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Fears about contaminated seafood spread Wednesday despite reassurances that radiation in the waters off Japan’s troubled atomic plant pose no health risk, as the country’s respected emperor consoled evacuees from the tsunami and nuclear emergency zone.

While experts say radioactive particles are unlikely to build up significantly in fish, the seafood concerns in the country that gave the world sushi are yet another blemish for Brand Japan. It has already been hit by contamination of milk, vegetables and water, plus shortages of auto and tech parts after a massive quake and tsunami disabled a coastal nuclear power plant.

Setbacks at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex mounted Wednesday, as the plant’s operator, Tokyo Power Electric Co., announced that its president was hospitalized. Masataka Shimizu has not been seen since a news conference two days after the March 11 quake that spawned the destructive wave. His absence fueled speculation that he had suffered a breakdown.

Spokesman Naoki Tsunoda said Shimizu, 66, was admitted to a Tokyo hospital Tuesday after suffering dizziness and high blood pressure.

The problems at the nuclear plant have taken center stage, but the tsunami also created another disaster: Hundreds of thousands of people were forced from their homes after the wave drove miles (kilometers) inland, decimating whole towns. The official death toll stood at 11,362 late Wednesday, with the final toll likely surpassing 18,000.

Japan’s respected Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko visited disaster evacuees at a center in Tokyo on Wednesday. The visit was marked by a formality that is typical of interactions with the royal couple, but survivors said they were encouraged.

“I couldn’t talk with them very well because I was nervous, but I felt that they were really concerned about us,” said Kenji Ukito, an evacuee from a region near the plant who has already moved four times since the quake. “I was very grateful.”

The emperor and his wife make fairly frequent public appearances, visiting nursing homes and the disabled and attending ceremonies throughout the year. In particular, they are expected to mourn with those affected by natural disasters. Akihito made a similar visit to evacuees after the Kobe earthquake in 1995.

At the Fukushima plant, the fight to cool the reactors and stem their release of radiation has become more complicated in recent days since the discovery that radioactive water is pooling in the plant, restricting the areas in which crews can work. It also puts emergency crews in the uncomfortable position of having to pump in more water to continue cooling the reactor while simultaneously pumping out contaminated water.

That contamination has also begun to seep into the sea, and tests Wednesday showed that waters 300 yards (meters) outside the plant contained 3,355 times the legal limit for the amount of radioactive iodine.

It’s the highest rate yet, but Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency official Hidehiko Nishiyama said it did not pose any threat to human health because the iodine rarely stays in fish. There is no fishing in the area because it is within the evacuation zone around the plant.

Radioactive iodine is short-lived, with a half-life of just eight days, and in any case was expected to dissipate quickly in the vast Pacific Ocean. It does not tend to accumulate in shellfish.

Other radioactive particles have been detected in the waters near the plant, and some have made their way into fish. Trace amounts of radioactive cesium-137 have been found in anchovies as far afield as Chiba, near Tokyo, but at less than 1 percent of acceptable levels.

“We have repeatedly told consumers that it is perfectly safe to eat fish,” said Shoichi Takayama, an official with Japan’s fishery agency.

Citing dilution in the ocean, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has played down the risks of seafood contamination online payday loan lenders.

But, as with other reports of radiation levels in food and tap water, fear has begun to override science. Several countries, including China, India and South Korea, have ordered special inspections for or outright bans on fish from areas near the plant.

Ren Cheng, a spokesman for Taiwan’s Mitsui Food & Beverage Enterprise Group that operates several upscale Japanese restaurants in Taipei, said his company has seen a 50 percent drop in revenue since the crisis began.

“We are not importing any food products from Japan. All the Japanese ingredients we are using were all procured before the quake,” he said. “We have put up signs in our restaurants to reassure costumers about the safety of our food.”

Domestic consumption, however, is far more important to Japan, which imports far more seafood than it exports. According to the fisheries agency, the domestic catch typically totals around 5.5 million tons. Less than a million of that gets exported, while another nearly 3 million tons are imported.

