Groups representing Britain`s car industry said on Wednesday they had urged the government to help bolster the ailing sector, partly by increasing access to credit.

Fiat chairman Luca Cordero di Montezemolo called on Wednesday on EU governments to support their auto industries to ensure they remain competitive with US automakers.

`If the US government becomes GM`s (General Motors`) principal stockholder, Europe cannot stand idly by,` Montezemolo said in an interview published by the daily La Repubblica.

Fiat chairman Luca Cordero di Montezemolo called on Wednesday on EU governments to support their auto industries to ensure they remain competitive with US automakers.

`If the US government becomes GM`s (General Motors`) principal stockholder, Europe cannot stand idly by,` Montezemolo said in an interview published by the daily La Repubblica.

LONDON, Oct 18, 2007 (AFP) - Retail sales in Britain surged in September, with the annual growth rate hitting the highest level for three years, official data showed on Thursday.

On a 12-month basis, retail sales grew by 6.3 percent in September 2007, compared with the same month the previous year, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.

That marked the strongest growth rate since September 2004.

The growth came mostly from non-food stores, with clothing and household good shops seeing particularly strong increases.

WASHINGTON, Oct 15, 2007 (AFP) - US newspaper giants Gannett and Tribune Media Services announced plans Monday for a new weekly edition of USA Today outside the United States in cooperation with global publishers.

The new eight-page English-language broadsheet section will be made available to publishers abroad for use as a supplement to their daily newspapers. The first issue will be delivered this week.

The supplement will be printed by participating publishers, to be supplied with electronic files of each week's edition.

BERLIN, Oct 15, 2007 (AFP) - European car giants Daimler and Fiat have launched legal proceedings against Chinese manufacturers amid a growing copyright row, the Automotive News Europe magazine said in its Monday edition.

Daimler of Germany is attempting to block the sale of the Noble produced by Shuanghuan, a small car that Daimler says is strikingly similar to the Smart Fortwo it produces, the report said.

Shuanghuan decided not to exhibit the Noble at the prestigious Frankfurt International Motor Show last month after legal threats from Daimler.

TOKYO, Oct 11, 2007 (AFP) - Japan's robotics industry is expected to show robust growth and remain the world leader thanks to growing exports to emerging economies, an industry group said Thursday.

While Japan has become famous for its cutting-edge humanoid robots, the industry's sales are almost all for industrial robots, particularly those that help manufacture cars, electronics and other products.

FRANKFURT, Oct 9, 2007 (AFP) - Steel producers want to present a global response to climate change and have begun by launching a vast operation to collect data at sites worldwide, they said Tuesday.

Meeting in Berlin, members of the International Iron and Steel Institute (IISI) committed themselves to gathering information on carbon dioxide emissions from all steel plants in member countries.

The project is the first step towards agreeing on a global plan to reduce CO2 emissions, according to the IISI, which represents 180 steel producers.

BERLIN, Oct 8, 2007 (AFP) - European steelmakers were sharply critical of their Chinese rivals at a conference here on Monday which took place under the cloud of a European threat to file an anti-dumping complaint.

Dieter Ameling, President of the German Steel Federation, confirmed that European producers were preparing to file a complaint against China with the European Commission alleging that Chinese steelmakers are exporting at prices below production cost.

FRANKFURT, Oct 8, 2007 (AFP) - The German manufacturing industry continued to benefit from strong foreign demand despite the rise of the euro, economists said Monday.

German manufacturing orders rebounded by 1.2 percent in August on a monthly basis following a decline of 6.1 percent in July, economy ministry figures showed.

The July fall was revised upwards from a provisional estimated decline of 7.1 percent.

FRANKFURT, Oct 8, 2007 (AFP) - Global demand for steel will keep growing next year in response to strong economies in China, Africa and the Middle East, the latest forecast by the steel federation IISI showed Monday.

The International Iron and Steel Institute expected steel demand to grow by 6.8 percent this year and by around the same level in 2008, it said at a forum in Berlin, slightly more than a forecast earlier this year.

FRANKFURT, Oct 5, 2007 (AFP) - Eurozone banks are likely to tighten credit, especially to big companies, following recent upheaval in money markets, the results of a European Central Bank survey released on Friday showed.

'Nearly 50 percent of the banks said that the credit market events were expected to contribute to a tightening of credit standards for loans and credit lines to large enterprises over the next three months,' the survey said.

FRANKFURT, Oct 5, 2007 (AFP) - Eurozone banks are likely to tighten credit conditions in the coming months owing to recent upheaval in money markets, results of a European Central Bank survey released on Friday showed.

