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Berkeley Cab Service | | S Korea ferry: Desperate search for survivors continues

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By: Chris
Source: bbc.com
Posted By:  www.green-transportations.com

Emergency services are continuing to search for nearly 300 people missing after a ferry carrying more than 470 people sank off South Korea.

Officials say 179 people have been rescued. Most of the passengers were students from the same high school.

Bad weather and strong currents have hampered military divers’ efforts to enter the ship, where it is thought many were trapped.

At least nine people are confirmed to have died, with dozens more injured.

The vessel was travelling from Incheon port, in the north-west, to the southern resort island of Jeju.

It is not yet clear what caused the ship to list at a severe angle and flip over, leaving only a small part of its hull visible above water.

The captain was being questioned, Yonhap news agency reported. “I am really sorry and deeply ashamed. I don’t know what to say,” Lee Joon-seok was shown saying on television.

Yonhap said the nine dead include four 17-year-old students and a 25-year-old teacher as well as a 22-year-old female crew member. Identities of the other three were not immediately known.

The latest figures say 475 people were on board, with 287 still unaccounted for. Figures issued by the government have changed several times, prompting criticism.

South Korean President Park Geun-hye on Thursday visited the scene of the disaster, as rescue work continued.
Strong currents

Efforts are concentrated on the ship, which sank in about 30m (100ft) of water.

“We carried out underwater searches five times from midnight until early in the morning, but strong currents and the murky water pose tremendous obstacles,” said Kang Byung-kyu, minister for security and public administration.

One senior emergency official was quoted as saying it was unlikely the remaining passengers would be found alive.

The US Navy has sent an amphibious assault ship, the USS Bonhomme Richard, to assist with the search.

Captain Joey Tynch told the BBC conditions were difficult.

“We found ourselves in challenging weather conditions today – very low cloud ceilings and reduced visibility and rain, and we’re working a search area around the site in close co-ordination with the South Korean on-scene commander,” he said.

Two cranes are being sent to raise the vessel, with both expected to arrive on Friday.
‘Screaming and scrambling’

The ferry sent a distress call at around 09:00 local time (00:00 GMT) on Wednesday, about 20km (12 miles) off the island of Byungpoong. It sank within two hours, reports said.

At least 325 of the passengers on board the ship were students from Danwon high school in Ansan, near the capital, Seoul.

The students, aged 16 and 17, were heading on a field trip to Jeju island with about 15 teachers.
Survivors say they heard a loud thud, before the boat began to shake and tilt.

Some of the passengers managed to jump into the ocean, wearing life jackets, and swim to nearby rescue boats and commercial vessels.

But several survivors have said that they were told by crew members not to move.

“We must have waited 30 to 40 minutes after the crew told us to stay put,” one unnamed rescued student was quoted as saying by AFP news agency.

“Then everything tilted over and everyone started screaming and scrambling to get out,” he said.
Koo Bon-hee, 36, told the Associated Press that the rescue was not “done well”. “If people had jumped into the water… they could have been rescued. But we were told not to go out.”

Some of those trapped managed to send text messages to their relatives.

“Dad, don’t worry. I’m wearing a life vest and am with other girls. We’re inside the ship, still in the hallway,” one girl told her father, AFP news agency reported.

But in a subsequent message she said she could not get out. “The ship is too tilted. The hallway is crowded with so many people.”

Police, meanwhile, were investigating a text message reportedly sent to a relative of a missing student claiming some passengers had survived in an air pocket, Yonhap news agency said.

Police said they had not ruled out the possibility that the message was a prank, the agency said. There are no verified reports of communication from inside the sunken ship.

Kim Young-boong, an official from the company which owns the ferry, has apologised.

The vessel – named Sewol – is reported to have a capacity of up to 900 people and is 146m (480ft) long.

Correspondents say this could turn out to be South Korea’s biggest maritime disaster for more than 20 years.

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Source: www.bbc.com/news/world-asia

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Cab Berkeley |Every New Car Will Have a Rear-Facing Camera in 4 Years

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By : John Smith
Source : thewire.com
Posted By : green-transportations.com

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has issued a final rule to require all new vehicles under 10,000 pounds, including all cars, SUVs, vans, and trucks to have backup cameras by May 1, 2018. The backup cameras must have a 10-foot by 20-foot zone view behind the vehicle. The backup camera system will also be required to meet NHTSA requirements for “image size, linger time, response time, durability, and deactivation.”