In stores near Tokyo’s famed Tsukiji fish market, fresh fish was selling poorly.

Instead, customers “are stockpiling” frozen fish, in the hopes it was caught before radiation began to climb, said Hideo Otsubo, who works at a seafood company near the market.

Tourism to Japan has fallen sharply since the disaster, and sushi chef Akira Ogimoto blamed that dropoff for a 30 to 40 percent decline in customers to his restaurant near the market, where the daily tuna auction is a big draw for foreigners.

Add on the radiation fears, and fishermen are worried their livelihoods will be threatened just when they need to rebuild their homes.

“I worry we won’t be able to sell our seaweed. If the radiation ruins our fishing, we are lost,” said Toshiaki Kikuchi, a 63-year-old innkeeper and seaweed farmer in Soma, a city near the troubled plant.

Meanwhile, TEPCO’s bungling response to the nuclear emergency has been severely criticized by the government and the press. The first few days after the quake saw fires and explosions and confusion has reigned throughout, and the company _ whose shares have plunged nearly 80 percent _ has frequently retracted or corrected information.

There has also been criticism that safeguards were lax at the Fukushima plant. The nuclear agency ordered plant operators nationwide on Wednesday to review their emergency procedures. The agency told utilities they must have on hand mobile backup generators and fire engines, which have been used at Fukushima to cool the reactors. The operators must report back to the agency within a month.

TEPCO chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata apologized at a news conference for the company’s missteps. He has stepped in for the hospitalized president, but fears of a leadership vacuum remained. And Katsumata himself acknowledged that operations could deteriorate if Shimizu were hospitalized for a long time.

“In case of a long absence, it seems to me decisions might not be made smoothly,” Katsumata told reporters.

The company also acknowledged for the first time it would have to completely scrap at least four of the plant’s reactors _ a fate experts and the government had already condemned them to.

The missteps at TEPCO have sparked calls from the opposition for its nationalization, and the Yominuri Shimbun newspaper, citing anonymous sources, said the government was considering it. But Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano denied those reports.

“My understanding is that the government is not considering such an option at this moment,” Edano said Tuesday. He was more circumspect when asked again Wednesday, but reiterated that the company must work to resolve the crisis and compensate victims.

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Finance officials from the Group of Seven major industrialized countries have agreed on coordinated currency intervention to support Japan’s economy following a devastating earthquake.

It will mark the first time the G-7 countries have jointly intervened in currency markets since the fall of 2000.

In a joint statement issued following emergency discussions, the G-7 officials said that the United States, Britain, Canada and the European Central Bank will join with Japan in a “concerted intervention” in currency markets Friday paydayloans.

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U.S. industrial production probably rose in February for a third month in the last four, indicating manufacturing remains a stalwart of the expansion, economists said before a report this week.

Output at factories, mines and utilities climbed 0.6 percent after a 0.1 percent decrease in January, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey ahead of Federal Reserve figures on March 17. Other data may show less home construction and contained inflation excluding food and fuel.

Orders are rising at companies like Texas Instruments Inc. (TXN), signaling factories are boosting an economy still held back by housing-market weakness. With wage growth restrained and limited signs businesses are passing along higher energy costs, Fed policy makers meeting this week may stick to their plan of buying Treasuries aimed at bolstering growth.

Wholesale costs increased for an eighth consecutive month in February, spurred by higher prices for fuel and other commodities, economists projected ahead of the data due March 16 business cards. A day earlier, another Labor Department report may show the cost of goods imported into the country posted the fifth straight monthly gain.

Fed officials meeting March 15 are about half way through their second round of bond purchases that’ll pump $600 billion into the financial system by June. Along with the so-called quantitative easing, they will probably maintain their policy of keeping the benchmark rate near zero.