'Nearly 50 percent of the banks said that the credit market events were expected to contribute to a tightening of credit standards for loans and credit lines to large enterprises over the next three months,' the survey said.

BRUSSELS, Oct 4, 2007 (AFP) - The European Commission urged mobile phone operators on Thursday to cut their rates for text messages and data or face price caps like those recently put in place on so-called roaming rates.

'I call on operators to deal with the problem of high prices for text messages and data,' EU Telecommunications Commissioner Viviane Reding told journalists.

FRANKFURT, Oct 2, 2007 (AFP) - New car sales fell sharply last month in Germany, the eurozone's biggest economy, as a rise in value-added or sales tax (VAT) continued to weigh on data, the VDA automobile federation said Tuesday.

A total of 266,000 registrations were reported, 11 percent lower than in September 2006, which had been a particularly strong month, VDA said.

Total production was stable however at 507,800 vehicles, and exports grew by 9.0 percent to 383,000 despite the rising value of the euro.

FRANKFURT, Oct 2, 2007 (AFP) - New car sales fell sharply last month in Germany, the eurozone's biggest economy, as a rise in value-added or sales tax (VAT) continued to weigh on data, the VDA automobile federation said Tuesday.

A total of 266,000 registrations were reported, 11 percent lower than in September 2006, which had been a particularly strong month, VDA said.

From June to September, new car registrations fell by 8.0 percent, it added, pointing again to the January rise in German VAT as a main reason why people had anticipated car purchases last year.

LONDON, Oct 1, 2007 (AFP) - Britain's government Monday increased its guarantee for savers hit by financial woes at retail banks in the wake of the crisis at British lender Northern Rock, whose share price has tumbled again.

British finance minister Alistair Darling, speaking to BBC radio, said his government would protect 100 percent of a person's savings deposited with a retail bank up to 35,000 pounds (71,500 dollars, 50,000 euros).

LUXEMBOURG, Oct 1, 2007 (AFP) - EU telecommunications ministers gave the green light on Monday to end state monopolies for delivering letters, the European Union's presidency said.

The Portuguese presidency did not give a date when the full liberalisation of the EU postal market would take effect, but draft plans for consideration at a meeting in Luxembourg cited January 1, 2011.

MADRID, Oct 1, 2007 (AFP) - New car registrations in Spain fell by 7.7 percent in September on a 12-month basis to 96,751 units, the second straight monthly decline, the country's car manufacturers' association Anfac said Monday.

Since the beginning of the year 1,215,801 new cars have been registered in Spain, a 2.0 percent decrease over the same period in 2006, it said in a statement posted on its Internet site.

PARIS, Oct 1, 2007 (AFP) - Sales of new cars in France rose 3.2 percent in September, reversing a decline suffered in August, the French automakers' committee said Monday.

Sales last month came to 148,214 vehicles, an 8.3 percent gain over September 2006. Sales were up 5.4 percent at Renault and 0.1 percent at rival PSA Peugeot Citroen.

The French auto market 'appears to have stabilised and to have overcome the setbacks that have accumulated since the start of the year,' the committee said.

LONDON, Oct 1, 2007 (AFP) - Britain's government Monday increased its guarantee for savers hit by financial difficulties at retail banks in the wake of the Northern Rock crisis.

British finance minister Alistair Darling, speaking to BBC radio, said his government would protect 100 percent of a person's savings deposited with a retail bank up to 35,000 pounds (71,500 dollars, 50,000 euros).

TOKYO, Oct 1, 2007 (AFP) - Three of Japan's leading newspapers said Monday they would cooperate in their online productions and distribution, joining hands to maintain clout in an industry under threat from the Internet.

The tie-up involves The Yomiuri Shimbun, which is considered the world's top-selling newspaper, along with its liberal arch-rival The Asahi Shimbun and the Nikkei business daily.

PARIS, Sept 27, 2007 (AFP) - EADS chief executive Louis Gallois on Thursday said he wanted to boost the aerospace group's defence activities and would look at acquiring or allying with US companies in the sector.

'EADS' strategy is obviously to develop itself in the defence and security fields,' he told journalists at the inauguration of a new industrial centre at Elancourt, near Paris.

BUDAPEST, Sept 25, 2007 (AFP) - Hungary's national healthcare system will next year undergo a massive shake-up that will allow in private insurance companies for the first time, the government said Tuesday.

Under a new regionalised system, agreed by the coalition Socialist and Free Democratic parties, the former national healthcare fund will be replaced by 22 separate funds, each responsible for a different county, health minister Agnes Horvath said.

The capital Budapest will have four different funds.

