More carmakers caught in headlights of VW engine-rigging scandal

More carmakers caught in headlights of VW engine-rigging scandal
Volkswagen has admitted it installed illegal software into 11 million 2.0 liter and 3.0 liter diesel engines worldwide (AFP Photo/Josh Edelson)

Volkswagen emissions scandal

Iran's 'catastrophic mistake': Speculation, pressure, then admission

Iran's 'catastrophic mistake': Speculation, pressure, then admission
Analsyts say it is irresponsible to link the crash of a Ukraine International Airline Boeing 737-800 to the 737 MAX accidents (AFP Photo/INA FASSBENDER)

Missing MH370 likely to have disintegrated mid-flight: experts

Missing MH370 likely to have disintegrated mid-flight: experts
A Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 commercial jet.

QZ8501 (AirAsia)

Leaders see horror of French Alps crash as probe gathers pace

"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Old Energy, Recalibration Lectures, God / Creator, Religions/Spiritual systems (Catholic Church, Priests/Nun’s, Worship, John Paul Pope, Women in the Church otherwise church will go, Current Pope won’t do it), Middle East, Jews, Governments will change (Internet, Media, Democracies, Dictators, North Korea, Nations voted at once), Integrity (Businesses, Tobacco Companies, Bankers/ Financial Institutes, Pharmaceutical company to collapse), Illuminati (Started in Greece, with Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to build Africa, to develop)), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.) - (Text version)

… The Shift in Human Nature

You're starting to see integrity change. Awareness recalibrates integrity, and the Human Being who would sit there and take advantage of another Human Being in an old energy would never do it in a new energy. The reason? It will become intuitive, so this is a shift in Human Nature as well, for in the past you have assumed that people take advantage of people first and integrity comes later. That's just ordinary Human nature.

In the past, Human nature expressed within governments worked like this: If you were stronger than the other one, you simply conquered them. If you were strong, it was an invitation to conquer. If you were weak, it was an invitation to be conquered. No one even thought about it. It was the way of things. The bigger you could have your armies, the better they would do when you sent them out to conquer. That's not how you think today. Did you notice?

Any country that thinks this way today will not survive, for humanity has discovered that the world goes far better by putting things together instead of tearing them apart. The new energy puts the weak and strong together in ways that make sense and that have integrity. Take a look at what happened to some of the businesses in this great land (USA). Up to 30 years ago, when you started realizing some of them didn't have integrity, you eliminated them. What happened to the tobacco companies when you realized they were knowingly addicting your children? Today, they still sell their products to less-aware countries, but that will also change.

What did you do a few years ago when you realized that your bankers were actually selling you homes that they knew you couldn't pay for later? They were walking away, smiling greedily, not thinking about the heartbreak that was to follow when a life's dream would be lost. Dear American, you are in a recession. However, this is like when you prune a tree and cut back the branches. When the tree grows back, you've got control and the branches will grow bigger and stronger than they were before, without the greed factor. Then, if you don't like the way it grows back, you'll prune it again! I tell you this because awareness is now in control of big money. It's right before your eyes, what you're doing. But fear often rules. …

Wednesday, September 26, 2018

What’sApp? Dutch to ban cyclists from holding their mobile phones

DutchNews, September 25, 2018 

Photo: Depositphotos.com

The Netherlands is to ban all but the hands-free use of mobile phones on bikes from next year, the AD said on Tuesday. 

Transport minister Cora van Nieuwenhuizen published draft legislation on Tuesday which will make it an offence ‘to hold a mobile electronic devices while driving all vehicles [so including bikes],’ the paper quoted the minister as saying. 

The paper says the words ‘mobile electronic device’ rather than mobile phone have been deliberately chosen to take developments in the future into account. 

Drivers are already banned from using their mobile phones without a hands-free connection in cars and lorries, with a maximum fine of €230. 

‘This decision sets a clear and consistent standard,’ the minister said. ‘If you are in charge of a vehicle in traffic, no matter what sort of mode of transport, you should not be holding mobile electronic equipment,’ Van Nieuwenhuizen said. 

The aim is to introduce the new legislation, which was first mooted in December, on July 1, 2019. 

One in three 12 to 21-year-olds cycle and use their phones at the same time and phones are said to have played a role in 20% of bike accidents involving the under-25s, the transport ministry said last year.