The central bank’s preferred price gauge, which excludes food and fuel, rose 0.8 percent in January from a year earlier, matching December’s year-over-year gain, the smallest in five decades of record-keeping. Fed officials aim for long-run overall inflation of 1.6 percent to 2 percent.

Bernanke on Inflation

Higher oil and commodity prices probably won’t cause a permanent increase in broader inflation, and borrowing costs are likely to stay low, Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said in his semiannual monetary policy testimony to Congress.

Experience with such price gains in recent decades, along with currently stable labor costs, suggests a “temporary and relatively modest increase in U.S. consumer price inflation,” Bernanke told lawmakers on March 2. “The economy’s recovery is not firmly established, and we think monetary policy needs to be supportive.”

The economy’s weak link is housing, which is depressed by foreclosures and falling prices. Housing starts fell 4.4 percent after a 15 percent jump in January that reflected a surge in multifamily units, economists projected ahead of Commerce Department data on March 16.

Builders remain pessimistic. The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo confidence index, due on March 15, rose to 17 this month from 16 in February, according to economists surveyed. Readings below 50 mean more respondents said conditions were poor.

Bloomberg Survey ============================================================== Release Period Prior Median Indicator Date Value Forecast ============================================================== Empire Manu. Index 3/15 March 15.4 16.1 Import Prices MOM% 3/15 Feb. 1.5% 0.9% NAHB Housing Index 3/15 March 16 17 PPI MOM% 3/16 Feb. 0.8% 0.7% Core PPI MOM% 3/16 Feb. 0.5% 0.2% Housing Starts ,000’s 3/16 Feb. 596 570 Housing Starts MOM% 3/16 Feb. 14.6% -4.4% Building Permits ,000’s 3/16 Feb. 563 570 Building Permits MOM% 3/16 Feb. -10.2% 1.2% CPI MOM% 3/17 Feb. 0.4% 0.4% Core CPI MOM% 3/17 Feb. 0.2% 0.1% CPI YOY% 3/17 Feb. 1.6% 2.0% Core CPI YOY% 3/17 Feb. 1.0% 1.0% Ind. Prod. MOM% 3/17 Feb. -0.1% 0.6% LEI MOM% 3/17 Feb. 0.1% 1.0% Philly Fed Index 3/17 March 35.9 29.7 ==============================================================

To contact the reporter on this story: Shobhana Chandra in Washington at schandra1@bloomberg.net

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EPA official assails Blunt

Bank of England official Andrew Sentance’s drive for higher interest rates to tame inflation may gain traction at next week’s policy meeting after reports indicated the U.K. recovery has reignited.

Services and construction rebounded last month while manufacturing grew at a record pace after the economy unexpectedly shrank in the fourth quarter, surveys this week showed. The reports also showed price pressures in the industries intensified as policy makers battle an inflation rate that’s exceeded their 2 percent target for 13 months.

“The recovery is maybe still fragile but it’s beginning to look a bit more normal and there’s more of a case for starting to nudge rates upwards,” said Ross Walker, an economist at Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc in London. “They won’t hike in February, they’ll hold off. But it’s a close call.”

A split on the central bank’s nine-member Monetary Policy Committee sharpened last month when Martin Weale joined a push Sentance started in June to raise the benchmark interest rate. The division may persist at the Feb. 10 decision after Sentance repeated his call this week and Deputy Governor Charles Bean said keeping rates on hold for now is a “sensible policy.”

Minutes of the bank’s Jan. 13 meeting showed “most” of the committee took the view that medium-term inflation risks had “probably shifted upwards” after consumer-price growth accelerated to 3.7 percent in December. Still, with the majority of officials forecasting that the surge was temporary, the bank left its key rate on hold at a record low 0.5 percent.

Recovery Blip

Reports since then suggest the U.K.’s unexpected 0.5 percent contraction in the fourth quarter may have been a temporary setback.

