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– This is hardly a surprise. While the rest of VW’s supervisory board was no doubt hoping that Volkswagen/Porsche heavyweight Ferdinand Piëch would simply disappear and enjoy retirement after he and his wife (and fellow VW board member) Ursula stepped down last week—his critical remarks on the performance of VW CEO Martin Winterkorn had been met with outrage—that isn’t to be the case. – The void was quickly filled with two new appointees, 57-year-old
– Cadillac is getting serious about efficient powertrains. The brand will launch four- and six-cylinder diesel engines, Cadillac chief engineer Dave Leone re-confirmed to us. (Cadillac CEO Johan de Nysschen previously asserted a similar plan and said the engines would arrive by 2019.) “They are both new engines,” Leone told us. He said that the usage and tuning will be tailored to the cars: “It depends on the product they are going into.” The
-Scion’s sales woes for the FR-S sports car haven’t un-woed, and the company sold just 893 of the coupes in March, down from 1464 during the same month last year. After debuting to much acclaim in 2013—the Scion and its Subaru BRZ twin were both named to our 10Best Cars list that year—sales have slid in large part because pretty much everybody who wanted one of the tail-happy rear-drivers bought one.
By Rupam Jain Nair and Sanjeev Miglani KATHMANDU (Reuters) – Nepali and foreign officials were struggling on Friday to locate thousands of people still missing after last week’s massive earthquake, as food and other relief supplies began to trickle through to those stranded in remote parts of the country. Up to 1,000 Europeans are among the missing, mostly around popular trekking routes, the head of the European Union (EU) delegation
By Humeyra Pamuk and Nick Tattersall ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkish police fired tear gas and water cannon at hundreds of stone-throwing May Day protesters on Friday, after they defied a ban and tried to march on Istanbul’s Taksim Square. Riot police unleashed water cannon and chased protesters down side streets in the nearby Besiktas neighborhood and also they also fired off canisters of tear gas, a Reuters reporter said. Istanbul
Warplanes from a Saudi-led coalition struck a residential district of the Yemeni capital Sanaa overnight, killing eight to 10 civilians, residents said on Friday. The Saba state news agency, controlled by the Houthi movement in charge of Sanaa, put the death toll in the Sawan district at 20 and said more than 50 people had been wounded. Saudi Arabia believes the Houthi group is a proxy its regional rival Iran,
AMMAN/BEIRUT (Reuters) – Islamist rebels and the Syrian army fought fierce battles in Latakia province overnight close to President Bashar al-Assad’s ancestral home, the army and rebels said, after weeks of insurgent gains in the country’s northwest. Rebels seeking to topple Assad have in the past sought to bring their four-year-long insurgency close to coastal areas in government-held Latakia, heartland of Assad’s minority Alawite community. An army source told state
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S.-led military coalition launched 18 air strikes in Syria and Iraq against Islamic State since early Thursday, the Combined Joint Task Force said in a statement. The seven strikes targeting the militants in Iraq struck five units of Islamic State fighters and destroyed several fighting positions and other targets near the cities of Bayji, Falluja, Mosul, Ramadi and Tal Afar, the task force said on Friday.
By Andreas Rinke LJUBLJANA (Reuters) – The German government needs to quickly clear up accusations that its BND foreign intelligence agency helped the United States spy on government officials and firms in Europe such as Airbus Group, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said on Friday. The reports in Der Spiegel magazine that the BND helped the U.S. National Security Agency over 10 years embarrassed Germany and upset many in a country
Togo’s opposition said Friday it would not go to court to challenge incumbent Faure Gnassingbe’s victory in a weekend presidential vote it claimed was rigged. “We have not taken legal action, as we believe the Constitutional Court serves” the Togolese government, opposition leader Jean-Pierre Fabre’s spokesman told AFP. “If the Constitutional Court did its work, it would have automatically taken action,” Eric Dupuy said. The results, which Fabre branded “fraudulent”