Monday, September 24, 2018

Porsche first German carmaker to abandon diesel engines

Yahoo – AFP, 23 September 2018

There'll be no Porsche diesels in the future, CEO Oliver Blume says. Instead,
the German company will focus on "powerful petrol, hybrid and, from 2019, purely
electric vehicles"

Sports car maker Porsche said Sunday it would become the first German auto giant to abandon the diesel engine, reacting to parent company Volkswagen's emissions cheating scandal and resulting urban driving bans.

"There won't be any Porsche diesels in the future," CEO Oliver Blume told the newspaper Bild am Sonntag.

Instead, the company would concentrate on what he called its core strength, "powerful petrol, hybrid and, from 2019, purely electric vehicles".

The Porsche chief conceded the step was a result of the three-year-old "dieselgate" scandal at auto giant Volkswagen, the group to which the luxury sports car brand belongs.

VW in 2015 admitted to US regulators to having installed so-called "defeat devices" in 11 million cars worldwide to dupe emissions tests.

It has so far paid out more than 27 billion euros in fines, vehicle buybacks, recalls and legal costs and remains mired in legal woes at home and abroad.

Diesel car sales have dropped sharply as several German cities have banned them to bring down air pollution -- a trend that Chancellor Angela Merkel was due to discuss with car company chiefs in Berlin later Sunday.

Stuttgart-based Porsche in February stopped taking orders for diesel models, which it had sold for nearly a decade.

Porsche's move out of diesel enjoys follows the three-year-old "dieselgate" scandal at 
auto giant Volkswagen, the German group to which the luxury sports car brand belongs

Blume said Porsche had "never developed and produced diesel engines", having used Audi motors, yet the image of the brand had suffered.

"The diesel crisis has caused us a lot of trouble," he said, months after Germany's Federal Transport Authority ordered the recall of nearly 60,000 Porsche SUVs in Europe.

Blume promised that the company would keep servicing diesel models on the road now.

According to the paper, Porsche also faces claims of having manipulated engines to produce a more powerful sound with a technique that was deactivated during testing.

Blume acknowledged that German regulators had found irregularities in the 8-cylinder Cayenne EU5, affecting some 13,500 units.

Merkel, Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer and heads of German auto companies were due to meet in Berlin later Sunday to discuss steps to avoid more city driving bans.

The German government hopes to see one million fully electric and hybrid vehicles on the road by 2022, up from fewer than 100,000 at the start of this year.

Saturday, September 22, 2018

Singapore Airlines bans lion bones in cargo

Yahoo – AFP, September 21, 2018

Singapore Airlines says it has banned lion bones as cargo on its planes
(AFP Photo/GREG BAKER)

Singapore (AFP) - Singapore Airlines said Friday it has stopped accepting lion bones for cargo after the carrier was singled out in a report for transporting the animal parts from South Africa.

Campaigners have long called for a ban on the controversial trade in big cat bones, which are sought after for medicine and jewellery in Southeast Asia.

Singapore Airlines was the sole carrier importing lion bones from South Africa to Southeast Asia last year, according to a report released in July by the non-profit EMS Foundation and animal rights group Ban Animal Trading.

At least 800 lion skeletons had been exported with the blessing of the South African government in 2017, the report said, making it the world's largest exporter of lion bones.

The airline told AFP it had stopped accepting lion bones as cargo, but did not say when the policy had come into effect.

"Singapore Airlines does not accept the carriage of lion bones as cargo following a review which took into account increasing concerns around the world," the company said in an email.

EMS Foundation director Michele Pickover said her organisation had sent the report to the airline and "appealed to them to immediately stop its involvement in this terrible trade".

"I believe that once they were informed about what this trade entails they took the correct and logical decision not to support it," she told AFP.

South Africa has been sending lion bones to Southeast Asia since at least 2008 and it was likely that Singapore Airlines had been transporting them since that year, Pickover added.

Lion bones and other body parts are highly sought after in parts of Southeast Asia -- particularly Laos, Thailand and Vietnam -- for use in jewellery and for their supposed medicinal properties.

In Vietnam, lion bone is cooked and turned into balm while claws and teeth were used as body ornaments, the report said.

While trade of body parts from wild lions is banned, international treaties allow the sale of parts taken from lions bred in captivity.

