The leaders of France and Germany were carrying a new peace initiative to the Ukrainian and Russian capitals today, amid a flurry of high-level diplomacy to end what French President Francois Hollande called a war on Europe's edge.
	Hollande said he and German Chancellor Angela Merkel would travel to Kiev today and then to Moscow the following day, with a proposal "based on the territorial integrity of Ukraine."
	In a sign of the importance of the initiative and urgency of the situation, this will be Merkel's first trip to Moscow since Ukraine's conflict broke out a year ago.
	"It will not be said that France and Germany together have not tried everything, undertaken everything to preserve the peace," Hollande said.
	US Secretary of State John Kerry is also in Ukraine, to show support for the government amid a fast-moving flurry of international diplomacy.
	"Given the escalation of violence in the past days, the chancellor and President Hollande are intensifying their months-long ...

French, German leaders head to Ukraine with peace initiative

PTI Automatic

Takata Corp, the Japanese seatbelt and air-bag maker at the center of a defect scandal, is expecting more red ink for the fiscal year through March.
	It is projecting a USD 264 million loss, worse than the previous forecast for a USD 214 million loss, despite higher sales expected for the fiscal year.
	Tokyo-based Takata is under fire for air bag inflators that can explode, shooting out metal and plastic pieces. At least five deaths and dozens of injuries have been linked to the problem worldwide.
	Ten automakers have recalled about 12 million vehicles in the US and about 19 million globally for problems with the air bags. The company is still trying to determine the exact cause of the problem.
	Takata said that it was working with the automakers to deal with the recalls and the expenses. It has insurance to deal with much of the cost.
	But it acknowledged it was unable to assess the possible future costs of the many lawsuits it faces over the defects, as well as from possible fines ..

Takata expects worse red ink amid global air-bag woes

German car and truck maker Daimler AG says net profit fell 29 per cent in the fourth quarter as the company set aside 600 million euros for potential costs from a European Union anti-trust investigation of truck makers.
	Net profit for the October to December quarter fell to 1.187 billion euros from 1.676 billion in the year-earlier quarter. Revenue rose 11 per cent to 35.749 billion euros.
	The company's full-year profit figures nonetheless beat analyst estimates, and Daimler said it would raise its dividend to shareholders and give fat profit-sharing checks to its workers.
	The maker of Mercedes-Benz luxury cars said today it made 7.29 billion euros in 2014, a decrease of 16 per cent from 2013 when Daimler had gains from selling its stake in aerospace company EADS. Sales rose 10 per cent for the Mercedes brand.
	Excluding one-time effects such as the EADS sale and the set-aside for possible anti-trust penalties, earnings rose for the full year. The company said it would increase its 

Daimler Q4 earnings dip 29 per cent on anti-trust set-aside

South Korean electronics giant Samsung Electronics Co has started domestic sales of high-end televisions powered by its Tizen operating system and plans to add washing machines, fridges and other appliances to the range of products that use the software.
	Samsung said sales of Tizen-powered ultra-HD TVs began today in South Korea. The new TVs come in four sizes from 55 inches diagonally to 88 inches. The smallest model costs 5.49 million won.
	The company's smartphones and tablets rely on Google's Android operating system despite its efforts to develop Tizen as an alternative.
	Currently Samsung is focusing on pushing the Tizen OS into living rooms and eventually into kitchens and other corners of the home.
	Kim Hyun-seok, head of Samsung's TV business, said all of Samsung's Internet-connected TVs will be powered by Tizen this year as well as refrigerators, washing machines, air conditioners and robotic vacuum cleaners.
	At a press conference, Samsung executives emphasised what ...

Samsung launches Tizen-powered TVs in home market

The pilot in TransAsia Airways Flight 235 said "mayday, mayday, engine flameout" moments before the propjet banked sharply and crashed into a river, aviation officials said today, but they declined comment on a possible cause for the accident.
	Video images of the plane's final moments in the air captured on car dashboard cameras do not appear to show any flames as it turned sharply, with its wings going vertical and clipping a highway bridge before plunging into the Keelung River yesterday, killing at least 31 people.
	Fifteen people were injured, and the search continued for 12 people still missing.
	Taiwan's Civil Aeronautical Administration released a snippet of audio including the pilot's mayday call, and an agency official who declined to be named confirmed the mayday distress call today but did not say how it might relate to a cause for the crash.
	Both the administration and the airline, Taipei-based TransAsia Airways, declined to speculate on causes for the crash at about ...