This new law will be saving lots of lives, mainly those of children. United States Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx explained that the official ruling came out of a concern for primarily child safety: “Safety is our highest priority, and we are committed to protecting the most vulnerable victims of backover accidents — our children and seniors. As a father, I can only imagine how heart wrenching these types of accidents can be for families, but we hope that today’s rule will serve as a significant step toward reducing these tragic accidents.”

There are an average 210 deaths and 15,000 injuries every year caused by back up crashes. Thirty-one precent of these deaths are children under five, and 26 percent of deaths are for people 70 and over. The NHTSA estimates that “58 to 69 lives are expected to be saved each year once the entire on-road vehicle fleet is equipped with rear visibility systems meeting the requirements of [this] final rule.”

The rule also satisfies the Cameron Gulsbransen Kids Transportation Safety Act of 2007, which covers vehicle safety for children through backup visibility, vehicle roll away, and a child safety program. Under this safety act, the NHTSA had 36 months from 2008 to issue a ruling on backup cameras, but this was delayed numerous times due to research and rule revision. Some believe the delay in the law came from the government being “reluctant to put more financial burdens on an auto industry already crippled by an economic downturn.” The cost for the cameras to automakers is about $132 to $142 per vehicle for a complete backup system, and $43 to $45 to add a camera to a vehicle that already has a screen.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says 73 percent of new vehicles were already projected to have backup cameras by 2018, as automakers have already embraced both the safety and coolness factors of this new technology. There’s more than just easy parallel parking at stake.

Source :thewire.com/technology

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Berkeley Taxi Service |Malaysia plane: Bad weather halts search for flight MH370

              Berkeley Taxi Service 

 

By: Tim
Source:bbc.com
Posted by:www.green-transportations.com

 
Australia officials say the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines plane has been suspended because of bad weather.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (Amsa) said high winds and rain meant planes could not fly safely.

Malaysian PM Najib Razak says satellite data showed the plane ended its journey in remote seas west of Australia.

In Beijing relatives of passengers clashed with police outside Malaysia’s embassy, as China asked to see data on which Malaysia’s conclusion was based.

About 200 relatives marched to the diplomatic mission, with scuffles breaking out as they confronted security personnel.
Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 disappeared on 8 March as it flew from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. It was carrying a total of 239 people, including 153 Chinese nationals.

A multinational search effort has focused on seas some 2,500km (1,500 miles) to the southwest of the Australian city of Perth.

But in a news conference late on Monday, the Malaysian leader said it had to be concluded “with deep sadness and regret” that according to new data “flight MH370 ended in the southern Indian Ocean”.

Speaking to media on Tuesday, Malaysia Airlines CEO Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said: “We do not know why, we do not know how this terrible tragedy happened.”

But he added: “The announcement made last night and shared with families is the reality that we must now accept.”

Malaysia Airlines Chairman Mohammed Nor Yusof described the situation as “an unprecedented event requiring an unprecedented response”.

“The investigation under way may yet prove to be even longer and more complex than it has been since 8 March,” he said.

“But we will continue to support the families as we have done throughout, and to support the authorities as the search for definitive answers continues.”
‘Detailed evidence’

Planes from several nations have been scouring waters far off Perth for signs of the missing plane, in a search co-ordinated by Australia.
There have been several sightings of debris, but none have yet been confirmed as linked to the plane.

In its statement, Amsa said it had undertaken a risk assessment “and determined that the current weather conditions would make any air and sea search activities hazardous and pose a risk to crew”.

“Therefore, Amsa has suspended all sea and air search operations for today due to these weather conditions,” it said.

Australia’s Defence Minister David Johnston said search efforts were unlikely to start again for “at least another 24 hours”.

He described the search as a “massive logistical exercise” in an “extremely remote” part of the world.

Mark Binskin, vice-chief of the Australian Defence Force, said: “We’re not searching for a needle in a haystack. We’re still trying to define where the haystack is.”

China, meanwhile, has asked Malaysia to hand over the data that led it to conclude the plane had flown into the sea.

“We demand the Malaysian side state the detailed evidence that leads them to this judgement as well as supply all the relevant information and evidence about the satellite data analysis,” Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Xie Hangsheng said, according to a statement on the ministry’s website.
“The search and rescue work cannot stop now. We demand the Malaysian side continue to finish all the work including search and rescue,” he added.

