The USMC is expected to publish the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) request for proposal (RFP) at the beginning of the coming year (2008), and select manufacturers for the new family of vehicles by the end of March. Initial engineering and  operational capability originally scheduled for 2010 was recently pushed back to 2012, as the services are focused on the acquisition of heavier and more urgently needed Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle (MRAP) in the near term.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Toyota Motor Corp . is usually the darling of the Los Angeles Auto Show, but testy relations with environmentalists and questions about engineering and quality are making the show a headache for the automaker this year.

It does not help that Toyota chose to introduce a full-size sport utility vehicle at the show, and the redesigned Sequoia does not have a hybrid option like full-size SUVs from General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC that are debuting across the show floor. The Los Angeles show opens to the public Friday after two days of media previews.

DUBAI (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia could order 24 Eurofighter Typhoon combat jets from BAE Systems <BAES.L> for about 1.5 billion pounds ($3.06 billion), the Middle East Economic Digest (MEED) reported on Friday.

Saudi Arabia and Britain announced in September a 4.43 billion pound deal for 72 of the Eurofighters.

"The kingdom is set to decommission a number of aircraft and is thinking about a possible order for 24 more Eurofighters," MEED quoted an adviser to the Saudi government, that it did not identify, as saying.

"There is a need for new aircraft given the situation in the region, particularly the issue of Iran," the adviser was quoted as saying.

China and India, the world's two fastest growing economies, have earned the dubious distinction of being home to some of the biggest polluting firms across the globe, with power producer NTPC occupying the third position worldwide in terms of carbon dioxide emission.

Within India, 17 of the 20 biggest polluters happen to be public sector enterprises, including NTPC, according to a list culled out from Carbon Monitoring for Action (CARMA), a US-based database.

The three private sector firms among India's 20 biggest emitters of carbon dioxide include -- RPG Group's CESC Ltd, Aditya Birla Group's Hindalco Industries and Anil Ambani Group's Reliance Energy at 16th, 18th and 20th positions respectively.

However on a world wide basis, Australia is named as the worst emitter -  A study of the world's power stations has shown the extent to which developed countries produce more carbon dioxide per head than emerging economies.

Australians were found to be the world's worst polluters per capita, producing five times as much CO2 from generating power as China.

....click the link to read more

I the wake of a slew of product quality issues,  10 locally made Chinese cosmetic products have now been "blacklisted by Chinese authorities

.....click on the link to read the full report

We can also report an unrelated but relevant story about a European plan to end animal testing in 2009. which is forcing global cosmetics firms to find new tools

The delicate hybrids thriving in the balmy climate of southern France's historic perfume region include sweet jasmine, May roses - and fresh layers of artificial human tissue.

In a land where the making of fragrances dates back to the Renaissance, scientists in Provence are working feverishly to develop biotechnological tools to test cosmetics with new alternatives before a European Union ban on animal testing comes into effect in March 2009.

Stuck in traffic, behind rows of blinking tail-lights as smoked-glassed Chevrolets sweep down the dual carriageways around you, it would be easy to mistake this sprawling desert city, humming with oil wealth, for somewhere altogether different.

But it is here, amid the palms and neon-lit malls, that Opec heads of state are gathering, for only the third time in the organisation’s 47-year history, to ponder not only high oil prices, but also the purpose of the organisation –engineering,  exploration and whether it has a role beyond trying to massage prices by controlling production.

In many ways, this should be a golden age for Opec. With oil prices close to $100 per barrel, surely its 12 member states, which are responsible for 40 per cent of global crude production of 85 million barrels per day, are enjoying an unprecedented boom?

Not so, according to Opec’s general secretary Abdalla Salem el-Badri.

Engineers have begun the two-month process of cooling down a "doomsday vault" , which will house seeds from all known varieties of key food crops.

The temperature inside the Svalbard Global Seed Vault will drop to -18C (0F) in order to preserve the seeds.

MORALITY has a business case .

As the tear gas and battle smoke in the streets of Burma begins to clear, for now, many who favour the status quo will be hoping everything returns to normal. Include among them multinational engineering and energy giants such as Total (France), Chevron (the US) and even a handful of small Australian companies. The fact that what passes for normality is persecution and suppression may well be lost on them. The leaders of those companies may be making one of the biggest mistakes of their lives.

