Fuel efficiency rules aimed at advanced vehicle

The Obama administration is setting tough gas mileage standards for new cars and trucks, spurring the next generation of fuel-sipping gas-electric hybrids, efficient engines and electric cars.
The heads of the Transportation Department and the Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday were signing final rules requiring 2016 model-year vehicles to meet fuel efficiency targets of 35.5 miles per gallon combined for cars and trucks, an increase of nearly 10 mpg over current standards set by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
The EPA, which received the power to regulate carbon dioxide emissions in a 2007 Supreme Court ruling, will set a tailpipe emissions standard of 250 grams (8.75 ounces) of carbon dioxide per mile for vehicles sold in 2016, or the equivalent of what would be emitted by vehicles meeting the mileage standard. The EPA is issuing its first rules ever on vehicle greenhouse gas emissions.
President Barack Obama, previewing the plan Wednesday, said it marked a reversal "after decades in which we have done little to increase auto efficiency." Obama said the standards would "reduce our dependence on oil while helping folks spend a little less at the pump."
Each auto company will have a different fuel-efficiency target, based on its mix of vehicles. Automakers that build more small cars will have a higher target than car companies that manufacture a broad range of cars and trucks. The standard could be as low as 34.1 mpg by 2016 because automakers are expected to receive credits for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in other ways, including preventing the leaking of coolant from air conditioners.
Obama said the new requirements will save 1.8 billion barrels of oil over the life of the program, which will cover the 2012-16 model years. The new standards move up goals set in a 2007 energy law, which required the auto industry to meet a 35 mpg average by 2020.
A NHTSA official familiar with the plan, who was not authorized to speak publicly before Thursday's announcement, said the requirements would add about $1,000 per new vehicle by 2016 but would pay back that investment within three years. The rule is expected to save more than $3,000 over the life of the vehicle through better gas mileage.
Environmental groups have sought curbs on greenhouse gas emissions, blamed for global warming, and challenged the Bush administration for blocking a waiver request from California to pursue more stringent air pollution rules than required by the federal government. The request was granted by the Obama administration last year.
"The standards forthcoming under the 'clean car peace treaty' are a good deal for consumers, for companies, for the country and for the planet," said David Doniger, climate policy director for the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Automakers have been working on an assortment of fuel-efficient technologies, including hybrids, electric cars and technologies that shut off an engine's cylinders when full power isn't needed.
Nissan is releasing its electric car, the Leaf, later this year, while General Motors is introducing the Chevrolet Volt, which can go 40 miles on battery power before an engine kicks in to generate power. Ford is bringing its "EcoBoost" line of direct-injection turbocharged engines, which provide a 20 percent increase in fuel efficiency, to 90 percent of its models by 2013.
Under the rules, automakers could earn credits by producing alternative fuel vehicles and by producing advanced technology cars.

David Mikael Taclino
Inyu Web Development and Design
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Custom may explain dumping of dead babies in China

Rural traditions of abandoning dead infants because they're considered bad luck may have played a role in the case of 21 babies' bodies found along a river in eastern China, apparently dumped by hospital mortuary workers.
The little bodies — at least one stuffed in a yellow bag marked "medical waste" — were found floating and strewn along the bank of a river on the outskirts of Jining city in Shandong province last weekend.
Police detained two mortuary workers at a hospital who were paid by the babies' families to dispose of the bodies.
One question that arose Wednesday was why would the parents of so many dead children simply abandon their remains?
Hospital procedures normally call for families to take away dead infants, the Shandong province-based Qilu Evening News reported. However, the death of a young child is considered bad luck among some rural families, and the body is often abandoned or buried in unmarked graves.
"According to customs in some places, dead infants are not considered to be a family member and will not be buried in family tombs," said Cao Yongfu, professor with Medical Ethic Institute of Shandong University.
Some families would rather leave the body at the hospital or pay someone to bury it, Ma Guanghai, deputy dean at Shandong University's School of Philosophy and Social Development, was cited as saying by the official Xinhua News Agency.
Some local customs go even further. When a baby dies, the family burns its clothes, toys and photos — anything that would remind them the child ever existed. The traditions stem from China's agrarian past, where child deaths were common, and not considered something to dwell on.
Though the case has shocked the public, Cao said a more pressing issue was developing clear regulations on how the bodies of infants and fetuses should be disposed.
"It's necessary for China to issue a legal explanation on how to deal with the bodies of dead infants and fetuses, otherwise it is possible there will be loopholes in hospital management," he said.