Mr Najib said the conclusion the plane was lost was based on new satellite analysis by British firm Inmarsat and information from the UK’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB).
Continue reading the main story
At the scene
image of Celia Hatton Celia Hatton BBC News, Beijing

Inmarsat had already said it received automated “pings” from the plane over its satellite network after the aircraft ceased radio and radar contact.

Mr Najib said Inmarsat had been able to shed further light on the plane’s flight path by performing further calculations “using a type of analysis never before used in an investigation of this sort”.
Beijing protest

The fact that Malaysian officials sent news of Mr Najib’s announcement to some relatives by SMS has attracted criticism.

Ahmad Jauhari Yahya, the airline’s CEO, said on Tuesday that SMS was used only as a last resort, when the news could not be delivered in person or by telephone, with the “sole and only motivation” of ensuring that families heard the news first.

In Beijing, meanwhile, relatives of passengers on board the plane released a statement accusing the Malaysian government of trying to “delay, distort and hide the truth”.

Dozens of them then left their Beijing hotel on a protest bound for the Malaysian embassy, carrying banners asking Kuala Lumpur to be truthful with the relatives.

Police blocked their buses from leaving, so they left the buses and walked there themselves, with scuffles later erupting outside the diplomatic mission.

In Malaysia, newspapers ran black or darkened front pages in tribute to those now believed to have died.

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We also provide the most reliable Berkeley taxi service for airport transportation, grocery shopping, personal or social visit. We can utilize your suggestions to aid our driver resource department to help them to maintain the standard our customers have come to expect.

Source:bbc.com/news/world-asia

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Yellow Cab Berkeley |Apple unveils CarPlay iPhone system at Geneva show

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By – John Smith
Source –  bbc.com
Posted By – econolodgemontmorencyfalls.com

CarPlay allows iPhones to plug into cars so drivers will be able to call up maps, make calls and request music with Siri voice commands or a touch on a vehicle’s dashboard screen.It requires Apple’s latest software, iOS 7, and an iPhone 5, 5C or 5S.

Apple first announced plans to make its iOS mobile operating system more compatible with cars last June.Car producers including Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz and Volvo previewed CarPlay in Geneva with other producers saying they plan to adopt the system.

“iPhone users always want their content at their fingertips and CarPlay lets drivers use their iPhone in the car with minimized distraction,” said Greg Joswiak, Apple’s vice president of iPhone and iOS product marketing.Ferrari is previewing CarPlay on its four-wheel-drive FF model.Volvo plans to feature the iPhone system in its redesigned Volvo XC90 sports utility vehicle (SUV).

Mercedes-Benz isn’t revealing which models will get CarPlay, but expects that both its S-Class large sedan and C-Class midsize sedan should be compatible with the system.A long list of other car manufacturers, including General Motors, Ford and Honda, also are drawing up plans for CarPlay, according to Apple.

Google announced it was teaming up with car manufacturers including Audi, Honda and Hyundai to integrate its Android operating system into their dashboards last month.GM and Honda declined to comment on their CarPlay plans.

Meanwhile Ford has already launched a voice-control system called Sync made by Microsoft in some of its cars and offers its own touch-screen technology.

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Source- bbc.com /Apple unveils CarPlay iPhone system at Geneva show

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Cab Berkeley| Obama budget sets up election-year clash with Republicans

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By- John Smith
Source- reuters.com
Posted By- green-transportations.com
(Reuters) – President Barack Obama proposed new tax credits and job-training programs for U.S. workers on Tuesday in a 2015 budget that drew instant condemnation from Republicans, who dismissed the document as an election-year campaign pitch.

The $3.9 trillion blueprint for the fiscal year that begins on October 1 also would boost spending on roads and bridges and expand early-childhood education while paying for some of the additional spending by scaling back tax breaks for wealthier Americans.

The proposal has almost no chance of passage in Congress, where Republicans control the House of Representatives, but it lays out Obama’s policy priorities ahead of November congressional elections. Democrats will be fighting to keep control of the U.S. Senate and avoid losing ground in the House.

“Our budget is about choices, it’s about our values,” Obama told reporters during a visit to an elementary school.

