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'Safe to drive': No flaws found in Toyota electronics

Category: , By Echo
WASHINGTON — A 10-month investigation found no flaws in Toyota (TM) vehicles' electronic systems that might cause unintended acceleration, but federal officials say they will propose new safety rules for all cars based on the engineers' findings.

"Toyota vehicles are safe to drive," Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Tuesday after recounting that he had advised his daughter last fall it was OK to buy a Toyota SUV.



The report confirmed an earlier Department of Transportation study of vehicle data recorders that found no electrical cause for Toyota acceleration incidents. Toyota has recalled nearly 12 million vehicles worldwide for mechanical defects — sticking gas pedals or floor mats that could jam pedals — that could lead to unintended acceleration.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, however, will propose rules this year to standardize keyless ignitions and require all new vehicles to have onboard data recorders and brake override systems that would stop the car if the brake and gas pedals are pressed at the same time.

"We believe this rigorous scientific analysis by some of America's foremost engineers should further reinforce confidence in the safety of Toyota and Lexus vehicles," said Steve St. Angelo, chief quality officer. He said he hoped this would end speculation about the safety of Toyota's "well-tested and well-designed" electronic throttle controls.

In the latest study, DOT safety officers and NASA engineers examined 280,000 lines of computer code, bombarded Toyotas with electromagnetic radiation and tested components of nine vehicles that were subjects of complaints to determine what, if any, conditions could trigger acceleration.

"Our detailed study cannot say it's impossible," but engineers find no electronic malfunction that led to acceleration, said Michael Kirsch, principal engineer at NASA's Engineering and Safety Center.

In many incidents, investigators found drivers hit the gas pedal instead of the brake, said NHTSA Deputy Administrator Ronald Medford, adding that there will be research on safer pedal placement.

The National Academy of Sciences is investigating sudden acceleration among all auto brands, and results are expected this fall.

Reports of unintended acceleration by Toyota vehicles soared after a crash that killed a California Highway Patrol officer and three family members near San Diego in August 2009. In a 911 call before the crash, a passenger said the Lexus sedan could not be stopped.

That crash was blamed on an incorrect and unattached floor mat. Toyota later concluded that floor mats in some of its models could jam the gas pedal and recalled 5.3 million vehicles.

In January 2010, Toyota also recalled 2.3 million vehicles to replace gas pedal assemblies that could stick.
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Protesters keep up momentum in Egypt

Category: , , , By Echo
Cairo, Egypt (CNN) -- Momentum held up on the 16th day of protests in Egypt as massive crowds once again jammed Cairo's Tahrir Square Wednesday, spilling over into a nearby compound housing government buildings.

The expanded protests forced the government to move parliament to another building, state television said.

Fueled by anger at the regime's incremental concessions and a denunciation of demands for President Hosni Mubarak's immediate exit, the rowdy demonstrations again drew thousands, many even from other cities and towns.

"The word 'departure,' which is repeated by some of the protesters, is against the ethics of the Egyptians because Egyptians respect their elders and their president," Vice President Omar Suleiman told a group of newspaper editors, according to a state-run news agency.

"It is also an insulting word not only to the president but for the people of Egypt as a whole," he said.

But the protesters chanted: "Mubarak is a thief." Mubarak, meanwhile, went about business as usual Wednesday, meeting with his foreign minister and Russia's deputy foreign minister, state-run television showed.

There were signs that the unrest had spread to other parts of Egypt.

Two people were killed and others were wounded in clashes with police in southern Egypt, state TV reported. A journalist said the hostilities stemmed from complaints about a member of the police force in Kharga.

In the northern town of Port Said, protesters attacked the governor's building over a land and housing dispute, state TV said.

The protesters returned in full force Wednesday, galvanized the day before by the tears and words of a Google executive who was seized by security forces and released Monday.
Perhaps the reluctant face of the movement, Wael Ghonim, told CNN Wednesday that "this is no longer the time to negotiate" with the Egyptian government -- not after hundreds of lives have been lost over the last two weeks.