Friday, September 21, 2018

Air pressure mix-up causes mass bleeding on Indian flight

Yahoo – AFP, 20 September 2018

The Jet Airways flight to Jaipur had to turn back as the alarming symptoms became
apparent, the airline said

A cockpit mix-up left more than 30 passengers on an Indian plane bleeding from their ears and noses Thursday after the crew reportedly forgot to flick a switch regulating cabin air pressure.

The Jet Airways flight to Jaipur had to turn back due to loss in cabin pressure, the airline said, with travellers describing "panic" on board.

The plane carrying 166 passengers landed back in Mumbai and those affected were given medical attention while alternative flights were arranged, Jet Airways said.

The flight crew "has been taken off scheduled duties pending investigation", the company said in a statement.

People on board posted photos and videos of the calamity online, with one purported passenger, Darshak Hathi, uploading footage on Twitter showing travellers using oxygen masks.

"Panic situation due to technical fault in @jetairways 9W 0697 going from Mumbai to Jaipur," he tweeted, adding that all passengers were safe.

Another traveller said the pilot did not make any announcement other than that the flight would turn back to Mumbai.

"I was in the business class and the oxygen mask came down suddenly. One passenger came running from the back asking everyone to put on the masks," he told the NDTV news network.

"All the passengers were panicking, those sitting at the back and who were unable to wear the masks started bleeding from their mouths and noses."

An official with India's national aviation regulator told the Press Trust of India the crew "forgot to select (the) bleed switch" to maintain the aircraft's cabin pressure.

Five travellers who suffered bleeding and were rushed to a Mumbai hospital were suffering from mild deafness that would take some 10 days to recover, a doctor told reporters.

The incident is the latest in a string of embarrassing incidents for the airline, which like other Indian carriers has been suffering financially.

In January, two Jet Airways pilots were grounded for getting into a brawl and storming out of the cockpit briefly during a New Year's Day flight from London to Mumbai.

In view of the latest scare, India's Civil Aviation minister Suresh Prabhu has ordered a safety audit of all airlines and airports, asking the report to be submitted within 30 days.

Thursday, September 20, 2018

Air pollution linked to higher risk of dementia: study

Yahoo – AFP, September 19, 2018

Chemicals cast off by tail-pipe pollution such as nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and soot are
known to boost the risk for heart disease, stroke and respiratory problems (AFP
Photo/Ina Fassbender)

Paris (AFP) - Urban air pollution, mostly from vehicles, is associated with an increased risk of dementia, according to research published Wednesday.

The link remained even after heavy drinking, smoking and other well established risk factors for dementia were ruled out, the researchers reported in medical journal BMJ Open.

Worldwide, about seven percent of people over 65 suffer from Alzheimer's or some form of dementia, a percentage that rises to 40 percent above the age of 85.

The number afflicted worldwide is expected to nearly triple by 2050, posing a huge challenge to healthcare systems.

"Primary prevention of all dementia is a major global public health concern for the coming decades," the researchers wrote.

Chemicals cast off by tailpipe pollution such as nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and soot are known to boost the risk for heart disease, stroke and respiratory problems, especially asthma.

But whether they also make Alzheimer's and other kinds of dementia more likely has remained unclear.

To find out more, a team of researchers led by Iain Carey of the University of London's Population Health Research Institute combed through health records for 131,000 people living in Greater London who, in 2004, were aged 50 to 79.

None showed signs of dementia when the study began.

Based on residential addresses, the scientists estimated yearly exposure to both NO2 and fine particulates known as PM2.5, and then tracked the health of the participants over a seven-year period.

During that time, nearly 2,200 patients -- 1.7 percent of the total -- were diagnosed with dementia.

The fifth of these patients living in the most heavily polluted areas were 40 percent more likely to be afflicted than the fifth residing in areas with the least NO2 and PM2.5.

Public health gains

Because the study was based on after-the-fact analysis rather than a clinical trial in an experimental setting, no firm conclusions can be drawn as to cause-and-effect, the authors cautioned.

But the findings strongly suggest that the chemical byproducts of burning diesel and petrol can damage brain function.

"Traffic-related air pollution has been linked to poorer cognitive development in young children," the study noted.

And even if the impact of air pollution remains relatively modest, they added, "the public health gains would be significant if it emerged that curbing exposure might delay progression of dementia."

The study was welcomed by experts who reviewed it before publication.

