TOKYO: Japan and the European Union are to hold a summit this month to formally launch negotiations on a huge free trade deal, a report said Sunday.
EU President Herman Van Rompuy and European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso will visit Tokyo in the last week of March to meet Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the Nikkei business daily said.
The report said the two sides would reach a final accord to launch long-awaited negotiations aiming to liberalise trade and remove barriers on services and investment.
The EU and Japanese leaders also plan to begin separate talks on a "political accord" featuring cooperation on security, the environment and science and technology.
EU trade ministers agreed in November to launch free trade talks with Tokyo while pledging to safeguard Europe's struggling carmakers.
European car and car parts manufacturers fear the removal of tariffs will lead to a rise in Japanese car imports, pointing to a previous trade deal with South Korea that bumped up sales of South Korean vehicles in Europe.
EU trade ministers have pledged to safeguard struggling carmakers but auto companies have criticised the envisaged deal, with the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association calling it "a one-way street' for Japanese cars.
LG Electronics announced today it has sold more than 10 million LTE-capable smartphones worldwide as the company grapples with dwindling market share.
The milestone comes a little more than six months after the company announced it had surpassed 5 million sales of LTE-enabled phones.
"Aggressive pushing forward with 4G LTE technology allows LG satisfy the needs of consumers and is a huge factor in our growing success in global LTE smartphone sales," LG CEO Jong-seok Park said in statement. "Having established ourselves as a major industry player, we will continue to expand our footprint in the global LTE market with a wider range of differentiated, high quality LTE smartphones."
LG said it hopes to double its LTE smartphone presence in 2013 as LTE smartphone shipment growth is expected to triple. Strategy Analytics said in December that its research indicated global LTE smartphone shipments would hit 275 million this year.
The company attributed its explosive growth in the segment to its expansion last year into markets such as the United States, Japan, Germany, and South Korea. Recent rollouts of the LG Optimus G in more than 50 additional countries also contributed to the milestone.
As impressive as the sales figure is, LG continues to lose ground in the LTE market, according to research firm Strategy Analytics. In the third quarter of 2012, LG's market share fell to 9 percent from 15 percent in the previous quarter. Samsung remained the market leader even though its share fell from 51 percent to 40 percent. Apple brought in 26.7 percent for second place.
The announcement comes on the heels of LG's overhaul of its Android product line at the Mobile World Congress last month in Barcelona, Spain. LG says it is targeting the spectrum of LTE customers, with its G series for deep-pocketed early adopters, the F series with the mission of "4G LTE for everyone," the lower-end L series, and the Vu tablets.
SEFFNER, Fla. The effort to find the body of a Florida man who was swallowed by a sinkhole under his Florida home was called off Saturday and crews planned to begin demolishing the four-bedroom house.
The 20-foot-wide opening of the sinkhole is almost completely covered by the house and rescuers feared it would collapse on them if they tried to search for Jeff Bush, 37. Crews were testing the unstable ground surrounding the home and evacuated two neighboring homes as a precaution.
Hillsborough County Administrator Mike Merrill said heavy equipment would be brought in to begin the demolition Sunday morning.
"At this point it's really not possible to recover the body," Merrill said, later adding "we're dealing with a very unusual sinkhole."
Reporter Ashley Porter of CBS affiliate WTSP-TV in Tampa, Fla., reported that crews dropped a camera and listening devices into the hole, but there were no signs of life.
Jessica Damico, spokeswoman for Hillsborough County Fire Rescue, said the demolition equipment would be placed on what they believe is solid ground and reach onto the property to pull apart the house. The crew will try pulling part of the house away from the sinkhole intact so some heirlooms and mementoes can be retrieved.
Bush was in his bedroom Thursday night in Seffner — a suburb of 8,000 people 15 miles east of downtown Tampa — when the earth opened and took him and everything else in his room. Five others in the house escape unharmed.
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Man feared dead in sinkhole freak accident
On "CBS This Morning: Saturday," WTSP-TV reporter Grayson Kamm reported that Bush was not planning to stay in the house for long, just a few months, and had been planning to move out Saturday.
On Saturday, the normally quiet neighborhood of concrete block homes painted in Florida pastels was jammed with cars as engineers, reporters, and curious onlookers came to the scene.
At the home next door to the Bushes, a family cried and organized boxes. Testing determined that their house and another was compromised by the sinkhole. The families were allowed to go inside for about a half-hour to gather belongings.