Human Rights Watch has been able to document 302 deaths so far since protests erupted on January 25.

Ghonim, a Dubai-based marketing executive, is the administrator of a Facebook page called "We are all Khaled Said," named after an Alexandria activist who was allegedly beaten to death by police. The page is widely credited with triggering the first protest January 25.
Monday evening, Ghonim's tearful interview on an Egyptian television channel struck a chord with protesters. The next day, he addressed the crowds at Tahrir Square, inspiring Egyptians to keep up the fight.

"This country, I have said for a long time, this country is our country, and everyone has a right to this country," he said. "You have a voice in this country. This is not the time for conflicting ideas, or factions, or ideologies. This is the time for us to say one thing only, 'Egypt is above all else.'"

Another Facebook page created to authorize Ghonim to speak on behalf of the protesters has 150,000 fans.

Mubarak's regime said Tuesday that it had discussed a number of reforms with leaders of various opposition groups and appointed a panel to look into amending the constitution, But Wednesday, it again sought to portray the strongman's immediate exit as a recipe for chaos.
Suleiman said that "dialogue and mutual understanding are the first way to achieve stability" and that a coup would "mean miscalculated and rushed steps" and would lead to more "irrationality."

His words prompted a public show of frustration from the Obama administration.
A short White House statement on U.S. Vice President Joe Biden's telephone conversation with Suleiman used the word "immediate" or "immediately" four times.

Biden "urged that the transition produce immediate, irreversible progress that responds to the aspirations of the Egyptian people."

The statement also hinted the White House harbors doubts as to whether the Egyptian government is seriously committed to reforms, referring to the regime's statements as "what the government is saying it is prepared to accept."
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Political Punch

Category: , By Echo
First Lady Michelle Obama said she is not going to the Royal Wedding, just simply because she has not been invited.

“No, no I’m not going to go,” she said in an interview on Live With Regis and Kelly this morning, “I wasn’t invited.”

She added though if invited, she’ll go to the April 29th nuptials between Prince William and Kate Middleton at Westminster Abbey.

“Marriage is a personal private thing, they should invite who they want to invite,” Mrs. Obama said, “And if I get invited, I’ll go.”

There is some past precedent for American presidents being invited to Royal weddings. In 1981 Prince Charles and Princess Diana invited President Reagan and his wife Nancy. Mrs. Regan attended on behalf of the couple.

Mr. and Mrs. Obama first met Queen Elizabeth in April of 2009 during their visit to Buckingham Palace, but have not met Prince William or Ms. Middleton.

However, they passed on congratulations to the couple during an interview in November with ABC”s Barbara Walters.

“Congratulations and, hopefully, you will be as happy, as happily married as Barack and I,” Mrs. Obama said.

Mrs. Obama appeared on The Today Show, in addition to Live With Regis and Kelly coordinated with the one-year anniversary of her Let’sMove! campaign to combat childhood obesity.
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U.S. terror threat at highest since 9/11: Napolitano

Category: , , By Echo
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano warned Wednesday that the threat of terrorism against the United States was in some ways "at its most heightened state" since the September 11, 2001 attacks.

In addition to the threats by al Qaeda, the militant group behind the attacks nearly a decade ago, Napolitano said the country faces new threats from those inspired by the group and those already inside the United States.

"The threat continues to evolve and in some ways the threat today may be at its most heightened state since the attacks nearly 10 years ago," Napolitano told the U.S. House of Representatives' Homeland Security Committee.

She also said in her testimony to lawmakers that U.S. officials believed there may be individuals who want to carry out attacks already in the country and that "they could carry out acts of violence with little or no warning."

Individuals associated with al Qaeda and the Taliban have tried to carry out several attacks against the United States, including by a Nigerian man who allegedly tried to blow up a U.S. airliner with a bomb hidden in his underwear and another individual who plotted to attack the New York subway system.