“At a time when our deficits are falling at the fastest rate in 60 years, we’ve got to decide if we’re going to keep squeezing the middle class or if we’re going to continue to reduce the deficits responsibly while taking steps to grow and strengthen the middle class.”

While working within the overall cap of $1.014 trillion for discretionary spending that Congress set for 2015, the president proposed $56 billion in additional spending for education, welfare and defense programs, paid for in part by ending a tax break for wealthy retirees.

Republicans objected to the plan’s spending increases and said it did not address larger fiscal challenges related to the Social Security retirement program and Medicare and Medicaid healthcare for the elderly, poor and disabled.

“After years of fiscal and economic mismanagement, the president has offered perhaps his most irresponsible budget yet,” Republican House Speaker John Boehner said in a statement. “Spending too much, borrowing too much, and taxing too much, it would hurt our economy and cost jobs.”

Democrats hope to draw a contrast with the Republicans’ focus on fiscal restraint and portray themselves as better able to deliver jobs and growth.

Obama’s proposal signaled a shift from last year’s emphasis on deficit cutting to a greater focus on fighting poverty, a goal the president is highlighting as he eyes his legacy with fewer than three years left in office.

Republicans, cognizant of Americans’ slow recovery from the 2007-2009 recession, also have focused on poverty-reduction but they favor a dramatically smaller government role.

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, a potential Republican presidential contender in 2016, argued in a report on Monday that the government had barely made a dent in combating poverty in the past 50 years despite massive spending. He blasted Obama’s Tuesday proposal.

“This budget isn’t a serious document; it’s a campaign brochure,” said Ryan, who will unveil a Republican budget as a counter to Obama’s in the coming weeks.

POVERTY, TAXES, AND DEFICITS

Obama’s budget proposes expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit, an anti-poverty measure that is meant to encourage low-income Americans to continue working.

The change would expand the program to cover some 13.5 million people who do not have children and make it available to younger workers who are not currently eligible.

The expansion, which would cost $60 billion, would be funded by closing loopholes such as the tax break for “carried interest,” profits earned by wealthy investors who run private equity and other funds.

Obama has long sought to end that tax break, which allows financiers to treat their income as capital gains, making it subject to a tax rate of 20 percent instead of the nearly 40 percent rate on ordinary income paid by the highest earners.

Representative Dave Camp, the Republican chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, also proposed last month to “clean up” the carried interest deduction, but tax reform is not expected to get traction in Congress this year.

The White House signaled last month that its new budget would not extend the olive branch to Republicans on reform of entitlement programs such as Social Security. Last year Obama proposed changing how the government calculates inflation for Social Security and other federal benefits that could have led to income drops for older Americans.

White House officials said Obama abandoned the idea after Republicans declined to offer concessions of their own.

While Obama played down the deficit issue, congressional budget analysts have warned that longer-term budget picture looks bleak because of the aging of the population, which will lead to increased costs for entitlements programs such as Social Security and Medicare.

The White House projected that in fiscal year 2015 the budget deficit would total $564 billion, or 3.1 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product. That would be down from a $649 billion deficit, or 3.7 percent of GDP, in fiscal year 2014.

The Obama budget projects that annual deficits will remain in the $400 billion to $500 billion range throughout the decade, reaching a modest 1.6 percent of GDP in 2024.

The outlook from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office looks far worse, forecasting that deficits will climb back to $1.1 trillion by 2024, or 4 percent of GDP.

The Pentagon unveiled a $496 billion base budget that shifts the United States from its war-footing for the first time in a dozen years, cutting the size of the military to pay for training and new weapons systems in an era of tighter spending.

The budget set the Obama administration on a collision course with Congress by seeking to eliminate popular older weapons and reform military compensation while proposing an additional $26.4 billion in military spending to be paid for by closing tax loopholes and cutting mandatory spending.
Source- reuters.com/Obama budget sets up election-year clash with Republicans

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Taxi Cab Oakland California | Richard Branson’s celebrity island

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 By- John Smith
Source-edition.cnn.com
Posted by-Green-Transportation.Com

Richard Branson has never been one to shy away from sharing his ostentatious exploits with the wider world.

Over the years, the billionaire entrepreneur has invited us to follow his attempts to hot-air balloon around the globe, delve the deepest recesses of the oceans and cross the Atlantic on a speedboat.

