September 2009

Toyota plans huge U.S. recall for dangerous floormats

Posted Tue, 09/29/2009 - 15:28 by admin

DETROIT/WASHINGTON (Reuters) –
Toyota Motor Corp said on Tuesday it will recall some 3.8 million vehicles because of the risk that a loose floormat could force down the accelerator, a problem suspected of causing crashes that killed five people.

"This is an urgent matter," said U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.

The U.S. government said it has received reports of 100 related incidents that include 17 crashes and 5 fatalities involving Toyota vehicles.

Toyota and U.S. safety regulators warned owners to remove all driver-side floor mats from eight Toyota and Lexus models manufactured in the last six years and sold in the United States, including its Prius hybrid, as an immediate safety precaution.

The U.S. safety recall would be the largest ever such step for Toyota, the top global automaker.

A cost estimate for the company's still-developing recall was not immediately available.

In August, an off-duty California state trooper and three members of his family were killed in the San Diego area in a crash of a 2009 Lexus ES350.

Before the crash, a passenger in the car had called 911 and told dispatchers that the accelerator was stuck and the car had reached 120 miles per hour (193 km per hour).

The recall will cover recent versions of the Camry and Avalon sedans, the Prius hybrid, the Tacoma and Tundra pickup trucks and luxury Lexus models, the IS250 and the IS350 as well as the ES350.

CALIFORNIA INVESTIGATION CONTINUES

The San Diego Sheriff's Department has not completed its investigation into the off-duty trooper's crash, a spokeswoman said. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has also sent investigators to look into the accident.

Toyota said it was waiting for a final report on the accident but wanted to act because of indications that a floormat may have been involved.

"Obviously the tragic accident in San Diego was certainly an eye opener for all of us and we've paid very diligent attention to moving forward to try to make sure none of us will be reliving that kind of a very tragic situation," Toyota spokesman Irv Miller.

Toyota said it would issue specific recall notices as soon as it had a plan to address each of the models affected.

NHTSA closed an investigation into all-weather floor mats in Toyota vehicles in 2007 that resulted in a recall of more than 50,000 vehicles.

Toyota's largest previous largest recall was in 2005 for a problem with steering rods. That recall covered about 900,000 vehicles, the automaker said.

More details on the safety advisory, including the vehicles covered, are available at the Toyota website http://www.toyota.com. Drivers can also call Toyota at 1-800-331-4331 or Lexus at 1-800-255-3987.

(Additional reporting by Kevin Krolicki and Bernie Woodall in Detroit and John Crawley in Washington; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)

Florida Homeowners Insurance

Posted Tue, 09/29/2009 - 13:00 by admin

Under the same situation, a "pay on behalf" policy, the insurance carrier would pay the claim and the insured (the homeowner) would not be out of pocket anything. Most modern liability insurance is written on the basis of "pay on behalf" language.

* Errors and omissions insurance: See "Professional liability insurance" under "Liability insurance".

Florida Homeowners Insurance

Pentagon May Have Overpaid Boeing, Report Says (CQPolitics.com)

Posted Tue, 09/29/2009 - 11:57 by admin

The Pentagon's contract-auditing agency has serious problems and it may have permitted Boeing Co. to recover from the government $271 million in "unallowable" costs, the Defense Department inspector general said in an Aug. 31 report made public Tuesday.

The agency has an "environment not conducive to performing quality audits," according to the inspector general's report, which had been requested by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., and John McCain of Arizona, the panel's top Republican.

The agency's woes might become an issue this week as the Senate debates the fiscal 2010 Defense appropriations bill. Aides said some senators are considering amendments that might address the audit problems.

In one of the most notable examples cited in the report, Boeing was allowed to keep $271 million under the Delta IV rocket program because a regional audit manager "did not protect the interests of the government." When the contractor was not responsive to requests for information, the regional manager allowed the funding and "inappropriately" required an underling to change audit results, the report said.

The agency is responsible for auditing contracts and providing accounting and financial advice to Defense Department organizations. In fiscal 2008, it audited $501 billion worth of contracts.

"Therefore, what it does or doesn't do well is of great consequence to the taxpayers," said Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, I-Conn., chairman the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.

The audit agency took flak from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in a 2008 audit and again at a hearing last week, at which the GAO testified about "widespread" problems that "require significant reform."

"It's atrocious," said Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla. "Several of those people ought to be fired."