"As I have said before, we cannot guarantee that there will never be another terrorist attack, and we cannot seal our country under a glass dome," Napolitano said. "However, we continue to do everything we can to reduce the risk of terrorism in our nation."

The head of the National Counterterrorism Center, Michael Leiter, told the committee that the al Qaeda off-shoot based in Yemen, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), at the moment represented the biggest threat to the United States.

Leiter said that the parent al Qaeda group, believed to be hiding in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region, was probably at its weakest point since the September 11, 2001 attacks but remained a "very determined enemy."

"I actually consider al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula with (Anwar) al-Awlaki as a leader within that organization probably the most significant risk to the U.S. homeland," Leiter told the committee, noting that it has a large Internet following.

Al-Awlaki, a Muslim cleric who is U.S. citizen but left the country in 2001 and joined al Qaeda in Yemen, has been tied to plots against the United States over the last two years.

The group has claimed responsibility for the 2009 Christmas Day thwarted attack aboard a U.S. airliner and a more recent attempt to blow up two U.S.-bound cargo planes with toner cartridges packed with explosives.

Al-Awlaki also communicated with a U.S. Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan who in November 2009 allegedly went on a shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, that killed 13 and wounded 32. Leiter said that it appeared to be more "inspiration rather than direction."
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Hundreds of Afghan fighters to lay down arms: NATO

Category: , , By News Updater
(Reuters) - As many as 900 Afghan fighters have agreed to lay down their arms, a senior NATO official said on Monday, but it is too soon to say if a drive to bring in low-level fighters can be decisive in curbing bloodshed.

Major General Philip Jones, who leads NATO support of the Afghan government's efforts to broker peace with various militant factions, said reintegration of local fighters had begun in earnest three or four months ago.

"The pace of people coming into the program has picked up ... but the initial steps are the first in a very long process of trying to build peace," Jones told reporters in Kabul.

"It's a tough and complicated and very human process at all levels, but of course it would be after 20 years of war and 10 years of insurgency."

Yet many thousands more full- or part-time fighters from the Taliban and other militant groups will need to halt their hostilities if Afghanistan is to emerge from bloodshed.

Violence reached its highest level last year in nearly a decade of fighting after the Taliban government was overthrown, as U.S. President Barack Obama sent some 30,000 extra soldiers to take on Taliban militants dug in across southern Afghanistan.

After heavy fighting last year, parts of the southern Taliban heartland are more secure and Afghan and Western officials are hoping to rout the Taliban's spring offensive.

But the Taliban, the al Qaeda-linked Haqqani network, and other groups remain well-armed and determined and bloodshed has intensified in eastern Afghanistan and spread to once-secure areas of the country's north and west.

RISK VS REWARD

Central to any lasting improvement will be support from Pakistanin reining in militants along the Afghan border and better governance in Afghanistan, where corrupt officials have driven many villagers into the arms of the insurgency.

President Hamid Karzai sees reconciliation with Taliban leaders as the key to ending the war but there are few signs of traction despite more than a year of support for high-level talks.

At the other end of the militant spectrum, Jones said at least 45 armed groups or possibly more were in talks with the government on lower-level or local reintegration.

Those who want to sign up must stop fighting, cut ties with other militants and embrace the Afghan constitution. They provide the government biometric information and surrender heavy weapons but are allowed to keep arms deemed essential for self-defense.

In return, they are promised some level of protection from militant retribution and may get limited assistance and aid projects for their communities.

Yet at least a dozen fighters who signed up with reintegration programs have been attacked or killed and the Taliban have made it clear that "anyone who steps into this process has a death sentence over their head", Jones said.


As foreign forces begin to withdraw gradually from July this year, an end to hostilities at the local level may be as important as decisions from Taliban leaders.

"It's not to say that peace in

our time is around the corner," Jones said. "But there is a huge sense of war weariness."
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