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US looks like target market

The Infiniti M35h hybrid incorporates some intriguing technologyand represents a tempting option for city dwelling executives, butit doesn't offer enough to tempt the vast majority of us from ourdiesel cars. It's well equipped and decently finished but spaceinside is a little disappointing. Interesting, different and worthyenough, the M35h is clearly targeted across the pond.

We've come to expect some sort of technological headliner frommost Japanese hybrid cars and the Infiniti M35h is no different. Itsmost fascinating feature is the Approaching Vehicle Sound forPedestrians (VSP) which utilises a range of distinctive sounds tohelp ensure the safety of other road users.

VSP is computer controlled and links an in-car sound synthesiserwith a speaker built in to the front bumper. It automatically worksfrom start-up to 20mph, cutting back in at 17mph as the vehicleslows. It sounds somewhat like a quieter version of a jet taxiingand gets your attention without sounding harsh or intrusive.

Aside from that, the M35h gets a very punchy 303bhp 3.5-litrepetrol V6 augmented by a 67bhp electric motor, the M35h which meansa very punchy 5.6 second sprint to 60mph. The transmission is anautomatic with internal clutch pack and means that there's not theCVT gearbox whine that often accompanies hybrid cars.

The extra 120kg of weight added by the hybrid system means thatyou shouldn't expect the M35h to feel as wieldy through corners as aconventional petrol-powered M37. It's possible to drive at up to60mph on electric power alone, but you'll need to have the tactilefinesse of a bomb disposal expert with the throttle. Give it anymore than about a quarter of the pedal's travel and the petrolengine thrums smoothly into life.

The design of the Infiniti M35h appears to draw upon a number ofinfluences. There's something rather Maserati GranTurismo about thefront wheel arches and undeniably overtones of Jaguar XF around thefront grille and headlamps.

The rear end is less distinguished, tapering to a rather genericblend of Japanese and American design cues. The net result is a carthat doesn't quite hang together a cohesive package, lacking thedynamic tension of a modern European design. That said, it is quitedistinctive.

The Infiniti M35h hybrid is an impressive foray into a marketthat has yet to bloom in this country. Executive class buyers remainfirmly wedded to their diesel cars and although the Japanese companyhas clearly thrown a lot of resources at this model and pioneeredsome intriguing technical innovations, it's not a car that makes anoverwhelmingly convincing case on the balance sheet.

What you do get is a very well finished car that makes light workof city driving and offers an alternative to the 'too cool forschool' understatement of the German marques.

Ultimately this car feels exactly what it is - a car targeted atthe American market that will garner only very minority interest inthe UK. Still, as an example of what Infiniti is capable of, itbodes extremely well for when they design some more Eurocentricproducts.

Turkey asks NATO to help clear mines near Syria

Turkey is seeking help from NATO to help clear land mines from the country's border with Syria.

The announcement Tuesday by the Defense Ministry ends a dispute over who would do the job.

The military and opposition parties had strongly opposed a government-drafted law that allowed private foreign companies to clear the mines in return for the right to farm the fertile land for up to 44 years.

The Defense Ministry says talks have begun with the NATO Maintenance and Supply Agency, which is NATO's principal logistics support management agency.

Turkey, a NATO member and U.S. ally, planted more than half a million mines along the 500-kilometer (310-mile) Syrian border in the 1950s to secure the frontier.

Massa recovering, communicating 'passively'

Felipe Massa's health was improving Monday after the Formula One driver communicated passively with doctors, and medical scans provided encouraging signs after surgery on multiple skull fractures.

Department of defense ministry spokesman Istvan Bocskai told the Associated Press that Massa was not speaking but that the 28-year-old Brazilian reacted when spoken to and was moving his hands and feet.

Massa was in life-threatening but stable condition following surgery on multiple skull injuries sustained during a violent crash in his Ferrari Saturday at the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Bocskai said that military hospital doctors were reassured after no complications were uncovered by a CT scan. An ultrasound performed Sunday night to check on internal injuries revealed "nothing that would give cause for concern."

The sedated Massa was also being woken up more frequently.

"These are definitely positive signs," Bocskai said.

Massa received a concussion after a loose car part hit his helmet during a qualifying run on Saturday.

He then slammed into a protective tire barrier at about 120 mph causing multiple skull injuries that were operated on around one hour after being taken from the Hungaroring circuit.

Although Massa was in stable condition in the intensive care unit at AEK hospital following surgery, doctors called Massa's condition as life-threatening due to the severity of the injuries.

Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo was scheduled to join the 11-time Grand Prix winner's family _ which includes pregnant wife Anna Rafaela _ on Monday.

F1's governing body is investigating the crash, which came amid a string of safety mishaps.

A Formula 2 driver was killed six days earlier after being struck in the head by a loose tire from another car and crashing into a barrier.

Motorsport authorities also suspended Renault from the next round of the championship for jeopardizing Fernando Alonso's safety when it failed to inform the two-time world champion of a nut wheel problem at Budapest. Alonso's wheel subsequently came off and bounced wildly down the track.

No F1 driver has died on the track since Ayrton Senna 15 years ago. The three-time champion died from head injuries after a violent crash in Italy.

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AP Auto Racing Writer Paul Logothetis contributed to this report.

Level 3 Communications names new head of legal

BROOMFIELD, Colo. (AP) — Level 3 Communications Inc., which provides wholesale Internet networking services, has named John M. Ryan as chief legal officer.

He will succeed Thomas C. Stortz, 59, who will retire at year's end, the company said Wednesday.

Ryan, 47, has been with the company since 1999 and has led its public policy group since 2005.

He was previously an associate and partner at Fraser Stryker Law Firm, where he dealt with the communications industry.

