Toyota poised to slash production

Toyota is poised to slash production by as much as 580,000 vehicles — or almost 6 percent of global capacity — in an effort to stem losses amid the sharp downturn in car sales. Japan’s largest carmaker, which is forecasting its second consecutive net loss this year, said it would shut a production line in western Japan from next spring through to the second half of 2011, reducing output by 220,000 vehicles.

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Scenes of Martian Redness in Australia

“If a kangaroo accidentally gets hit by the train, you don’t really feel it,” conductor Scott Fels informs me as the scrublands and giant termite mounds of the Australian Outback whisk by. “But if the train drivers see a camel on the tracks, believe me, they get away from the windows.” Camels in the Outback Yes indeed. There are estimated to be over a million of these ungulates roaming at will through the desert, descendants of the original camel caravans led by Afghan drivers in the 1860s and 1870s

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Brawn GP win F1 legal battle over diffusers

Jenson Button’s wins in the opening two races of the Formula One season will stand after motorsport chiefs ruled on Wednesday that the aerodynamic diffuser ftited to the rear of his Brawn GP car is legal. The FIA Court of Appeal said that the rear diffusers used by the Brawn, Williams and Toyota teams “comply with the applicable regulations.” The FIA panel sat for eight hours in Paris on Tuesday to hear evidence and their decision backs up a decision by the stewards at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix that the controversial aerodynamic devices were within the rules

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Russia: 5 years lost due to financial crisis

Russia’s finance minister Monday made a rare admission of responsibility for the country’s severe economic crisis. The Russian government overspent its vast oil revenues in recent years, fueling inflation, and failed to diversify the national economy, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said in an exclusive CNN interview. Kremlin officials usually blame the West, and specifically the United States, for the global economic crisis

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