"There is a growing body of evidence of the link between air pollution and brain health, including dementia and Alzheimer's," said Martie Van Tongeren, a professor of occupational and environmental health at the University of Manchester.

"This adds to it."

Kevin McConway of the Open University praised the study but noted that it only estimated exposure to pollutants at home, and did not account for NO2 and PM2.5 levels at or near places of work, or the amount of time spent away from home.

In September 2015, the US Environmental Protection Agency revealed that German car manufacturer VW has installed so-called "defeat devices" in its cars to cheat in emissions tests.

The European Environment Agency estimates that more than 400,000 people in Europe's urban areas die prematurely every year due to outdoor air pollution.

Related Articles:


“..  The Biggest Filter that Hinders Truth is Your Biased Knowledge

The biggest filter of humanity, the one that keeps Humans from actual truth, believe it or not, is called knowledge. We speak of that which humanity perceives currently as knowledge. That which you do not know is, therefore, future knowledge. Now, every single scientist understands the difference - every single one - for they know what is coming is going to teach them what they don't know yet. This is part of the scientific process. Even so, they take what they know, or think they know, and completely let it temper the experiments for what they don't know. They base the future on what they know or believe, even though they know better!

A medical doctor will look in the past and he'll remember being taught about a time when humans would report to the barbershop for healing. That's when they would actually bleed people for healing. By the way, that's the reason for the barber pole having the red stripe on it - it's the tradition of barbers doing the bleeding. So back then, you went to get healed in the barbershop by being bled! This, of course, led to many deaths because there was no understanding of germs, sterilization or today's common sense. Doctors know this, and they laugh at how far you all have come from this. So doctors absolutely know that what is coming will someday be actually laughable, yet they are also absolutely and completely closed to what it might be. They just think it will be an advancement of what they currently know.  ….”

“..  Medicine - Where It's Going

I want to show you some other areas to consider. There are several categories that we'd like to talk about, but they're not in a specific order except for the last one. So let's talk about medicine. What is future medicine going to look like?

The most elegant predictions of medicine fall short of what's really coming. What you have today is a high-tech approach to designer chemistry. Now, since the body is made up of chemistry, it makes sense to look at this chemistry and work with it. It makes total sense to discover how it reacts to disease and then design cures with more chemistry. It's absolutely normal what you have done, but it's going to reach an end very soon. Because the future of medicine is physics, dear ones, not chemistry.

You're going to start understanding and developing new medical physics. You will discover that medi-physics is going to literally speak to cellular structure and give it instructions, without one chemical involved. There's always a reaction to chemistry, isn't there? There's always a side effect. When you push one thing, something else reacts, doesn't it? How do you like it so far? Your most elegant chemical designs, the ones that are helping with the worst diseases on the planet, all have side effects - and some of those side effects are death! I say to you, how do you like it so far?

Does it really seem elegant to you? Or perhaps it's just a more sophisticated way of bleeding in the barbershop? Dear ones, that's how you're going to look at it someday! You're going to slap your heads and say, "Remember the day when we did everything with chemistry and drugs?"

Right now, these kinds of changes have already started in several areas. There are discoveries being made that are healing some of the most heart-breaking diseases you have. I reveal one, because it's not a secret. I will always give you information that is either being worked on or has been postulated through free choice on this planet. That is the guideline of channelling. We can't give it to you. You've got to develop it yourself. However, we can put you in an energy that has a faster discovery potential - that is to say, discoveries become more obvious.

Alzheimer's is heart breaking. There are millions on this planet who develop this condition, more all the time. You're living longer and a plaque-like material that literally obfuscates your memory within the brain is becoming more common. It clings to certain parts of your brain, encrusting and restricting it, imprisoning the Human's ability to remember and eventually process information at all. The result is death, slow death. It's caused by your environment, a fact which will be discovered eventually. Your long-lived Ancients didn't have it.

It's going to be cured with physics. Your science is starting to find out that the plaque-like substance has a resonance that allows it to be weakened with sound. High-frequency sound, tuned to a certain frequency and amplitude, will cause the sheaths to weaken, dissolve, and come off. There's a lot of research to do yet, but it's a Eureka! moment - realizing that physics alone, without chemistry, can change the structure of biology. This is with no side effects whatsoever. It's coming, it's coming.