2 US troops killed in Philippines blast

Posted Tue, 09/29/2009 - 10:27 by admin

MANILA, Philippines – Two U.S. sailors and a Filipino marine were killed Tuesday in a roadside bomb believed planted by al-Qaida-linked militants. They were the first American troops to die in an attack in the Philippines in seven years.
A senior Filipino commander said, however, that the attack was unlikely to shake the Americans' resolve to fight Muslim extremists in the country.
The Philippine military suspects Abu Sayyaf militants were behind the attack against the U.S. Navy service members on Jolo island, the same group that killed an American Marine with a nail-laden motorcycle bomb in nearby Zamboanga city in October 2002. U.S. counterterrorism troops were deployed to the region earlier that year.
A Filipino marine also was killed and two others were wounded in the blast on Jolo, a poor, predominantly Muslim region where the Americans have been providing combat training and weapons to Filipino troops battling the Abu Sayyaf.
"I don't think they'll contemplate leaving," said Maj. Gen. Benjamin Dolorfino, a regional military commander who oversees counterterrorism assaults in Jolo and nearby regions. "Terrorism threats are transnational, and the U.S. has a very strong commitment to fight it here."
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates assured the Philippines during a visit in June that Washington will continue to support the Southeast Asian nation's fight against terrorism.
Military spokesman Lt. Col. Romeo Brawner said a Philippine military convoy joined by U.S. troops was on its way to Kagay village in Jolo's Indanan township when it hit an explosive device. Troops are building two school buildings and digging artesian wells in Indanan, where militants have jungle strongholds.
In a statement, the U.S. Embassy said the deaths happened during a resupply mission for the school project.
TV footage showed the still-smoldering wreck of the Humvee, which flipped over in a grassy area in a coconut grove, apparently due to the impact of the powerful blast.
One of the Americans died at the scene, while another who was critically wounded in the blast died a short time later, Brawner told The Associated Press.
They were from the Naval Construction Battalions, or Seabees, which gather skilled craftsmen like electricians and carpenters into special military units. The Seabees were immediately pulled back from the school project in Indanan.
"They were not in combat," Brawner said. "These U.S. soldiers were there in the area to supervise the developmental projects in Indanan."
The troops were not identified pending notification of their families.
The Philippine government offered its condolences to the relatives of the slain troops and praised them for helping undertake civic projects and secure peace on Jolo, about 590 miles (950 kilometers) south of Manila, the capital.
Brawner said no suspects were immediately identified, but Dolorfino told The AP that Abu Sayyaf had likely planted the explosive. The well-armed group is blamed for numerous bombings, beheadings and kidnappings of Filipinos and foreigners in the south in recent years.
He said U.S troops have long been targets for militants in the south. Two weeks ago, a suspected Abu Sayyaf militant or sympathizer hurled a grenade near U.S. troops unloading supplies at Jolo's pier.
Abu Sayyaf often attempts to sabotage U.S. projects, which include school building construction, he said.
"They know that once education sets in, the villagers will be well-informed and hard to fool and to recruit," Dolorfino said.

Abu Sayyaf is believed to have about 400 fighters, to have received funds from al-Qaida and is suspected of sheltering militants from the larger Southeast Asian terror group Jemaah Islamiyah.

An estimated 600 U.S. troops are currently stationed in the Philippines, mostly in the southern front lines of the Philippine military's operations against the Abu Sayyaf group and Jemaah Islamiyah.

Dominican Republic Villa

Posted Tue, 09/29/2009 - 09:24 by admin

Dominican Republic Villa

Cap Cana is a tourism development with an investment of upwards of two billion dollars in the eastern lands of the Dominican Republic. This area renown for its great hotels and beaches, lacks exclusivity to the high upper class which Cap Cana hopes, in part, to offer. The area was conceived with the backing both financially and publicly of "elites" such as Donald Trump, Jack Nicklaus, and other holders.

Cap Cana's area includes more than one-hundred and twenty millon square meters of land, of which twenty-five million will be developed in its first phase. It also includes 8 kilometers of beach and coasts, 5 of which are considered to be among the most spectacular in the Caribbean, locally considered to be neck-in-neck to the beaches of Bahia de Las Aguilas (literally, Bay of the Eagles) located in the southwestern municipality of Perdernales- often referred by past visitors as some of the most beautiful in the world.

Can the Public Option Be Saved? (The Nation)

Posted Tue, 09/29/2009 - 09:21 by admin

The Nation -- Outside Washington, there is still a sense that a serious debate about health-care reform is going on.

In Washington, there is a good deal of fear among informed and engaged progressives that the debate may be done.

Yes, of course, something called "reform" might be enacted this year by a Congress where Democrats control both the House and Senate by overwhelming majorities and signed into law by a Democratic president who says reworking the health-care system is a top priority of his administration.