LONDON, Sept 20, 2007 (AFP) - The British competition watchdog accused British supermarkets and dairies on Thursday of colluding to fix prices, resulting in customers being overcharged 270 million pounds (386 million euros, 542 million dollars) for dairy products.

The Office of Fair Trading said it had provisionally found that a price-fixing agreement was in place between 2002-2003, with supermarket giants Asda, Morrisons, Safeway, Sainsbury's and Tesco involved.

LONDON, Sept 20, 2007 (AFP) - Retail sales in Britain rose strongly in August, helped by strong sales of food, official data showed on Thursday.

Retail sales rose by 0.6 percent in August from July, when they had advanced by 0.7 percent, the Office for National Statistics said.

The growth came mostly in sales of food, which rose by 1.3 percent in August, the biggest gain since June 2006. There were also large gains to sales of clothing and other non-food items.

FRANKFURT, Sept 18, 2007 (AFP) - Chief economists at the German public banking association VOeB expect financial market turmoil to cease in the coming weeks and see little overall danger for the German economy, they said Tuesday.

The economists expected continued growth, albeit at a slightly slower pace, forecasting that gross domestic product (GDP) in the biggest eurozone economy would expand by 2.5 percent this year and by 2.0 percent in 2008, VOeB said in a statement.

DETROIT, Michigan, Sept 17, 2007 (AFP) - Members of the United Auto Workers returned to work Monday at General Motors Corp. after a weekend of intense negotiations failed to produce agreement on a new contract.

Friday's midnight deadline for an accord expired as talks apparently foundered over health-care issues.

Rivals Ford and Chrysler say their existing contracts with the UAW have been extended indefinitely.

MONTREAL, Sept 17, 2007 (AFP) - The world's airlines are poised to make higher-than-expected profits this year, but credit market turmoil and high oil prices may clip them in 2008, an industry association predicted Monday.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) said it had revised upward its financial forecast for the world's airlines to 5.6 billion US dollars in net profit for 2007, up from the 5.1 billion dollars forecast in June.

DOURO VALLEY, Portugal, Sept 17, 2007 (AFP) - EU farm ministers on Monday tried to patch up their differences over plans to shake up Europe's wine sector over drinks in the Douro Valley -- the home of Portugal's Port wine industry.

The ministers are seeking an agreement on a reform package proposed by the European Commission in early July which aims to deal with Europe's chronic overproduction and tackle growing competition from overseas.

The plan includes uprooting excess vines and launching an overseas marketing drive.

CANNES, France, Sept 15, 2007 (AFP) - Tucked away amid a mass of gleaming European and American vessels at a boatshow on the French Riviera stands a lone but significant new arrival -- a powerboat made in distant Dongguan in China.

For its makers, and for a delegation of Chinese manufacturers visiting the annual 'Festival de la Plaisance' pleasure boating jamboree in the chic southern resort of Cannes, this is just the beginning.

TOKYO, Sept 14, 2007 (AFP) - Japan and the United States on Friday agreed to allow an unlimited number of charter flights to operate between the two countries, except for busy Tokyo airports, the US embassy said.

To and from Tokyo airports, negotiators from the two nations agreed during talks here to expand the limit for the number of charter flights from 300 to 400 in 2008 and to 500 in 2009, an embassy statement said.

The two countries also agreed to liberalise cargo carrier flights between the United States and the central Nagoya and western Osaka cities in Japan.

BRUSSELS, Sept 14, 2007 (AFP) - The European Commission moved Friday to force major world auto makers to surrender technical information about the cars they produce to private garages to allow them to repair the vehicles.

The Commission said it had adopted four 'decisions' that legally bind manufacturers DaimlerChrysler, Toyota, General Motors and Fiat to divulge information about car repairs to all independent garages in the 27-country EU.

DETROIT, Sept 13, 2007 (AFP) - Embattled US automakers are nearing a Friday deadline in key contract talks with the sector's main union the United Auto Workers amid disagreements over costly health benefits and wage packages.

General Motors' officials said privately they had doubts about whether they could reach an accord by the deadline of midnight Friday (0400 GMT Saturday), while Chrysler and Ford said their existing contracts with the union have been extended indefinitely.

FRANKFURT, Sept 13, 2007 (AFP) - This year's Frankfurt motor show saw the world's biggest car makers focused on smaller, more affordable models and turning more attention to emerging markets where demand was expected to surge.

BMW chief executive Norbert Reithofer said he did not rule out making a car smaller than the BMW 1-Series, which the German automaker launched in 2004.

Likewise, Volkswagen said it was planning to develop 12 new models over the next three years.