A gauge based on a survey of service companies from caterers to transport firms surged to 54.5 in January from 49.7, Markit Economics Ltd. said yesterday. A measure of costs rose to the highest in more than two years. Separate surveys showed manufacturing grew at a record pace and construction resumed expansion. The indexes had slumped in December, when temperatures fell to the coldest in a century for that month.

The inflation outlook has prompted investors to add to bets on an interest-rate increase. The implied yield on December 2011 short sterling futures has risen 37 basis points this year to 1.62 percent. JPMorgan Chase & Co. brought forward its forecast for the bank’s first interest-rate increase to May from August.

“The stronger survey data that we had this week and comments from some MPC members prompted the change,” Allan Monks, an economist at JPMorgan in London, said in an interview high risk personal loans. “The timing is particularly hard to gauge at the moment. We’re not ruling out February, it could be close.”

BOE Argument

The central bank debate has largely centered on whether the current bout of inflation is temporary, driven by oil prices and an increase in tax, or is likely to persist. Consumer-price growth probably accelerated again last month after the government raised the sales-tax rate. That would force Bank of England Governor Mervyn King to write to the Treasury to explain why inflation remains above the government’s 3 percent limit.

Sentance told City A.M. newspaper in an article published Feb. 2 that a rate increase now would prevent a “shock to confidence” caused by bigger moves later, and the minutes of the January decision “reflect a growing concern about inflationary pressures that are coming through.” Weale wrote in the Guardian on Jan. 31 that persistent above-target inflation creates a “powerful case” for higher rates.

‘Fragile’

By contrast, Bean tempered his comments on interest rates by saying in a Western Mail newspaper interview that the recovery remained “fragile” and he sees inflation returning to the bank’s target. Nevertheless, he added that signs that a pickup in commodity prices has become permanent and will entrench faster price gains means “we may well have to respond to that by keeping domestically generated inflation lower.”

For now, Sentance and Weale may be unable to convince a majority of their colleagues to join their push. Their colleague Adam Posen remains of the view that the economy needs more stimulus, saying in a Jan. 21 interview that spare capacity and budget cuts will help to cool inflation.

George Buckley, an economist at Deutsche Bank AG in London, said Bank of England Chief Economist Spencer Dale may be disposed to tighter policy since he opposed an increase in the bond plan in November 2009 to 200 billion pounds ($324 billion), the current target. The other members have either indicated a preference for looser policy or not given a clear signal.

Still, a move next week or in May would fit with a pattern for the bank to change policy in months where it’s completed a quarterly forecasts, Buckley said. King will publish the latest projections in London on Feb. 16.

“We think they’re going to stay on hold, but it’s not a done deal by any stretch,” Buckley said. “The risks certainly have shifted over the past week.”

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China will impose property taxes in some cities to help curb surging prices, the finance ministry said Thursday, part of a broader effort to control high inflation.

A statement on the ministry’s website didn’t name the cities affected, but China’s commercial capital Shanghai and the southwestern city of Chongqing have already announced plans for the taxes. Each city involved will decide the details of its own property tax, state media reported.

Surging housing costs across China are hurting the government’s efforts to cool inflation that has mainly been attributed to surging food prices but is spreading to other parts of the economy.

Thursday’s move comes a day after the government made its latest move to cool the property market, announcing it would require buyers of second homes to make a 60 percent down payment, up from 50 percent.

The property tax news comes just before China’s biggest holiday of the year, the Lunar New Year, which begins next week. State media tried to soften the news by reminding citizens that people in other countries such as the United States pay property taxes as well.

“The collection of property taxes helps balance the distribution of income and narrow the gap between rich and poor,” said the finance ministry statement.

The money raised will be used to fund affordable housing, it said.

The entire country will have property taxes “when conditions are ripe,” the statement said.

Many economists believe China’s economy remains dangerously dependent on investment in real estate and construction. Such spending shot up 23.8 percent over a year earlier in 2010.

