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Posted: 12 Sep 2011 10:36 PM PDT

FRANKFURT: German auto giant Volkswagen said late Monday it is seeking talks with Japanese partner Suzuki, after the latter announced its intention to end their two-year-old alliance.

"We want to talk. We haven't changed our view of Suzuki as an investment," VW chief Martin Winterkorn said at a press event for the IAA motor show here.

"We're not working on any alternative scenarios" to the cooperation with Suzuki and Europe's biggest car maker has no plans to sell its 19.9-percent stake in the Japanese group, said VW finance chief Hans Dieter Poetsch.

Earlier, Suzuki said it wanted to sever ties with VW, claiming its autonomy was under threat and the German giant was treating it as its own subsidiary.

The two car makers entered into a strategic alliance in December 2009, with VW buying a 19.9-percent stake in Suzuki and the Japanese group buying 1.5 percent of its German partner with the aim of pooling their respective strengths in hybrid and small-car technologies.

However, the 1.7-billion-euro ($2.3-billion) alliance turned sour.

And VW announced at the weekend that it was serving notice of an infringement by Suzuki of their cooperation agreement. -- AFP

China arrests 32 over 'gutter' cooking oil scam

Posted: 12 Sep 2011 10:33 PM PDT

BEIJING: China said Tuesday it had arrested 32 people over the sale of cooking oil made from leftovers taken from gutters, in the latest food safety scandal to hit the country.

The sting operation comes more than a year after state media revealed that up to one-tenth of cooking oil used in China was made from waste oil recycled from restaurants, which contains a carcinogenic substance.

The Ministry of Public Security said police first received reports in March that a group of people were buying waste oil from restaurants and turning it into cooking oil.

After a four-month-long investigation, police in the eastern provinces of Zhejiang and Shandong and the central province of Henan busted six places that sold the illegally made cooking oil, and detained 32 people.

They also found more than 100 tonnes of the recycled oil made from leftovers taken from gutters, the ministry said in a statement.

"Under the pretence of processing biodiesel, the suspects had been buying waste oil from Zhejiang, Sichuan and Guizhou (both in the southwest) since 2009, turning it into cooking oil and selling it on the market," it added.

When the cooking oil scandal emerged last year, experts estimated that people in China consumed about two to three million tonnes of illegal oil every year.

The revelation forced the food safety watchdog to step up its inspections, but experts said the business was extremely profitable because the cost of buying food waste and refining it was low.

China's food industry is notorious for safety problems, despite regular government crackdowns.

One of the biggest safety scandals emerged in 2008 when huge amounts of the industrial chemical melamine were found to have been illegally added to dairy products to give the appearance of higher protein content.

The scandal was blamed for the deaths of at least six infants and for making 300,000 others ill in China. Two people were executed for their role in the incident.

In September last year, authorities in China — including the Supreme People's Court and the Ministry of Public Security — called for tougher penalties including the death sentence in serious food safety cases. -- AFP

Kredit: www.nst.com.my

Isnin, 12 September 2011

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