There are those working with fresh umbilical cord stem cells right now who are using pure physics to guide the stem cells to a specific destination in the body in order to repair failing systems. Dear ones, the future of health and healing is not through better chemistry, yet medicine is still waiting for better pills! Did you connect the dots and realize that all biology is physics based? There is magnetics, leverage, the energy of consciousness, electricity and much more within cellular structure. With physics alone, you can "tune in" to disease and destroy it! You can fine-tune your system with cooperative resonances and extend life with benevolent, physical assistance. Sixteen years ago, I told you this when I spoke of the Temple of Rejuvenation. I described the super-cooling needed to do it and the temperatures needed to work with it (-55C). This is physics!

Now, the false expectation of greater chemistry for the future is totally caused from the filter of knowledge. What you have and know then gives you your expectation of what is going to take place. It literally blocks you from seeing some of the potentials that you may have.  ….”

Wednesday, September 19, 2018

KLM-backed bio-kerosene plant may open in the Netherlands

DutchNews, September 18, 2018 

Aviation is a major source of carbon-dioxide emissions. Photo: DutchNews.nl 

The Netherlands is on the verge of getting its first factory to produce bio-kerosene, an alternative fuel to tradition kerosene and made out of biomass, the AD said on Tuesday. 

A location for the plant has not yet been confirmed but Groningen is on the shortlist, the paper said. 

The plans have been confirmed by Maarten van Dijk, director of SkyNRG, which will build the factory. ‘We are in the last phase of selecting the location and suppliers. I think that we will be able to reveal more at the end of this year or beginning of the next,’ he told the paper. 

Rotterdam and Amsterdam are being considered as alternative locations. 

Airline KLM is a important shareholder in SkyNRG and has also confirmed that plans for the factory are being made. The airline currently imports bio-kerosine from Los Angeles and it uses the fuel mainly on its fights to the American east coast. 

The AD says there are no other bio-kerosines plants in north-west Europe and that the investment will create a large number of jobs. 

Pollution 

Passenger air traffic is currently responsible for between 2% and 3% of global carbon-dioxide emissions, but in the Netherlands, the figure is 7%, the AD said. 

Bio-kerosine is made from leftovers from the timber and agricultural industries, as well as the food processing industry. Wageningen University said earlier this year that bio-kerosene is a potentially important option to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the aviation sector. 

However, the price is two to three times that of ordinary kerosene and ‘the direct and indirect effects… on the aviation sector and the Dutch economy as a whole depend to a large extent on how the additional costs of biokerosene will be funded,’ University researchers said.

Friday, September 14, 2018

Riyadh-based airline to recruit Saudi women as co-pilots

Yahoo – AFP, September 13, 2018

Women are not legally barred from working in Saudi Arabia's aviation sector, but
until now they have never served as co-pilots and jobs as flight attendants have
largely been held by female foreign workers (AFP Photo/FAYEZ NURELDINE)

Riyadh (AFP) - Riyadh-based carrier Flynas has announced plans to recruit Saudi women to work as co-pilots and flight attendants for the first time, just months after the kingdom lifted a decades-long ban on female motorists.

Saudi Arabia in June ended a longstanding ban on women driving cars as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman seeks to improve women's participation in the workforce.

Women are not legally barred from working in the aviation sector, but jobs as flight attendants with Saudi carriers have largely been held by female foreign workers from countries such as the Philippines.

Nearly 1,000 Saudi women have applied for co-pilot positions with Flynas in the past 24 hours, a spokesman for the airline told AFP on Thursday, as the ultra-conservative Islamic kingdom relaxes gender restrictions amid the far-reaching liberalisation drive.

"Flynas is keen to empower Saudi women to play an important role in the kingdom's transformation," the low-cost carrier said Wednesday in its call for applications.

"Women... are an essential part of the airline's success."

The recruitment drive comes just days after Flyadeal, another low-cost Saudi carrier, began posting jobs for Saudi women to work as flight attendants.

Despite being allowed to drive cars, women still require permission from their fathers, husbands or other male relatives to travel and to get married under the kingdom's strict guardianship system.

Wednesday, September 12, 2018

No burning rubber here: plastic road opens in Zwolle

DutchNews, September 11, 2018 - By Senay Boztas

Artists impression: KWS 

They call it re-cycling. The municipality of Zwolle today opens a trial 30m stretch of bike path made from reused plastic, in a project that hopes to speed up road building and give old bottles a second life. 