In Burma and in Iran (Total again, Statoil, Petrochina, etc) there is considerable debate over how businesses should act. To paraphrase Joe Strummer, should they stay or should they go?

 There are some important rules on how not to invest - don't commit these sins. By Teena Lyons.
Do you do your homework before parting with your hard-earned cash or are you the sort of investor who chooses a stock because you like the sound of the company's name?

According to Justin Urquhart Stewart of portfolio manager Seven Investment Management, while everyone has firm ideas on how to invest using a range of techniques to select their stocks, there are also some important rules on how not to invest.

He calls them the seven deadly sins of investing - and failure to resist them could have a dramatic affect on your wealth.

China’s success in shooting down one of its own satellites last January has given new energy to engineering efforts in the United States to develop and launch more — and cheaper — satellites.

Significantly, the new approach to satellites is getting a boost not just from giant aerospace corporations but from small, entrepreneurial engineering companies. Entrepreneurs have also been behind other recent efforts to move ahead in space, including the Ansari X Prize, the $10 million competition that put a pilot in space without government financing in 2004.

The efforts of the entrepreneurs are also seen as crucial to keeping the United States at the forefront of space technology as Russia, Europe and increasingly China become more technically adept.
....click the link to read more

 THE era of "peak gold" has arrived.

Try as they might, mining engineers cannot find enough ore at viable costs to replace their fast-depleting reserves, even if they dig kilometres into the the Earth.

"There's not much gold out there," said Gregory Wilkins, chief executive of the producer Barrick Gold.

"Global mine supply is going to decrease at a much faster rate than people generally believe. Many of the new mines that people are anticipating will never come into production," he told the RBC Capital Markets gold conference in London

.....Click the link to read more

 Maybe Engineering principles need to be employed to solve this dilema -

The number of new cars considered the safest by the insurance industry nearly tripled in the past year, helped by automakers’ push to engineer in certain safety equipment and make it more widely available.

Ford Motor Co. and Honda Motor Co. had the most vehicles on the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety’s annual list of the safest cars for the 2008 model year. Thirty-four vehicles received the top safety pick designation for 2008, compared with 13 vehicles from the 2007 model year.
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Here’s a sobering thought: Hundreds of bottles of Jack Daniel’s whiskey , some of it almost 100 years old, may be unceremoniously poured down a drain because authorities suspect it was being sold by someone without a license.

Engineering cars with bulletproof vest, and mine-proof shoes…these are no longer sci-fi. Days ago, Chery presented itself at the 2007 International Criminal Investigation, Drug Suppression and Anti-terrorism Equipment Expo & Technical Exchange Fair with two models, the Tiggo3 and the Eastar bulletproof cars . Succeeding the Eastar, the Tiggo3 , combining the advantages of bulletproof vehicle, armored bank vehicle, special purpose vehicle, and ordinary passenger vehicle earned tremendous attention from the participants of the expo with its excellent bulletproof, anti-robbery, anti-smash, anti-crash, anti-theft and cross-country performances. Particularly, those who are from the army and the police showed greater interest to the two Chery models.

So much so that an order for 200 units has been placed by 

Sateh Afrique from South Africa

....click the links to read more 

By the end of 2007 mankind will become a primarily urban species with more than half of the world’s 6.6 billion population living in urban areas. This trend for urban living has gripped China, and it is estimated that 600 million people in China will have moved from rural areas to the cities by 2050.

The relentless march of urbanisation goes hand in hand with a vast increase in energy consumption and pollution. In fact, China recently became the world’s second largest consumer of energy, after the United States.This trend is widely recognised as being unsustainable and consequently a new approach is required to find a sustainable lifestyle for the cities of tomorrow.
.......click the link to read more

Have you ever seen that marketing executive drive by in his Ferrari or that sales rep pass you at the lights in his Porsche and wonder why you only drive a 1990something Ford despite the fact that the job you do probably entails far more important work than what the sales rep or the marketing exec does? Well wonder no more because today we take a peak at the future for engineers and I can foretell the goodness. The geek shall indeed inherit the earth.