Infozone Breaking World News

Honda Motor Company is to close its Swindon base for four months, which will affect 2,500 of the 3,700 strong staff. The closures are due to take affect after today’s shifts are over, with the staff affected receiving full basic pay for two months and around 60% pay for the following two.

The latest closure is in response to the growing downturn affecting the UK car market, and last Friday Honda stated that its Q3 net profit was down 89%. Earlier this week the government outlined a new bailout plan for the stricken UK car industry with a £2.3bn package.

Honda has reiterated that it does not plan to make any redundancies; rather it intends to ‘safeguard employment’ for those workers who want to keep working for the company. It is thought that over a thousand staff have already signed for voluntary severance, with some already leaving the company.

Dave Hodgetts, senior director at the Swindon plant said: “We will be trying to protect their jobs – that’s our priority for the whole period”.

Hackers have stolen millions of jobseekers personal details from the online job recruitment agency Monster. In a statement released by Monster, it said that the internet thief’s has stolen confidential information from its database including login names and passwords, email addresses and telephone numbers.

The agency went on to say that the information taken did not contain any CV’s, personal financial data or national insurance numbers. Customers of Monster are now being urged to change their passwords when they log into the website.

There are nearly 4.5 million people registered users of the Monster.co.uk website, and it is not known how many of them have been affected by the breach. The agency has launched a full investigation into the incident and added ‘corrective measures’ to its website. This latest theft could turn out to be the biggest data loss since the loss of around 25 million child benefit recipients’ data last year.

Apple has proved their resilience in the current economic climate, by announcing a record profit of £1.15 billion ($1.61bn) for the last quarter of 2008. The huge technology firm also made record revenue of around £7.8 billion ($10.7bn).

Apple sold over 4 million iPhones and more than 22 million iPods in the three months leading to December, but warned that revenue might suffer in the first quarter of 2009.

Apple’s co-founder Steve Jobs said: “Even in these economically challenging times, we are incredibly pleased to report our best quarterly revenue and earnings in Apple history – surpassing the $10bn in quarterly revenue for the first time ever”.

The firm saw a rise in sales of all its main products, with a 9% increase on Macintosh computers, 3% rise in iPod sales and an 88% increase in iPhone sales compared to Q4 of 2007.

According to latest figures, UK unemployment rose to 1.92 million during the three month period between September and November 2008. Another 131,000 people joined the unemployment list during this period, which is the highest for 11 years. The figures do not take into account the thousands of job cuts since November.

The figures, which were released by the Office for National Statistics also stated that the number of jobseeker’s allowance claimants rose by nearly 78,000 to around 1.16 million. The report goes on to say that there were 225,000 redundancies between September and November; the highest since figures began in 1995. Jobless rate also rose to 6.1%, compared to 5.2% during the same period in 2007.

 During the Prime Minister’s Questions, Gordon Brown said: “Every job loss, every redundancy, is a matter of regret and sadness for us all,”

And added: “We may not be able to help people keep their existing job, but we will help people get into a new job”.

US pop singer Katy Perry picked up an award at The NRJ music awards for Best International Song, only to be told it was a mistake and Rihanna was meant to win it. The NRJ music awards is France’s biggest music award ceremony, and was attended by a wide range of international stars.

The blunder was admitted by host, Nikos Aliagas after the show. He said: “We are terribly sorry, but we made a mistake. It wasn’t Katy Perry who was supposed to pick up the Best International Song, but Rihanna with ‘Disturbia’. We hope Rihanna and Katy Perry won’t be too upset and we apologise for all the fans who voted for them. The wrong name was put in the envelope”.

However, Katy Perry is unlikely to be too upset, as she did win an award for the Best International Album for her debut album ‘One of the Boys’. Other winners included Britney Spears for Best International Female Artist and Enrique Iglesias won the International Male Artist prize.

General Motors and Cadillac have shown the first pictures of Barack Obama’s presidential limousine. Nicknamed ‘The Beast’, the new armoured Cadillac makes its debut on the 20th of January and will take Barack Obama to the inaugural parade.

The Secret Service has said that the 2009 Cadillac Limousine is a valuable asset for the highest level of protection for its passengers. As you can expect, not much is known about the car or its specifications, but it is expected to have bullet proof glass, a heavily armoured body and a sealed interior to protect against chemical and biological attacks.

A General Motors speaker told the press that “One of the specifications is that we don’t talk about the specifications”.

But in a separate statement, Nicholas Trotta from the Office of Protective Operations stated that “Although many of the vehicle’s security enhancements cannot be discussed, it is safe to say that this car’s security and coded communications systems make it the most technologically advanced protection vehicle in the world.”

The government has announced a plan to help small businesses through the economic downturn. The plan will guarantee up to £20 billion of loans given to small businesses and insures banks against small companies defaulting on repayments.

The new plan will consist of a £10 billion Working Capital Scheme, which will help the bank lend to businesses and the government will guarantee 50% of £20bn for short term loans to businesses that have an annual turnover of up to £500 million.

In addition to the Working Capital Scheme, a further £1.3 billion will be made available through an Enterprise Guarantee Scheme for bank loans to businesses with a turnover of up to £25 million.

The government will also be setting up a £75 million Capital for Enterprise Fund, which will aid companies with large debts that have failed to secure other forms of finance.

There are concerns that the new £20 billion plan will not be enough to persuade banks to loan to small businesses, with the Conservatives lobbying for ministers to raise it to £50 billion.

Furniture retailer Land of Leather has become the latest victim of the credit crunch and have called in the administrators. The firm was trying to raise some extra capital in December, but when that failed they were forced to go into administration. The company said that it had cut costs, but current economic conditions were tough and January sales had been ‘disappointing’.

Land of Leather joins a long list of companies that have struggled during the credit crunch, including high profile US bank Lehman Brothers who filed for bankruptcy in September and retailer Woolworths who went into administration in November.

Deloitte have been appointed as administrators and stated that they are, “working closely with the management to protect the interests of customers who have paid deposits on furniture orders.”

And added: “We have taken a number of steps both to protect customers and to inform them of how the administration affects their circumstances.”

Customers who paid their deposit by credit or Visa debit card, or have paid their deposit after December the 26th are protected. Other customers who paid in cash or non-Visa cards before December the 26th will be offered discounts or alternative stock if the original order cannot be met.

Land of Leather, which owns 109 stores in the UK and employs over 850 staff will be open as usual, as Deloitte looks for a buyer.

Global Radio, who owns the Hit40UK franchise has announced that its chart will now be based solely from digital downloads. The Hit40UK chart, which is broadcast on over 130 radio stations throughout the UK, will ditch CD sales and airplay figures when it is compiled this weekend.

In defence of the new move, Global Radio said that digital downloads accounted for around 96% of the figures used to compile the chart. Programme director Paul Jackson added, “Downloads have now become the driving force for record sales, as the statistics clearly show.”

The Hit40UK show, which regularly pulls in nearly 2 million listeners, will broadcast its new format for the first time this Sunday.

Here at Infozone we have been looking at ways to generate income while the economy takes a slide:

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