14/10/2025

TUESDAY | OCT 14, 2025

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‘Teen social media ban law difficult to enforce’

Dieselgate lawsuit reaches court

LONDON: A trial involving five major carmakers opened at London’s High Court yesterday, marking the latest chapter of the dieselgate emissions scandal that has rocked the car industry for a decade. The High Court will decide in a three-month trial whether systems installed in Mercedes, Ford, Peugeot-Citroen, Renault and Nissan diesel vehicles were designed to cheat clean air laws. The trial of the five lead defendants will set a precedent for other manufacturers, potentially paving the way for billions of pounds in compensation. The claims were brought on behalf of 1.6 million motorists against 14 carmakers, including Jaguar Land Rover, Toyota, Vauxhall Opel and BMW, among others. Martyn Day, lawyer at Leigh Day representing the claimants, said the case impacts “nearly all the manufacturers in this country”. The dieselgate scandal first erupted in September 2015, when Volkswagen admitted to fitting millions of vehicles with software to make engines appear less polluting in regulatory tests than in real driving conditions. It caused waves in the car industry, ensnaring several other top carmakers and leading to legal action. The court in London will examine evidence to determine whether major carmakers installed so-called defeat devices in cars to reduce nitrogen oxide readings to cheat emissions tests. The five lead defendants deny that their systems were designed to circumvent the tests. The trial beginning today must first determine whether carmakers are liable, before a separate compensation phase can follow next year. Mercedes and Ford rejected the claims as having “no merit”, while Nissan declined to comment. French manufacturers Renault and Stellantis, parent of Peugeot and Citroen, said the vehicles they sold were compliant with regulations at the time. When the High Court in 2020 found Volkswagen had used defeat devices to cheat emissions tests, the German carmaker settled out of court, paying US$259 million (RM1.09 billion) to 91,000 British motorists. – AFP Reinspect Boeing RAT Systems, Air India told NEW DELHI: India’s aviation regulator has asked Air India to inspect an emergency power system on some Boeing Dreamliner aircraft after the system unexpectedly deployed during a flight earlier this month. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has also asked the US planemaker to submit a “comprehensive report” that outlines preventive measures that can be taken to prevent deployment of the system, known as the Ram Air Turbine (RAT), the regulator said. It has asked Boeing to provide details on similar uncommanded RAT deployments on 787s globally. Reuters reported last week that the DGCA had asked Boeing for more information after the incident, which occurred during an Oct 4 flight to Birmingham from Amritsar. The pilots did not report any related abnormality and the aircraft landed safely. It later returned to commercial service. The unexpected deployment has come under scrutiny after the system was also activated shortly before the June 12 crash of an Air India 787 that killed 260 people. India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau has gathered details and is analysing the Birmingham flight incident but it had not seen a connection between the unexpected RAT deployment on Oct 4 and the June 12 crash, a source with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters last week. – Reuters

o Google warns of unintended consequences

popularity with teachers – following complaints from other tech firms. Google contends that YouTube is a video sharing site, not a social media platform. “Well-crafted legislation can be an effective tool to build on industry efforts to keep children safer online,” Lord said. “But the solution to keeping kids safer online is not stopping them from being online.” Instead, she said, online safety tools must be used to protect children and parents should be given the controls to guide their online experiences. Australia, concerned about the impact of social media on the mental health of young people, passed its Online Safety Amendment in November 2024. It gave companies a year to comply and they face a Dec 10 deadline to deactivate the accounts of underage users. – Reuters

In a parliamentary hearing on online safety rules yesterday, YouTube’s senior manager of government affairs in Australia, Rachel Lord, said the government’s programme was well intentioned, but it could have “unintended consequences”. “The legislation will not only be extremely difficult to enforce, it also does not fulfil its promise of making kids safer online,” Lord said. When asked if Google was lobbying officials in Washington to raise the issue when Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese meets President Donald Trump in Washington next week, Google Australia’s government affairs director Stef Lovett said her US colleagues were aware of the issues that the company faces in Australia. In July, Australia added YouTube to a list of sites covered by the legislation – reversing an earlier decision to exempt it due to its

SYDNEY: Alphabet-owned Google said yesterday it would be “extremely difficult” for Australia to enforce a law prohibiting people younger than 16 from using social media, warning that the government’s initiative would not make children safer online. Governments and tech firms around the world are closely watching Australia, which in December will become the first country to block the use of social media by people younger than 16. Social media platforms will not be required to verify age; instead, they will be asked to use artificial intelligence and behavioural data to reliably infer age.

Xi (centre) and his wife Peng Liyuan (second from right) with national leaders and delegates at the opening of the summit. – AFPPIC

Xi calls for more women leaders BEIJING: President Xi Jinping yesterday called for greater representation for women in politics and government at a global women’s summit here, a move he said would ensure that gender equality is “truly internalised” within society. The two-day “Global leaders meeting on women”, held in conjunction with UN Women, seeks to advance women’s development globally, gender equality and the well-rounded development of women, authorities said. Peace and stability are prerequisites for women’s all-round development, Xi said. The summit comes as China has made great strides in educating women, who account for around 50% of students in higher education and around 43% of the total employed population. However, the lack of senior female politicians appears to be at odds with a broad push by the Communist Party to increase female representation.

did not have a woman among the 24 members of the country’s politburo and no women among the seven members of the standing committee of the politburo. Xi’s decade as the party’s general secretary has seen the number of women in politics and elite government roles decline and gender gaps in the workforce widen, academics and activists say. Xi said in 2023 that women have a critical role and must establish a “new trend of family”, as the nation grapples with an ageing population and record decline in the birth rate. Doing a good job in women’s work is not only related to women’s own development but also related to “family harmony, social harmony, national development and national progress,” he said. – Reuters

Leaders from Iceland, Sri Lanka, Ghana, Dominica and Mozambique are attending, state media reported. Xi said that countries needed to “broaden channels for women to participate in political and decision-making, and promote women’s broad participation in national and social governance”.

An absence of women among China’s top leadership is concerning, the United Nations said in 2023, as it recommended China adopt statutory quotas and a gender parity system to quicken equal representation of women in government. In 2022, China for the first time in 20 years