The sale by local governments of land-use rights provides a huge share of their revenues. Such sales rose 70 percent in 2010, helping push property prices 6.4 percent higher compared with a year earlier.

In Shanghai, housing prices rose to a record average of 24,176 yuan ($3,652) per square meter in December, state media has reported, up 7.6 percent from November and up 21 percent from January 2010.

The state-run Xinhua News Agency on Thursday said Shanghai has set its property tax rate at 0.4 percent to 0.6 percent. The report had no other details. Chongqing set its tax rate at 0.5 percent to 1.2 percent.

Many other big Chinese cities are facing similar trends, raising worries about a financially perilous asset bubble.

Shanghai is preparing to levy a property tax on purchases of newly built, luxury homes. While such a tax is unlikely to have much impact on the overall market, authorities say they expect it to help bring the market under better control.

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Indonesia’s anti-monopoly agency is evaluating Temasek Holdings Pte’s assets in the country and said the government has the right to seize them if a court-imposed fine isn’t paid.

The Singapore state-owned investment company lost its final appeal in the Supreme Court on May 24 for violating antitrust laws, the Indonesian court said on its website at the time. A fine of 150 billion rupiah ($17 million), which includes 15 billion rupiah for each of 10 Temasek-linked companies involved in the case, was set, the anti-monopoly agency said.

“We’re now inventorying Temasek’s assets and expect to complete that in 2011, and they will be seized if the fine isn’t paid,” Tresna Soemardi, the agency’s chairman, said in a phone interview yesterday.

The Indonesian competition regulator KPPU has said Temasek breached antitrust laws by using indirect stakes in PT Telekomunikasi Selular, known as Telkomsel, and PT Indosat, the country’s top two mobile-phone service providers, to fix prices.

“Temasek has not received official notification from the Supreme Court,” Goh Yong Siang, Temasek’s senior managing director of strategic relations, said in an e-mailed response to queries cash advance now.

Calls to the Supreme Court after office hours yesterday weren’t answered.

“Once the company has been formally notified of the fine and doesn’t pay it, the Indonesian anti-monopoly commission may ask for a court order to seize the assets,” Muhammad Reza, the agency’s chief of investigations, said by phone.

Temasek’s Singapore Technologies Telemedia Pte unit sold its stake in Indosat, Indonesia’s second largest mobile-phone services provider, to Qatar Telecom QSC in June 2008 after an earlier district court ruling. A unit of Singapore Telecommunications Ltd., Southeast Asia’s biggest phone operator and majority owned by Temasek, has a 35 percent stake in Telkomsel, the biggest mobile carrier.

Koran Tempo first reported the possible seizure of Temasek’s assets today.

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Question: I read all the time that since I’m in my mid 50s I should be scaling back the equity holdings in my retirement account to 60% to 70% of its value. But I work in a job that I enjoy, that’s stable and has no mandatory requirement age. I’m behind on my retirement savings, so I’m wondering if I should invest as if were younger, say, 40 or 45.

I’m sure there are a lot of people who are in my position who are wondering whether the conventional asset-allocation wisdom applies in our case. What do you think? – Bill, El Paso, Texas

Answer: I think it makes sense to question the conventional wisdom, and it can often pay to flout it.

Still, in the investing arena particularly, you need to pick your shots. And I think this is one of those instances when you want to be very, very careful about doing so. And if you do decide to go ahead, think long and hard about how far beyond the bounds of convention you want to stray.

Before I get to why that’s the case, let’s start by admitting that there is no "correct" stocks-bonds mix for someone your age or, for that matter, any other age. The right mix can vary depending on how much risk you’re comfortable taking, how much you have invested, how dependent you are on your investments and what other resources you have to fall back on.

All else equal, for example, someone your age who will be collecting a traditional check-a-month company pension can likely afford to invest more aggressively than someone who won’t be.