Mayday call issued before Taiwan plane crash that killed 31

An American Airlines flight attendant has been arrested after 700 pounds (317.5 kilograms) of coins intended for UNICEF were found in his car at Kennedy International Airport.
	A Port Authority police spokesman said yesterday 56-year-old Marco Costa was arrested January 31 on possession of stolen property and other charges.
	Spokesman Joe Pentangelo says the Miami, Florida, man collected USD 2,900 in Euros, USD 1,800 in British pounds and USD 150 in US coins from passengers as part of a charitable partnership with the United Nations children's agency.
	He says bags holding the money in a car sagging low to the ground were found in October.
	A spokeswoman says the airline is working with investigators. UNICEF says it values its 20-year partnership with American Airlines.
	Lawyers for Costa didn't return a message seeking comment.

Flight attendant in US stole USD 5K intended for UNICEF

Cricket Australia has confirmed former Australia batsman Mike Hussey will work with South Africa in a consultancy role during the Cricket World Cup.
     In a post on its website today, Cricket Australia says that Hussey's manager had confirmed the 2007 World Cup-winner will attend some training sessions and give advice to the Proteas on how to play in Australian conditions.
     South Africa coach Russell Domingo had earlier announced the appointment.
     Domingo said: "We've had some discussions with Mike Hussey about him joining us on a consultancy process."
     He said the 39-year-old Hussey was "a middle order batter of immense experience and knows conditions very well in Australia. He'll play a very low-key role in the background.

Mike Hussey to work with Proteas at Cricket World Cup

A San Francisco man was swiftly convicted on charges he created a multimillion-dollar marketplace for illegal drugs and other contraband on the Internet by promising buyers and sellers anonymity through use of encryption and bitcoins.
	Ross William Ulbricht was convicted of seven drug and conspiracy counts yesterday. The Manhattan federal court jury's verdict came after just over three hours of deliberations and one day after prosecutors urged jurors to follow Ulbricht's "digital fingerprints" as the mastermind of a website known as Silk Road.
	Ulbricht's supporters expressed outrage after the guilty verdict was announced. After the jury left the room, one shouted, "Ross is a hero!" Another called out to him: "It's not over Ross. We love you."
	The boyish-looking Ulbricht, 30, waved toward the spectators as he was led out of court. His mother, Lyn, exited complaining that the defense had been barred from putting on evidence that would help prove its claims that her son was a harmless, 

US man convicted of operating underground website Silk Road

A three-time convicted robber who helped engineer the biggest prison break in Texas history was executed yesterday evening for killing a suburban Dallas police officer while the notorious gang was on the run.
	Donald Newbury, 52, became the third member of the group known as the "Texas 7" executed for the fatal shooting of 29-year-old Aubrey Hawkins, a police officer who interrupted the fugitives' robbery of a sporting goods store on Christmas Eve in 2000.
	The slaying occurred 11 days after the convicts escaped. The gang was captured a month later in Colorado.
	Asked to make a final statement, he mumbled: "I would. That each new indignity defeats only the body. Pampering the spirit with obscure merit. I love you all. That's it."
	As the lethal dose of pentobarbital took effect, he closed his eyes, then took a deep breath and began snoring. After about a dozen snores, each a bit quieter, he stopped all movement.
	He was pronounced dead 11 minutes later, at 6:25 p.M. About two dozen ...

Texas executes 'Texas 7' prison escapee for officer's death

The UN Security Council has condemned "in the strongest terms" last week's killing of a Spanish peacekeeper in southern Lebanon.
	Yesterday's statement comes a week after Cpl Francisco Javier Soria Toledo was killed during the Israeli military's exchange of fire with the Lebanese militant Hezbollah group in a disputed border area.
	Spain's UN ambassador quickly blamed Israel, and a UN diplomat has said Israel apologised through several sources, including an apology from its ambassador in Madrid to Spain's foreign minister.
	A senior UN official said a UN technical investigation on the ground, to determine the facts of what happened, should be completed in the next three days. The UN is also immediately launching a board of inquiry to look into the wider aspects of the incident.
	The violence along Lebanon's border, which also killed two Israeli soldiers, was the deadliest escalation on the disputed frontier since the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel.
	A council diplomat said ...

