Former VW engineer gets 40 months in 'dieselgate' scandal

Yahoo – AFP, August 25, 2017

A US court on Friday sentenced a former Volkswagen engineer to nearly three
and a half years in prison for his role in the company's emissions cheating
scandal (AFP Photo/PAUL J. RICHARDS)

Detroit (AFP) - A US court on Friday sentenced a former Volkswagen engineer to nearly three and a half years in prison for his role in the company's emissions cheating scandal.

James Robert Liang was sentenced to 40 months in prison and ordered to pay a $200,000 fine after pleading guilty to charges he conspired to defraud the United States and violate the Clean Air Act, the court announced.

The sentencing comes several weeks after former VW executive Oliver Schmidt pleaded guilty to fraud and conspiracy charges in the "dieselgate" matter, which has brought one of the world's to auto makers into disgrace.

Liang was also ordered to serve two years of supervised release upon his release from prison, according to a spokesman for the US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.

However, US authorities may choose to deport Liang to Germany once he is released, the spokesman said.

The sentence was significantly harsher than what prosecutors had recommended.

In exchange for Liang's cooperation, Justice Department officials had recommended a sentence of only three years and a fine of just $20,000.

A lawyer for Liang had instead asked for a year of probation and home confinement, noting that Liang's cooperation had resulted in criminal charges against three other defendants.

Liang pleaded guilty in September to a role in a nine-year conspiracy to develop devices that hid emissions harmful nitrogen oxide during pollution tests on Volkswagen's diesel-power cars.

The company has set aside more than $24 billion to cover the fines and compensation in the scandal, in which it admitted in 2015 to equipping about 11 million cars worldwide with so-called defeat devices to mask emissions.

Women to train as Russian air force pilots

Yahoo – AFP, August 12, 2017

Russia says it hopes the first women pilots will be qualified to fly missions
within five years (AFP Photo)

Moscow (AFP) - Female candidates are to be accepted for the first time to train as pilots for Russia's air force, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said Saturday, adding there were so many applications that "we can't ignore them".

"There are many young women who would like to become military pilots. We have received hundreds of letters," he said, according to a ministry statement.

"That's why we've decided that this year we will enrol a first group of women at the military academy of Krasnodar," in southern Russia, he said.

"There will be few of them, 15 in all. But given the quantity of applications that we receive, we can't ignore them. From October 1, the first group of women will start to train to become pilots," he said, adding that he hoped they will be qualified in five years.

Since 2009, the Krasnodar flying academy has accepted female students but not for pilot training, according to the TASS news agency.

In 2014, a senior defence ministry official, Ruslan Vassilev, told Echo Moskvi radio that some 45,000 women serve in the Russian army, although they are barred from some functions, notably combat roles.

In total Russia's armed forces numbered nearly 2 million people this year, including 1 million on active service, according to official figures.

Tech advances will lead to MH370 discovery - Malaysia Airlines

Yahoo – AFP, August 1, 2017

So far, three fragments of MH370 have been found on western Indian Ocean
shores, including a two-metre wing part known as a flaperon

The resting place of missing flight MH370 will eventually be found but it will require advances in science and technology, including artificial intelligence, Malaysia Airlines' chief said Tuesday.

No trace of the Boeing 777, which disappeared in March 2014 with 239 people on board, was found during a lengthy deep sea hunt in the southern Indian Ocean off western Australia, with the search called off in January.

"There will be advances in science that will help locate the wreckage eventually," the Malaysian carrier's chief executive Peter Bellew told The Australian newspaper, adding the discovery "might unlock closure for some people".

Bellew, in Sydney for an aviation summit, said the advances could come through "the availability of artificial intelligence that's coming on stream", high-capacity computing power and university research.

He did not give further details about what specific research could lead to a breakthrough, but added that private efforts to locate the plane could also play a part.

So far, three fragments of MH370 have been found on western Indian Ocean shores, including a two-metre wing part known as a flaperon.

"(There are people) who are spending a lot of their own resources at the moment and co-ordinating with authorities... I do think somebody will make a breakthrough somewhere around this, or a combination of people," Bellew said.

"It will create a situation where there will be some chance of pinpointing the location of where the aircraft may well be."

Australia's national science body CSIRO said in April that MH370 was "most likely" lying north of the former search zone -- a 120,000 square kilometre (46,000 square mile) area largely defined through satellite "pings" and the flight's estimated fuel load.

But Transport Minister Darren Chester has said the underwater probe would not resume unless new evidence about the specific location of the aircraft emerges.

Australia last month released to the public detailed maps showing the topography of the sea floor where the search took place, with a second set of data to be released in mid-2018.

Tech advances will lead to discovery of missing flight MH370, says Malaysia Airlines https://t.co/4FHt8pQTLq pic.twitter.com/CaE7sjfZ6T

— AFP news agency (@AFP) August 1, 2017