But the measure of whether this "reform" really does amount to the change promised by Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign now comes down to a simple question: Will whatever legislation is enacted create a sufficiently robust government-run "public option" to serve as an alternative to the expensive and restrictive offerings of the for-profit insurance industry?

The answer to that question is taking shape today on the powerful Senate Finance Committee, the last of five House and Senate committees that must advance a health care proposal before the real wrangling begins on Capitol Hill.

Committee chairman Max Baucus, the Montana Democrat who has been accused of doubling as an insurance-industry representative, has proposed a $900 billion plan that would require all Americans to obtain health insurance but that lacks the government-run public health insurance option that is the baseline demand of progressives who would prefer a single-payer "Medicare for All" reform.

Two key Democratic members of the finance committee, West Virginia's Jay Rockefeller and New York's Chuck Schumer, will attempt today to get it to back some form of a public option.

That would bring the finance committee's proposal more in line with proposals already backed by three House committees and the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

If they succeed, that will make negotiations to reconcile the differing proposals, which have already begun in the House, a good deal easier. And the public option -- perhaps even in a form similar to Medicare, with lower premium costs and greater flexibility -- would remain a reasonably viable prospect.

If Rockefeller and Schumer fail, the public option will be dealt a serious blow -- and with it the prospects for anything akin to real reform.

To succeed, Rockefeller and Schumer must win broad support from the 13 Democrats on the committee. (The 10 Republicans are expected to vote "no" on the three amendments being offered by Rockefeller and Schumer.)

That won't be easy, as the finance committee's Democratic membership includes a number of senators who have erred on the side of caution when it comes to reform, including North Dakota's Kent Conrad, Arkansas' Blanche Lincoln and, of course, chairman Baucus.

The votes will be close.

The stakes could not be much higher.

Like this article? Try 4 issues of The Nation at home (and online) FREE.

Barbra Streisand gets nostalgic on latest CD

Posted Tue, 09/29/2009 - 04:24 by admin

NEW YORK – When Barbra Streisand was a 19-year-old ingenue, she never had a problem performing in front of small crowds — it was her livelihood. The Brooklyn girl could only get gigs in clubs that sat a few dozen people.
As she got more famous she abandoned tiny clubs for grand stages. After a while, it got to the point where she couldn't perform for a small crowd, even if was an intimate gathering of friends and family.
"I can't get up and sing when I see faces, I just don't know how to react — I need blackness to go into my own kind of world," the 67-year-old said in an interview last week. "It's disturbing to see people, because if they're not totally enthralled I'm heartbroken, and I get sad and I go, 'Oh god, what am I doing wrong?'"
Streisand didn't have to worry about that kind of reaction during a weekend performance at the famed Village Vanguard, a tiny but historic jazz club in Manhattan's Greenwich Village where greats like Miles Davis performed (and where she tried, unsuccessfully, to perform nearly four decades ago).
She wowed a crowd that represented a fraction of her regular audiences, as about 90 fans, including VIPs like former President Bill Clinton, crammed the club.
But Streisand admitted she was a bit nervous in the days leading up to the event. So why do it?
"It's an adventure — and yet it's nostalgic, isn't it? It's going back to where I began," Streisand said.
The same can be said for her new CD, "Love is the Answer," which was released Tuesday. The album features Streisand singing classics like "In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning" and "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes."
But while the material may have been familiar to Streisand, the recording process was not.
For the first time, she worked with jazz artist Diana Krall as producer, and did it Krall's way. She performed with Krall's quartet of musicians first, then added orchestration later, instead of her usual practice of performing with an orchestra at the outset (the deluxe edition of the CD features both the quartet performances and the orchestra versions).
But even though Krall was the producer, Streisand — the album's executive producer — was clear about what she wanted.
"She's the director — she's Barbara Streisand," Krall said in an interview earlier this year. "She knows what she wants ... (and) it's been really fun to see her work with the band that I've worked with."
The album is Streisand's first studio production since 2005's "One Voice" with Barry Gibb. Streisand fretted that her voice might not be up to it. Construction on a house left her hoarse as she shouted over the din of the noise and giving directions.
"When I tried to sing I just couldn't make any of the notes," she said, as she recalled her voice before she started recording. "(But) for some reason .... all of the sudden I had a voice — what was exciting was that my voice was there."
Though Streisand recently toured Europe and famously returned to the stage for a tour in 2006 after a 12-year hiatus, she has no plans to tour for her new CD. She recalled a recent dinner with Coldplay's Chris Martin, where the rock singer told her his group tour their records for two years.
Streisand said she couldn't imagine doing that: "I get bored singing the same songs."
In fact, if she had her way, she wouldn't do much to promote her latest CD. She had only done a handful of interviews. This one took place not at her record label but at the Clinton Global Initiative, an annual event started by the former president that focuses on solving problems including climate change, poverty, health and education.
Yet Streisand took special satisfaction in her Vanguard gig. Despite some reports, Streisand says she never officially performed there decades ago but only auditioned briefly for the club's then owner, Max Gordon, when her good friend, Rick Edelstein, asked him to listen to Streisand (and got Miles Davis' band to stand in as backup).