UN Security Council condemns killing of Spanish peacekeeper

North Korea's foreign minister is demanding that the UN secretary-general tell member states that a resolution targeting the country's bleak human rights record is illegal and based on lies.
	The letter from Foreign Minister Ri Su Yong, obtained by The Associated Press, says North Korea will be willing to "actively engage ourselves in talks and cooperation in the field of human rights" if the resolution is withdrawn.
	North Korea was infuriated when the UN General Assembly late last year approved a resolution that said the country's human rights situation should be referred to the International Criminal Court and that leader Kim Jong Un could himself be held accountable.
	But ever since a prominent North Korean defector last month said he had changed important parts of his story, North Korea has said anything based on his testimony, including a groundbreaking UN commission of inquiry report last year that interviewed scores of defectors, cannot be trusted.
	North Korea has called the .

North Korea to UN: Human rights resolution is illegal

The global chemical weapons watchdog has condemned the use of chlorine as a weapon in Syria as a breach of international law and said those responsible should be brought to justice.
	The executive council of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons expressed "serious concern" yesterday at a fact-finding mission's recent report that concluded "with a high degree of confidence" that chlorine was unleashed on three villages in northern Syria from April to August last year, killing 13 people.
	"This decision makes it absolutely clear that chemical weapons are illegal, and that their use will not be tolerated under any circumstances," the organisation's director-general, Ahmet Uzumcu, said in a statement.
	Syria joined the OPCW in 2013 and declared a 1,300-ton chemical weapon arsenal that has since been destroyed.
	However, chlorine is not a chemical that has to be declared to the OPCW because it is also used for regular purposes in industry.
	The fact-finding mission's ...

Chemical weapons watchdog condemns chlorine use in Syria

Declaring that the Internet must not be taken over by big business interests, a top US regulator today proposed dramatically expanding the government's power to oversee Internet service providers and establishing new rules that would prohibit companies from blocking or slowing data.
	Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler's proposal was a victory for consumer advocates who support "net neutrality," the idea that Internet providers allow data to move across its networks without interference. Open Internet rules had been in place but were recently knocked down by a federal court.
	Wheeler's approach attempts to erase any legal uncertainty by reclassifying the Internet as a telecommunications service and regulating it much like telephones. The rules would apply to both wireless and wired services. Republicans and industry officials say that would discourage investment and increase taxes. The FCC will vote Feb 26 on the proposal.
	"It is counterproductive because heavy ...

US official proposes regulating Internet like phone service

Israel's ambassador to the United States has gotten an earful from a half-dozen House Democrats angered by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's acceptance of a Republican invitation to address Congress next month.
	Ron Dermer met privately with seven Jewish Democrats today to discuss Netanyahu's plans for a March 3 speech on Iran.
	A senior congressional aide says the lawmakers complained about the escalating partisanship surrounding the speech.
	House Speaker John Boehner's invitation came with the Obama administration in negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program. Boehner's move has angered the White House and Democrats.
	The aide spoke was not authorized to publicly discuss private sessions and spoke condition of anonymity.

Dems give Israeli ambassador earful over Netanyahu speech

The deadly crash of a TransAsia plane into a river in Taiwan is again focusing the world's attention on the safety challenges facing fast-growing Asian airlines.
	TransAsia has been adding new routes rapidly since the Taiwanese carrier went public in 2011. TransAsia and others like it are rushing to keep up with a travel boom driven by the region's growing middle class.
	The ease and increasing affordability of flying helps fuel economic growth and a better lifestyle for Asian consumers. But as airlines carry more passengers across increasingly crowded skies, they are also racing to train enough pilots.
	"The demand is almost exceeding the supply," says John M Cox, who spent 25 years flying for US Airways and is now CEO of consultancy Safety Operating Systems.
	Quickly-growing airlines need to maintain standards as they hire more pilots, maintenance workers, dispatchers and flight attendants. Cox says the Asian carriers are currently meeting those marks, but it's a big ...

Rapidly-growing Asian airlines race to find qualified pilots

A former University of Pittsburgh Medical Center researcher has been sentenced to a mandatory term of life in prison without possibility of parole in the cyanide poisoning death of his neurologist wife.
	Sixty-six-year-old Robert Ferrante was convicted in November of first-degree murder in the April 2013 death of 41-year-old Dr Autumn Klein. Prosecutors said he laced her energy drink with cyanide.
	The victim's mother, Lois Klein, said in a statement read in court today by an assistant prosecutor that the murder had robbed her and her husband of their only child.
	She said, "The light of our lives has now been extinguished."
	Ferrante has steadfastly denied poisoning Klein by putting cyanide he acknowledged ordering for his research laboratory into a creatine energy drink he allegedly gave her in April 2013, when she came home from work late one night.
	She immediately collapsed and died three days later, authorities said.
	Prosecutors showed the jury text messages in which Ferrante ..

