religious services from taking place in Ayodhya. But VHP leaders have repeatedly warned of violence, if the group is not allowed to march.

VHP official Mohan Joshi spoke at a rally held in the capital Wednesday.

"We have no intention to do any disturbance of peace," he said. "But if the ruling party of Uttar Pradesh, if they plan any mischief [and] the crowd does anything, we are not responsible for that."

The decades-old controversy surrounding the holy site in Ayodhya is one of the most divisive between India's majority Hindus and minority Muslims.

In 1992, Hindu mobs tore down the 16th century Barbri Mosque in Ayodhya, which they say had been built on the site of an earlier temple dedicated to the Hindu god, Rama. Two thousand people died in ensuing riots.

A court case intended to settle the dispute between the two groups is currently underway. The controversy reaches into the highest levels of India's coalition government, as politicians juggle human rights issues with popular sentiment ahead of next year's parliamentary election.

 12/

Reports Successful Test of Ballistic Missile

Ayaz Gul

Islamabad

03 Oct 2003, 10:55 UTC

Pakistan says it has successfully tested a short-range surface-to-surface ballistic missile that can carry nuclear weapons. Pakistani officials say they will conduct more tests in the coming days.

Pakistan's military says this is the second test of what it calls the indigenously developed Hatf-III Ghaznavi missile - a rocket with a range of up to 290 kilometers.

That is enough to hit targets inside of rival India, with either conventional or nuclear warheads.

Major-General Shaukat Sultan is the spokesman for Pakistan's Army.

"I would say that it can carry all type of warheads," he said.

He did not say where the test was conducted. But he did note Pakistan plans to conduct more tests of the Ghaznavi missile in the next few days to maintain the pace of its missile development program.

However, officials say the tests have nothing to do with developments in the region - a reference to rival India's missile programs. They say the timing of the test is based on Pakistan's own missile defense needs.

Ayesha Siddiqa is a defense analyst and a former member of the state-run Institute of Strategic Studies in Islamabad.

"This is the technological advancement that we want and we have to improve our ballistic missile delivery systems and that is basically it. Plus you know there is always this tactical political advantage of testing. It sends a message across that we are pretty determined to defend ourselves. It happens on both sides, on India and Pakistan," she said.

India confirmed that it received the required notification from Pakistan in advance of the missile test.

India and Pakistan are armed with nuclear weapons and have been locked in a long-running conflict over Kashmir. Both South Asian nations claim the entire region, which has caused two wars between them.

India accuses Pakistan of sponsoring a Muslim separatist insurgency in Kashmir. Tensions have eased in recent months but the two countries have yet to open peace talks.

13/

UN Committee Split Over Treaty to Ban Human Cloning

Peter Heinlein

United Nations

06 Nov 2003, 21:25 UTC

The U.S. drive to enact a broad global ban on human cloning has suffered a severe setback at the United Nations. The cloning issue has deeply divided the world body.

By a 80-79 vote, the General Assembly's legal committee passed a motion to delay consideration of a treaty banning human cloning until 2005. The motion was sponsored by Iran on behalf of the 57-nation Organization of Islamic Conference.

The vote effectively derails a U.S.-led campaign to draft a treaty that would prohibit all forms of human cloning, including medical research on stem cells.

It also reveals a deep split within the world body on the cloning issue.

The U.S. and Costa Rican proposal calling for drafting an anti-cloning treaty had nearly 50 co-sponsors, and was expected to pass easily. But it is fiercely opposed by many in the scientific community, who argue there is a need for therapeutic cloning for research and medical purposes.

A rival resolution sponsored by Belgium and supported by Britain, France, and Germany, among others, would have banned only the cloning of babies.

After the vote, Deputy U.S. Representative James Cunningham said he was disappointed that countries opposing a total ban had used a technicality to derail the will of a majority of the international community.

"It is particularly regrettable that it was by only one vote that we will be prevented from formally registering that more than 100 members of the Untied Nations favor the pursuit of the goal, of a total ban on human cloning," he said.

The vote effectively puts off for two years any work on drafting an international treaty banning human cloning.

Several European diplomats regretted that the vote leaves the issue of cloning in limbo. But as one Belgian diplomat told reporters afterward, it may be better not to push forward on drafting a comprehensive treaty at a time when the world, and even the scientific community, is so deeply divided on the question.

 14/

Astronomers Discover New Nearby Galaxy

Jessica Berman

Washington

06 Nov 2003, 00:15 UTC

An international team of researchers has discovered a nearby galaxy, whose stars are being absorbed by our own galaxy, the Milky Way.

The newly discovered galaxy is called Canis Major, a dwarf galaxy of more than a billion stars about 25,000 light years away. Canis Major is is the closest of a dozen small galaxies orbiting the Milky Way. Astronomers say it is about one-percent the size of our galaxy.

Because Canis Major is so small, British astronomer Michael Irwin says the gravitational force of the Milky Way is ripping it apart and incorporating its stars into our own galaxy. "The sort of milky plane is being added to by this new galaxy," he said.

Professor Irwin, an astronomer at the University of Cambridge in England, is part of the team that discovered Canis Major.

The astronomers found the dwarf galaxy by using an infrared telescope. The infrared device allows astronomers to peer beyond the clouds of dust inside the Milky Way, and see stars that shine brightly.

"And what we found was an obvious excess of objects just to the south of the galactic plane," he said. "And we now think this is the remnant of this galaxy that is being dissolved away as it goes around the Milky Way."

Canis Major is the second small galaxy to be discovered in recent years that is contributing to the Milky Way's girth. The other constellation, the Sagittarius dwarf, is also colliding with the Milky Way.

Steve Maran of the American Astronomical Society says the discovery of Canis Major gives astronomers a first-hand look at the growth of the Milky Way. He says it provides evidence that our galaxy is reaching maturity.

"I do not think there is anything left for the Milky Way to swallow that is going to make a big difference in the forseeable future. But it is still cleaning up the odds and ends," he said.

A description of the discovery of Canis Major will be published in a journal of the Royal Astronomical Society.