David Mikael Taclino
Inyu Web Development and Design
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Japan to buy Electric Cars

Japan's first mass-market electric car went on sale in showrooms Thursday as the futuristic technology becomes more affordable amid a burgeoning price war.
The four-seater bubble-shaped i-MiEV from Mitsubishi Motors Corp., Japan's fifth-biggest automaker, costs 2.8 million yen ($30,500) after government incentives are figured into the price of 4 million yen ($43,000).
Proud i-MiEV buyer Chitoshi Okunuki, 72, placed an advance order at a higher price in August and was thrilled at Mitsubishi's decision Tuesday to cut the price by 620,000 yen ($6,700). That came the same day rival Nissan Motor Co. announced it will take orders for its own electric car, the Leaf.
"I'm so happy," said Okunuki, who runs a convenience store, during a visit to a Mitsubishi showroom. "It's so quiet, and there are no emissions."
With concerns about the environment growing, electric vehicles — long an expensive, experimental technology used in Japan mainly by government-related groups — are suddenly all the rage.
The key to their becoming widespread is certain to be pricing, and that is likely to continue a downward slide as competition intensifies.
Nissan, Japan's No. 3 automaker, said the Leaf, due to go on sale in December, will cost 3.8 million yen ($40,500) but that will fall to 3 million yen ($32,000) with government incentives.
The Leaf gets even cheaper in the U.S. at just over $25,000 because of a $7,500 federal tax credit for electric vehicles.
Mitsubishi says it got about 2,000 advance orders in Japan for the i-MiEV, which stands for Mitsubishi innovative Electric Vehicle. It is based on the company's gasoline-powered "i" minicar.
Also this week, Chinese automaker BYD started retail sales of its new electric car, the F3DM, for the equivalent of $25,000.
Ford Motor Co. is planning an all-electric Focus compact car for sale in late 2011.
Toyota Motor Corp., the world's biggest automaker, is planning an electric car for 2012. Prices have not been announced, but they are likely to be more within reach than the two-seater Tesla Roadster's $100,000.
Yasuaki Okamoto, auto analyst with Okasan Securities Co. in Tokyo, said Nissan, with partner Renault SA of France, was taking the lead in the pricing war in electric vehicles.
"It's a big trend that has been set into motion," he said. "The two bottleneck issues for electric vehicles are pricing and the availability of recharging stations."
The i-MiEV, with a cruising range of 160 kilometers (100 miles) on a single charge, can be recharged from a regular home outlet but that takes 14 hours.
It takes 30 minutes to recharge from a more powerful charging station. But in Japan there are only 60 nationwide.
All that doesn't bother Okunuki a bit. He was excited trying out the charging outlet on the side of the car, located where the gas cap would be in a regular car.
"It's best if the charging stations were everywhere like a gas stand," he said. "But I don't need to go far. I'm old."
He can't walk off with his car just yet. It is due to be delivered by the end of May.
Mitsubishi plans to sell 4,000 i-MiEV vehicles in Japan for the fiscal year through March 2011 and 5,000 more overseas, mainly in Europe. Sales begin in North America in 2011, according to Tokyo-based Mitsubishi.
Nissan is hoping to produce 50,000 Leafs worldwide in the car's first year.
Tsuyoshi Mizuochi, who manages a Mitsubishi dealership, said the i-MiEV has become a relatively easy sell since owners will enjoy lower costs in the long run because electricity is cheaper than gasoline.
"We would like to push the theme that we are protecting the earth," he said. "We are at a turning point when electric vehicles are going to become more commonplace."

David Mikael Taclino
Inyu Web Development and Design
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Six powers to start work on Iran sanctions: U.S. envoy