The PlasticRoad, made “from as much recycled plastic as possible” has been created by the businesses KWS, plastic pipe maker Wavin and Total oil and gas group and the pilot is being supported by Zwolle. 

The designers hope that the prefabricated road structure will be able to help prevent flooding, with a special hollow to hold water or carry cables, and last three times longer than traditional road structures. 

KWS announced the concept in 2015, with inventor Simon Jorritsma saying: “You see a bottle; we see a road.” 

A second trial road will be built in November in Overijssel province, reports the Telegraaf.

Tuesday, September 11, 2018

VW 'dieselgate' fraud: Timeline of a scandal

Yahoo - AFPSeptember 10, 2018

Dieselgate has cost VW more than 27 billion euros in fines, vehicle buybacks and
recalls and legal costs (AFP Photo/Patrik STOLLARZ)

Frankfurt am Main (AFP) - As Volkswagen faces the wrath of investors in the first mass "dieselgate" lawsuit on its home turf, here's a look at how the emissions cheating was uncovered and the fallout for the auto giant:

2014

US researchers at the University of West Virginia discover that certain VW diesel cars emit up to 40 times the permissible levels of harmful nitrogen oxide when tested on the road.

2015

September 18: The US Environmental Protection Agency accuses VW of duping diesel emissions tests using so-called "defeat devices".

September 22: Volkswagen admits installing software designed to reduce emissions during lab tests in 11 million diesel engines worldwide. VW shares plunge by 40 percent in two days.

September 23: Chief executive Martin Winterkorn steps down but insists he knew nothing of the scam.

2016

April 22: VW announces a net loss for 2015, its first in 20 years, after setting aside billions to cover the anticipated costs of the scandal.

June 28: VW agrees to pay $14.7 billion in buybacks, compensation and penalties in a mammoth settlement with US authorities. The deal, which covers 2.0 litre diesel engines only, includes cash payouts for nearly 500,000 US drivers.

September 21: The first VW investors file lawsuits in a German court seeking billions in damages. They accuse the automaker of failing to communicate about the crisis in a timely way.

December 8: The European Commission launches legal action against seven EU nations including Germany for failing to crack down on emissions cheating.

2017

January 11: VW pleads guilty to three US charges including fraud and agrees to pay $4.3 billion in civil and criminal fines.

Graphic on the Volkswagen emissions cheating scandal. (AFP Photo/AFP)

As part of the plea deal, VW signs up to a "statement of facts" in which it admits that the cheating dates back to 2006, but it remains unclear how much the top brass knew about the scam.

January 27: German prosecutors say they are investigating Winterkorn on suspicion of fraud, accusing him of knowing about the defeat devices earlier than admitted. He is already under investigation for suspected market manipulation over the scandal.

February 1: Car parts maker Bosch, which supplied elements of the software, agrees to pay nearly $330 million to US car owners and dealers but admits no wrongdoing.

VW says it will pay at least $1.2 billion to compensate some 80,000 US buyers of 3.0 litre engines as well as buying back or refitting their vehicles.

August 25: A Michigan court sentences VW engineer James Liang to 40 months in prison and a $200,000 fine, after he pleads guilty to conspiracy to defraud the US and to violating the US Clean Air Act. He had asked for a more lenient sentence after cooperating with investigators.

December 6: VW executive Oliver Schmidt, who was arrested while on holiday in Florida, is sentenced to seven years in jail after pleading guilty to fraud and violating the US Clean Air Act.

2018

February 23: VW roars back to profit after record sales in 2017.

February 27: A German court paves the way for cities to ban the oldest diesels from their roads to combat air pollution.

April 12: VW brand chief Herbert Diess hastily replaces CEO Matthias Mueller after he too lands in prosecutors' sights.

April 20: A top manager at Porsche, a VW subsidiary, is arrested in Germany as part of "dieselgate" inquiries.

May 3: Winterkorn is indicted in the US, accused of trying to cover up the cheating.

June 13: VW agrees to pay a one-billion-euro fine in Germany, admitting its responsibility for the diesel crisis. The scandal has now cost the group over 27 billion euros.

June 18: Rupert Stadler, CEO of VW's Audi subsidiary, is arrested in Germany, accused of fraud and trying to suppress evidence.