Now the founder of the Virgin Group has provided access to his very own private Caribbean resort, Necker Island, for a new book by Australian fashion and celebrity photographer Russell James.

Featuring more than 150 deluxe images, “A Virgin Island” reveals Necker’s idyllic beaches and spectacular tropical wildlife as well as dipping inside Branson’s luxury residences.

Branson purchased the British Virgin Island retreat in 1978 for a knockdown price of $180,000, setting up a home in which he still stays for at least two months of every year.
Ride aboard Virgin Galactic spacecraft
Branson continues to break down barriers

In 1984, he opened a luxury resort on Necker that has since welcomed a long line of rich and famous guests.

Those reported to have spent their vacation time there include the late Diana Princess of Wales, Hollywood stars Kate Winslet, Eddie Murphy, Geena Davis, Kate Moss and Robert De Niro as well as statesmen such as Jimmy Carter, Nelson Mandela and Tony Blair.

Google co-founder Larry Page, meanwhile, married his girlfriend on the island in an elaborate 2007 ceremony.

Today, a stay on Necker is possible for anyone with the means, although prices rise to a prohibitive $60,000 a night to rent out the entire island.

If you’re short a buck or two, we suggest clicking through a selection of James’ best photos in the gallery above as a more fiscally prudent way of attaining the Necker experience.

Source- edition.cnn.com/richard-bransons-treasure-island

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Berkeley Yellow Cab|Train Accidents Stir Worries About Crude Transport

Train Accidents Stir Worries About Crude Transport

 

At least 10 times since 2008, freight trains hauling oil across North America have derailed and spilled significant quantities of crude, with most of the accidents touching off fires or catastrophic explosions.

The derailments released almost 3 million gallons of oil, nearly twice as much as the largest pipeline spill in the U.S. since at least 1986. And the deadliest wreck killed 47 people in the town of Lac-Megantic, Quebec.

Those findings, from an Associated Press review of U.S. and Canadian accident records, underscore a lesser-known danger of America’s oil boom, which is changing the global energy balance and raising urgent safety questions closer to home.

Experts say recent efforts to improve the safety of oil shipments belie an unsettling fact: With increasing volumes of crude now moving by rail, it’s become impossible to send oil-hauling trains to refineries without passing major population centers, where more lives and property are at risk.

Adding to the danger is the high volatility of the light, sweet crude from the fast-growing Bakken oil patch in Montana and North Dakota, where many of the trains originate. Because it contains more natural gas than heavier crude, Bakken oil can have a lower ignition point. Of the six oil trains that derailed and caught fire since 2008, four came from the Bakken and each caused at least one explosion. That includes the accident at Lac-Megantic, which spilled an estimated 1.6 million gallons and set off a blast that levelled a large section of the town.

After recent fiery derailments in Quebec, Alabama, North Dakota and New Brunswick, companies and regulators in the U.S. and Canada are pursuing an array of potential changes such as slowing or rerouting trains, upgrading rupture-prone tank cars and bolstering fire departments. Company executives were expected to offer a set of voluntary safety measures in the coming days at the request of U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx.

“I’m absolutely positive the railway industry will come up with techniques to define how to minimize risk,” said Allan Zarembski who leads the rail-safety program at the University of Delaware. “The key word is ‘minimize.’ You can’t eliminate risk.”

Since 2008, the number of tanker cars hauling oil has increased 40-fold, and federal records show that’s been accompanied by a dramatic spike in accidental crude releases from tank cars. Over the next decade, rail-based oil shipments are forecast to increase from 1 million barrels a day to more than 4.5 million barrels a day, according to transportation officials.

By rail, it’s roughly 2,000 miles from the heart of the oil boom on the Northern Plains to some of the East Coast refineries that turn the crude into gasoline. Trains pulling several million gallons apiece must pass through metropolitan areas that include Minneapolis, Chicago, Cleveland and Buffalo.

Some cities such as Chicago have belt railroads that divert freight traffic from the metropolitan core. But elsewhere, railroad representatives said, the best-maintained and safest track often runs directly through communities that were built around the railroad.

Trains sometimes have no option but to roll deep into populated areas. That’s the case in Philadelphia, New Orleans, Albany, N.Y., and Tacoma, Wash.

Experts say the explosive nature of Bakken oil derailments caught everyone off guard — from regulators to the railroads themselves.