Six world powers, including China, agreed on Wednesday to start drawing up new sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program in the next few days, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said.
U.S. envoy Susan Rice was confirming what diplomats had told Reuters -- that senior foreign ministry officials from Britain, the United States, France, Russia and Germany had reached agreement with China during a conference call.
"China has agreed to sit down and begin serious negotiations here in New York with the others in the (group of six) ... as a first step toward getting the entire Security Council on board with a tough sanctions regime against Iran," Rice said in an interview on CNN television.
"This is progress, but the negotiations have yet to begin in earnest," she said. "We have shared our thoughts on what elements should be in a tough U.N. Security Council resolution. We're gratified that ... now we're going to get down to the nuts and bolts of negotiations. That's what's necessary."
Rice said Washington and its allies will work "intensively in the coming weeks to build the strongest possible agreement to a set of sanctions that will put real pressure on Iran."
President Barack Obama said on Tuesday that he wants a new Iran sanctions resolution adopted within weeks, not months.
China's agreement is important because it has veto power on the Security Council, as do the United States, Britain, France and Russia.
The Western powers in the group hope to organize a meeting of the six powers at the ambassadorial level in New York in the coming days to get the process of drafting a sanctions resolution going, several diplomats told Reuters.
The basis for negotiations, diplomats said, will be a U.S. sanctions proposal that Washington agreed with its European allies and passed on to Russia and China around a month ago.
NEGOTIATIONS COULD DRAG ON FOR MONTHS
Moscow, like Beijing, reluctantly backed three previous rounds of U.N. sanctions against Tehran for refusing to halt enrichment as demanded by five Security Council resolutions. Iran rejects Western charges that its atomic program is aimed at developing bombs and says enrichment is a sovereign right.
Tehran insists its nuclear program is intended only to peacefully generate electricity.
Diplomats say China has been slowly and reluctantly falling in line with the other powers involved in the negotiations on Iran by backing the idea of new U.N. sanctions against Tehran, though Beijing, like Moscow, wants any new steps to be weak.
Although the four Western powers would like a resolution to be adopted next month, before a month-long U.N. conference on the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in May, diplomats say the negotiation process could drag on at least until June as China and Russia work hard to dilute any proposed punitive steps.
But Moscow, Western diplomats say, has become increasingly impatient with Iran's rejection of a U.N.-backed nuclear fuel offer that would have moved Tehran's low-enriched uranium stocks to Russia and France to process it into fuel for an aging research reactor that produces medical isotopes.
Both Russia and China have privately urged Iran to accept the offer as a goodwill gesture, but Western diplomats said Beijing and Moscow did not receive any clear responses from Tehran. That, diplomats say, is one of the reasons China agreed to join negotiations on a new U.N. sanctions resolution.
"China said it was on the same page as Russia," a diplomat said, referring to Wednesday's conference call.
The U.S.-drafted sanctions proposal would expand an existing U.N. blacklist, with a new focus on Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps members and firms it controls.
A French call for energy-sector sanctions was left out of the U.S. draft, as was a proposed ban on transactions linked to Iran's central bank, which Germany opposed, diplomats said.
But it does call for expanding existing limits on arms trade with Iran into a full weapons embargo, with an inspection regime similar to one in place for North Korea and would blacklist several Iranian shipping firms.
 
David Mikael Taclino
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Google: Online attacks aimed at Vietnam's critics

Google Inc. accused Vietnam on Wednesday of stifling political dissent with cyberattacks, the latest complaint by the Internet giant against a communist regime following a public dispute with China over online censorship.
Like China, Vietnam tightly controls the flow of information and has said it reserves the right to take "appropriate action" against Web sites it deems harmful to national security.
The cyberattacks targeted "potentially tens of thousands," a posting on Google's online security blog said.
It said it was drawing attention to the Vietnam attacks because they underscored the need for the international community "to take cybersecurity seriously to help keep free opinion flowing."
Google apparently stumbled onto a scheme targeting Vietnamese-speaking Internet users around the world while investigating the surveillance of e-mail accounts belonging to Chinese human rights activists, one analyst suggested.
The attackers appear to have targeted specific Web sites and duped users into downloading malware programs, said Nart Villeneuve from The Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. That may have allowed the infiltration and surveillance of activists, he said.
"This kind of stuff happens all the time in China," said Villeneuve. "It has a chilling effect. It silences people."
Google engineer Neel Mehta wrote in the posting, "these attacks have tried to squelch opposition to bauxite mining efforts in Vietnam, an important and emotionally charged issue in the country."
The mining project involving a subsidiary of Chinese state-run aluminum company Chinalco is planned for Vietnam's Central Highlands and has attracted strong opposition.
Foes fear the mine would cause major environmental problems and lead to Chinese workers flooding into the strategically sensitive region.
The computer security firm McAfee, which has investigated the malware, also discussed the attacks in a blog posting Tuesday.
"We believe that the perpetrators may have political motivations and may have some allegiance to the government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam," wrote George Kurtz, McAfee's chief technology officer.
Vietnamese officials did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday.
Last fall, the government detained several bloggers who criticized the bauxite mine, and in December, a Web site called bauxitevietnam.info, which had drawn millions of visitors opposed to the mine, was hacked.
The malware apparently began circulating at about that time, according the McAfee blog. It said someone hacked into a Web site run by the California-based Vietnamese Professionals Society and replaced a keyboard program that can be downloaded from that site with a malicious program.
Google says its dispute with China was triggered by a hacking attack that emanated from the mainland and attempts to snoop on dissidents' e-mail.
Last week, Google shut down its search operations in China, Vietnam's northern neighbor, after complaints of cyberattacks and censorship there. Google now redirects search queries from China's mainland to the freer Chinese territory of Hong Kong.
On Tuesday, many users of the Chinese Google search engine experienced difficulties. Analysts suggested the troubles may be linked to the company's decision to move to Hong Kong.
Google initially said it was an in-house technical problem but later shifted its explanation, blaming the "Great Firewall" — the nickname for the network of filters that keep mainland China's Web surfers from accessing material the government deems sensitive.
The sudden disruption and lack of explanation fit with how the government has brought companies to heel previously in the heavily monitored Chinese Internet industry, analysts said.
"I don't think anyone should be surprised," said Bill Bishop, a Beijing Internet entrepreneur and author of the technology blog Digicha. Tuesday's problems were payback by the government, he said, because "Google humiliated China."

David Mikael Taclino
Inyu Web Development and Design
Creative Writer

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