Ex-medical researcher gets life term in wife's cyanide death

Security officials say a suicide car bomber has targeted a military base in central Yemen, killing at least five troops.
	The officials say today's bombing struck the gates of the base in the province of Bayda, which has seen fierce clashes between Shiite Houthi rebels who last year overran the capital of Sanaa and al-Qaida militants allied with Sunni tribesmen.
	The officials say that elsewhere in Bayda, a senior Houthi member was killed. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to talk to reporters.
	The Houthis' power grab has plunged Yemen into a deep political crisis.
	Also today, witnesses in Hodida province say Houthis opened fire there at an anti-rebel rally, wounding three protesters. The witnesses spoke on condition of anonymity fearing for their safety.

Suicide car bomber targets Yemen army base, killing 5

A nurse who was trying to help newborns to safety as a dangerous gas cloud formed at a Mexico City hospital has died of injuries she suffered when it ignited in a massive fireball, authorities said today.
	Monica Orta Ramirez, 35, became the fourth fatal victim of last week's explosion at the Maternity and Children's Hospital in Cuajimalpa, a borough on the western edge of the capital. She died yesterday, the city government said in a statement.
	The explosion occurred the morning of Jan 29 when a propane tanker truck arrived to supply fuel to the hospital. Authorities are still investigating but suspect that a valve leak on the truck led to the deadly gas accumulation.
	As workers rushed to evacuate the hospital, the cloud ignited, leveling 70 per cent of the building.
	A second nurse and two babies died previously, and more than 70 people were wounded. Twenty of them remained hospitalized as of yesterday, including 9 newborns.

Mexico raises death toll to 4 from gas explosion at hospital

A New Zealand judge will lead a wide-ranging inquiry into alleged child sex abuse by powerful figures in British society, the UK government said today, an attempt to restart a troubled probe that has seen two previous chairwomen quit over perceived conflicts of interest.
	Home Secretary Theresa May told lawmakers that New Zealand High Court judge Lowell Goddard was appointed new chair of the probe, which aims to find out whether British public agencies, including the BBC, churches and political parties, had neglected or covered up allegations of child sex abuse from the 1970s to protect politicians and others in power.
	But the inquiry, announced in July, has been plagued by controversy from the start, with many victims questioning its impartiality and the extent of its powers.
	May said she was "more determined than ever" to expose people and institutions who had failed abuse victims. The inquiry would have "the full co-operation of government and access to all relevant information, .

New Zealand judge to head UK child sex abuse probe

Martin Gilbert, Winston Churchill's official biographer and a leading historian of the Holocaust, has died following a lengthy illness. He was 78.
	Gilbert died yesterday, senior civil servant John Chilcot told a British parliamentary committee today. Gilbert was a member of Chilcot's panel conducting an official investigation into Britain's role in the Iraq war.
	Educated at Oxford University, Gilbert wrote more than 80 books, including many with themes related to World War II. He is best known for his works on Churchill, which began when he worked with the prime minister's son, Randolph Churchill, on an official biography.
	He continued for 20 years after Randolph Churchill died in 1968, completing an eight-volume biography and writing several other books about the statesman, including "Churchill: A Life; "Churchill: The Power of Words," and "Continue to Pester, Nag, and Bite: Churchill's War Leadership."
	He also wrote eight books on the Holocaust, including "The Holocaust: A ...

Winston Churchill's biographer, Martin Gilbert, dies

For the first time, lung cancer has passed breast cancer as the leading cause of cancer deaths for women in rich countries.
	The reason is smoking, which peaked years later for women than it did for men. Lung cancer has been the top cancer killer for men for decades.
	"We're seeing the deaths now" from lung cancer due to a rise in smoking by women three decades ago, said Lindsey Torre of the American Cancer Society. The society released a report Wednesday, based on new numbers from the International Agency for Research on Cancer.
	Globally, there were about 14 million new cancer cases and 8 million cancer deaths in 2012, the most recent year for which numbers are available.
	"Developing countries account for 57 per cent of cancer cases and 65 percent of cancer deaths," Torre said.
	For men, lung cancer has been the leading cause of cancer death globally for several decades. In poor countries, breast cancer remains the top cancer killer for women. Colon cancer has grown as a cause of ..

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