Sisters Soliris and Elbairis Gonzalez, who live on the same street as the Bushes, said neighbors were worried for their safety.
"I've had nightmares," Soliris Gonzalez, 31, said. "In my dreams, I keep checking for cracks in the house."
They said the family has discussed where to go if forced to evacuate, and they've taken their important documents to a storage unit.
"The rest of it, this is material stuff, as long as our family is fine," Soliris Gonzalez said.
"You never know underneath the ground what's happening," added Elbairis Gonzalez, 30.
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Sinkholes
Experts say thousands of sinkholes form yearly in Florida because of the state's unique geography, though most are small and deaths rarely occur.
"There's hardly a place in Florida that's immune to sinkholes," said Sandy Nettles, who owns a geology consulting company in the Tampa area. "There's no way of ever predicting where a sinkhole is going to occur."
Most sinkholes are small, like one found Saturday morning in Largo, 35 miles away from Seffner. The Largo sinkhole, about 10 feet long and several feet wide, is in a mall parking lot.
The state sits on limestone, a porous rock that easily dissolves in water, with a layer of clay on top. The clay is thicker in some locations — including the area where Bush became a victim — making them even more prone to sinkholes.
Jonathan Arthur, the state geologist and director of the Florida Geological Survey, said other states sit atop limestone in a similar way, but Florida has additional factors like extreme weather, development, aquifer pumping and construction. "The conditions under which a sinkhole will form can be very rapid, or they can form slowly over time," he said.
But it remained unclear Saturday what, if anything, caused the Seffner sinkhole.
"The condition that caused that sinkhole could have started a million years ago," Nettles said.
Jeremy Bush, who tried to rescue his brother, lay flowers and a stuffed lamb near the house Saturday morning and wept.
He said someone came to his home a couple of months ago to check for sinkholes and other issues, apparently for insurance purposes, but found nothing wrong. State law requires home insurers to provide coverage against sinkholes.
"And a couple of months later, my brother dies. In a sinkhole," Bush said Friday.
Authorities have discontinued the rescue effort for a Florida man who was swallowed by a sinkhole when his home's foundation collapsed and said it is unlikely his body will ever be recovered.
"We feel we have done everything we can," Hillsborough County administrator Mike Merrell said at a news conference this afternoon. "At this point, it's not possible to recover the body."
Merell said officials would bring in heavy equipment to begin demolishing the home on Sunday.
"We're dealing with a very unusual sinkhole," he said. "It's very deep. It's very wide. It's very unstable."
Jeff Bush was in his bedroom when a sinkhole opened up and trapped him underneath his home at 11 p.m. Thursday.
Two homes next door to Bush's residence were evacuated today after authorities said they had been compromised by the growing sinkhole.
With the assistance of rescuers, the homeowners will be allowed to enter their home for only 30 minutes to gather valuables, authorities said.
Rescuers returned to the site in Seffner, Fla., early this morning to conduct further testing, but decided it was too dangerous for the family initially affected by the sinkhole to enter their home, which was declared condemned.
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While the sinkhole was initially estimated to be 15 feet deep on Thursday night, the chasm has continued to grow. Officials now estimate it measures 30 feet across and is up to 100 feet deep.
The Hillsborough County Fire Rescue has set up a relief fund for all families affected by the growing sink hole.
MORE: How Sinkholes Can Develop
Rescue operations were halted Friday night after it became too dangerous to approach the home.
Bill Bracken, an engineer with Hillsborough County Urban Search and Rescue team said the house "should have collapsed by now, so it's amazing that it hasn't."
RELATED: Florida Man Swallowed by Sinkhole: Conditions Too Unstable to Approach
Using ground penetrating radar, rescuers have found a large amount of water beneath the house, making conditions even more dangerous for them to continue the search for Bush.
Hillsborough County lies in what is known as Florida's "Sinkhole Alley." More than 500 sinkholes have been reported in the area since 1954, according to the state's environmental agency.
Meanwhile, Bush's brother, Jeremy Bush, is still reeling from Thursday night.
Jeremy Bush had to be rescued by a first responder after jumping into the hole in an attempt to rescue his brother when the home's concrete floor collapsed, but said he couldn't find him.
"I just started digging and started digging and started digging, and the cops showed up and pulled me out of the hole and told me the floor's still falling in," he said.
"These are everyday working people, they're good people," said Deputy Douglas Duvall of the Hillsborough County sheriff's office. "And this was so unexpected, and they're still, you know, probably facing the reality that this is happening."