That said, to the extent a consensus exists, you’re right that it’s in the neighborhood of 60% to 70% stocks and 40% to 30% bonds for someone in his or her mid 50s. For example, if you check out the target-date retirement funds designed for someone your age by big investment firms like Fidelity, T. Rowe Price and Vanguard, you’ll find that they all fall within that range.

As you probably know, the rationale behind that sort of allocation is that someone at that age still usually needs stock exposure to grow his or her nest egg — after all, your savings have to take you not just to, but through, retirement — but also wants some bonds to provide a measure of stability and capital preservation.

So what you’re proposing is tilting the scale more toward stocks in hopes of revving up the growth component a bit to make up for the fact that you haven’t saved as much as you would have liked.

It’s a tempting strategy. After all, stocks have a good record of delivering higher returns than bonds over the long-term. And higher returns on the money you’ve already saved and on whatever new money you add translates to a bigger nest egg when you eventually retire.

But buying more stocks doesn’t automatically translate to higher returns. As we saw when stock prices plummeted from their peak in late 2007 to their low in early 2009, stocks can suffer devastating setbacks.

And those setbacks, as well as other factors, can sometimes result in disappointing, rather than superior, performance over longer periods as well. Over the past 10 years, the broad U.S. stock market has returned about 1% a year. The U.S. investment-grade bond market, on the other hand, has gained roughly 6% a year.

Some people, looking at stocks’ dismal returns over the past decade, conclude retirement investors should avoid stocks altogether. As I noted in a recent column, I think that’s going too far.

At the same time, though, I think it’s important to be realistic about the potential risk in stocks, which, as I’ve previously pointed out, may be greater than we previously believed.

So I guess the question is how much, if at all, do you want to push it?

One way to think about that question is to look at how different mixes of stocks and bonds performed in the last downturn and ask yourself how you would feel going through a similar experience in the future.

A portfolio consisting of 65% stocks and 35% bonds — that is to say, roughly in the middle of the consensus 60% to 70% stocks for someone 55 years old –would have lost a bit over 20% in 2008.

How would someone investing as a 40-year-old have done? Using target-date funds as a guide, someone who’s 40 and investing for retirement might have a portfolio 85% in stocks and 15% in bonds. That blend, by contrast, would have been down a little over 30% in 2008.

Of course, it may be hard to realistically evaluate today how you might feel sustaining a 20% loss vs. 30%. After all, you now have the perspective of 20/20 hindsight and the comfort of knowing that, even though stocks haven’t climbed back to their 2007 levels, the market has had a pretty good run from the lows of 2009.

If you remember back to those days in late 2008 and early 2009, however, the outlook for stocks and economy was dicey at best — and anxiety was running high among retirement investors who feared their nest eggs might stay shrunken for a long, long time.

I think you also need to consider whether, just because there’s no mandatory retirement age at your company, you’re really in the same position from an investment standpoint as a worker 10 to 15 years younger than you.

I don’t think you are.

Although you’re implying you have the ability to work much longer (which in turn implies a longer investing time horizon, more time to recover from stock downturns and a portfolio with more stocks), that doesn’t mean you’ll actually be able to do it.

As stable as your job may be, you could be laid off and have trouble finding work at a comparable salary (which was the experience of many older workers in the past recession). Or a medical issue could force you out of work.

For that matter, despite your willingness now, you might not feel as up to another five or 10 years on the job when you hit your mid 60s. Indeed, the Employee Benefit Research Institute’s 2010 Retirement Confidence Survey found that 41% of retirees said they left work earlier than planned. So I don’t think you should assume that you’ll have the same investing time horizon as someone a decade and a half younger than you.

All of which is to that while a little fine-tuning around the edges with your allocation might be okay, I’d think at least twice before I moved anywhere close to the higher-octane stocks-bonds mixes that are typical for investors in their 40s. And, in fact, before you even consider fooling around with your asset allocation strategy, I think there are two other moves you should try.