When Gordon told Edelstein she was "too undisciplined" to hire, Edelstein replied: "But she's gonna really be big someday, you're gonna have to pay her big money."

Gordon's reply? "What do you know? You're a waiter."

The story still brings a smile to Streisand's face nearly 40 years later.

"At least I did audition there, and didn't get the job," she says. "Now I got the job."

___

On the Net:

http://www.barbrastreisand.com

Health Insurance

Posted Tue, 09/29/2009 - 03:42 by admin

Gambling transactions offer the possibility of either a loss or a gain. Gambling creates losers and winners. Insurance transactions do not present the possibility of gain. Insurance offers financial support sufficient to replace loss, not to create pure gain.

By creating a "security blanket" for its insureds, an insurance company may inadvertently find that its insureds may not be as risk-averse as they might otherwise be (since, by definition, the insured has transferred the risk to the insurer). This problem is known to the insurance industry as moral hazard. To reduce their own financial exposure, insurance companies have contractual clauses that mitigate their obligation to provide coverage if the insured engages in behavior that grossly magnifies their risk of loss or liability.

http://www.healthinsurancebrokeronline.com/

John Paulson mulls CIT and IndyMac merger: report

Posted Tue, 09/29/2009 - 03:12 by admin

(Reuters) –
Hedge fund manager John Paulson is considering merging troubled U.S. finance company CIT Group (CIT.N) with failed mortgage lender IndyMac Federal Bank (IDMCQ.PK), the New York Post said, citing people familiar with the matter.

According to the paper, the merger, a plan floated by a number of CIT's creditors including Paulson, is not part of any formal discussions between CIT and IndyMac.

The New York Post also said the plan of merger was one of several being discussed.

Paulson was part of the consortium that purchased IndyMac from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp earlier in the year.

A merger between the two banks would diversify IndyMac's portfolio from mortgages to commercial loans, since the CIT Group is one of the largest lenders to small and mid-sized businesses in the U.S, the paper added.

Representatives of CIT Group and John Paulson could not immediately be reached for comment outside regular U.S. business hours.

(Reporting by Biswarup Gooptu in Bangalore, editing by Will Waterman)

23 dead as Typhoon Ketsana roars into Vietnam

Posted Tue, 09/29/2009 - 03:06 by admin

HANOI, Vietnam – Typhoon Ketsana roared into central Vietnam on Tuesday, killing at least 23 people as it brought flooding and winds of up to 90 mph (144 kph), disaster officials said. Some 170,000 were evacuated from its path.
Ketsana left more than 200 dead across the northern Philippines as a weaker tropical storm.
After gathering strength over the South China Sea, the typhoon made landfall in midafternoon, about 37 miles (60 kilometers) south of Danang, according to the National Weather Center.
Two people in Quang Nam province were killed by falling trees, and another died when struck by a power line, said Nguyen Minh Tuan, a provincial disaster official.
"The rivers are rising and many homes are flooded, and several mountainous districts have been isolated by mudslides," Tuan said.
Quang Nam is the home of the ancient city of Hoi An, a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Another three died in Thua Thien Hue province, disaster official Le Minh said. A man was killed by a falling tree, a woman died in floodwaters and a 3-year-old drowned in a flooded home.
As the storm moved inland towards Laos, nine people died in Kon Tum province in the Central Highlands, including a family of five whose house was buried in a mudslide, disaster official Nguyen Van Vy said.
Deaths were also reported in Danang and the province of Binh Dinh and Quang Ngai.
Authorities evacuated 170,000 people from six central provinces as the typhoon approached and heavy winds began lashing Vietnam's central coast in the morning, officials said.
Rains and heavy winds began lashing the Vietnam coast Tuesday morning, knocking out electricity in some places.
"There's a blackout across our entire province," said Truong Ngoc Nhi, vice governor of Quang Ngai province, south of Danang. "Many streets are strewn with fallen trees and utility poles. It looks like a battlefield."
Vietnam Airlines canceled all flights to the tourist destinations of Danang and Hue.