The first is increasing the amount you contribute to your 401(k) and other retirement accounts. Yes, I know it’s not as instinctively appealing as having higher investment returns bail you out for falling behind. But it’s a much surer way to ratchet up the value of your nest egg.

Besides, if you really think you might be able to work well beyond normal retirement age, say into your 70s, then you’ve still got a good 15 or more years to sock bucks away. Put your mind to it, and you can accumulate a hefty sum over that stretch from new contributions alone, not to mention the extra years of growth in whatever you’ve managed to save already.

Finally, see whether you can eke out higher returns by shaving some of your portfolio’s costs. If you’re like many mutual fund investors, you may be paying 1% or more a year in annual fund expenses.

By looking to index funds or ETFs, you can easily find investments with yearly tabs of 0.20%, or even less in some cases. Lower fees don’t automatically mean you’ll net higher returns, but it increases your odds. For a list of index funds, ETFs and other reasonably priced options, check out our MONEY 70 list of recommended funds.

So before you buck the conventional wisdom and get all "mavericky" in your investment strategy, consider these other approaches. You may find that you can actually improve your retirement prospects a lot more without taking on additional investment risk. 

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Toyota Motor Corp. said Thursday it was recalling more than 400,000 older-model vehicles sold in the United States, citing potential steering-related problems in both.

The Japanese automaker said the recall would affect 373,000 Toyota Avalons manufactured between 2000 to 2004. The company said the vehicle’s steering lock bar could break under certain conditions, increasing the risk of a crash.

Toyota (TM) also cited steering issues in its recall of some 39,000 Lexus LX 470 vehicles. The company said that if the vehicle experienced a severe impact to the front wheels, such as striking a pothole, the steering shaft could disengage over time. The recall only affects vehicles from model years 2003 to 2007.

The company said it was not aware of any accidents related to its Lexus LX 470.

The latest recalls came less than two weeks after the company was subpoenaed by a federal grand jury to produce documents related to steering problems in its vehicles.

The company has also been undertaking a massive effort to rebuild its image in the wake of a number of quality and safety problems that came to light earlier this year.

In recent months, the automaker has recalled more than 8 million vehicles worldwide for a variety of safety issues, including possible unintended acceleration and problems with anti-lock brake software.

"Toyota is continuing to work diligently to address safety issues wherever they arise and to strengthen our global quality assurance operations so that Toyota owners can be confident in the safety of their vehicles," Steve St. Angelo, Toyota chief quality officer for North America, said in a statement Thursday.

The company said it would begin to send out notifications in mid-August to owners of the vehicles affected by Thursday’s recall. Drivers will be able to bring their car to a local dealer to have the vehicle fixed at no charge. 

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Solutia Inc. said its second-quarter profit more than tripled from last year’s period, as sales rose more than 26 percent.

For the quarter ended June 30, the company reported net income of $41 million compared to net income of $10 million in last year’s quarter, primarily due to increased sales volumes across all segments, partially offset by higher raw material costs and higher interest expense.

Solutia’s net sales in the recent quarter were $518 million compared to $410 million in the quarter ended June 30, 2009.

During the recent quarter, Solutia bought Novomatrix a Singapore-based maker of window films for the automotive and architectural markets, for $73 million. Solutia also bought the Vista solar product business (now called Vistasolar) from German firm Etimex Holding for $294 million.

The company had said in April that it will stop making a key ingredient for a rubber compound used in making tires, called primary accelerators, in the second half of this year Internet Payday loans. Solutia said Monday that it took a $38 million charge in the second quarter for restructuring costs related to closing that business.

Solutia said it expects steady second-half sales volume with a normal fourth-quarter seasonal slowdown. The company said it expects average selling prices in the second half of the year to be consistent with the second quarter, and full-year revenue growth of from 10 percent to 15 percent versus last year.

St. Louis-based Solutia Inc. (NYSE: SOA), led by Chairman, President and Chief Executive Jeffry Quinn, develops specialty chemicals, fibers, fluids and other performance products.

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