Storz will stay on as an adviser through the first quarter of 2011, the company said.

Level 3 shares rose 2 cents to close at $1.11.

Skyrocketing costs may have doomed NYC trial plan

A letter and a speech may have doomed plans to bring the Sept. 11 terror trial to New York.

The letter written by Mayor Michael Bloomberg to Washington earlier this month set a whopping $200-million-a-year price tag to secure the city during the trial _ more than double the original estimate. The speech by Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly detailed a planned lockdown of lower Manhattan certain to set new standards for gridlock.

The resulting political and public outcry has forced the Obama administration to consider looking for a more suitable home for the high-profile trial, even as the legitimacy of the New York Police Department's security plan and its estimated cost goes unchallenged.

Kelly insists the plan is necessary _ a reality that started to sink in after his remarks before business leaders.

"The investment that the department would have to make ... and the details of the plan itself, how it would've impacted the traffic in lower Manhattan," he told reporters Friday. "That was the first time they heard it in one fell swoop, so to speak, and it raised their concerns."

By announcing late last year that New York would host the trial of admitted 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four alleged al-Qaida cohorts, the Obama administration stumbled into a political fire that had burned the previous administration.

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center, New York and federal officials have quarreled over how much of the city's security costs should be borne by Washington. New York officials, led by Bloomberg, have complained for years that the government does not pay enough of those costs. The Bush administration long argued they have to spread resources to protect the entire country.

The latest round of that long-running fight began when the Bloomberg administration circulated a Jan. 5 letter to reporters from the mayor to the Office of Management and Budget in Washington.

The letter put the cost of stepped-up security at $216 million for the first year after Mohammed and the others arrive in Manhattan from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. After that, the mayor said it would cost $200 million annually for as long as the men are detained in the city _ mainly overtime for extra police patrols.

The police department had given an initial estimate of $75 million a year but later warned it could be higher. Officials said a second, more careful analysis produced the totals cited by the mayor, who warned the trial would strain the resources of the nation's largest police department.

"As 9/11 was an attack on the entire nation, we need the federal government to shoulder the significant costs we will incur and ease this burden," Bloomberg wrote.

The mayor left Kelly to explain the threat _ and the extensive plans to thwart it.

"Given the unprecedented media attention the trial will attract, one concern is that terrorists may attempt to strike again in an effort to garner the publicity," he said in the Jan. 13 speech to a police organization.

On Friday, Kelly told reporters that public backlash made it "unlikely" the case would go forward in New York City. Two Obama administration officials said the Justice Department is drawing up plans for alternate locations for the terror trials. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the deliberations.

Pennsylvania officials expressed early concerns about the possibility of moving the trial to their state, where one of the hijacked airliners crashed. Gov. Ed Rendell told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that officials are not "dead-set" against the idea but worry about safety and want to know how much of the cost the federal government would pick up.

Holding the trial in New York City created concerns, on both sides, about protests. The NYPD planned a show of force involving thousands of officers on foot, in mobile guard towers and in patrol cars. An outer perimeter would be created with checkpoints for inspecting private cars, along with an inner frozen zone around the courthouse that would ban them altogether.

The courthouse area would be protected by car checkpoints, bomb-sniffing dogs, rooftop sharpshooters and helicopter patrols. Workers would endure long lines to enter.

Harbor patrols would monitor the East and Hudson rivers to prevent a Mumbai-style attack. The department also envisioned constant radiation sweeps to detect dirty bombs.

Experts say the threat assessment and cost projections were not overkill.

The plan is warranted "because downtown Manhattan had been the focus of terrorist attacks on at least two prior occasions, one of them Sept. 11, leading to the greatest loss of life on American soil," said Randy Mastro, former deputy mayor for Rudy Giuliani. "We sometimes have short memories. After Sept. 11, downtown was, understandably, locked down for many, many weeks."

The price tag "is obviously large," said Rick Nelson, a security expert with the Center for Strategic & International Studies. "But this is not something you cut corners on. ... A failure would be devastating."

By backpedaling, the administration could set a precedent that might make it more difficult to follow through with other planned terror trials in Washington, D.C., and northern Virginia, said Patrick Rowan, once the top counterterrorism official in the Bush Justice Department.

"If it's too risky to hold a major terrorism trial in downtown Manhattan, then they're going to face the same argument from civic leaders in other metropolitan areas," Rowan said.

"If you follow the logic behind this decision, they may quickly find themselves in a position where they need to create a single facility," he added, "perhaps on a military base in the middle of a cornfield."

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Associated Press writer Devlin Barrett in Washington contributed to this report.

Fears in Post-Communist Societies: A Comparative Perspective

Eric Shiraev and Vladimir Shlapentokh, eds. Fears in Post-Communist Societies: A Comparative Perspective. New York: Palgrave, 2002. xi, 163 pp. Tables. References. Index. $45.00, cloth.

Eric Shiraev and Vladimir Shlapentokh's edited volume, Fears in Post-Communist Societies: A Comparative Perspective, is based on a three-year cross-national research project sponsored by the National Council for Eurasian Studies. The editors have recruited authors from across the former Soviet Union and East-Central Europe to write individual chapters on the worries and concerns of people in Russia, the Czech Republic, Poland, Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania. Additional chapters address the fears of emigrants from the Soviet Union presently living in the United States or Israel. Relying on the results of many public opinion surveys, some conducted as part of this research project but most apparently not, the authors conclude that most of the fears experienced by citizens of post-communist countries are rational, based on a realistic assessment of the conditions in which they find themselves.

If popular fears in the post-communist world have a rational basis, it is fairly easy to predict what they will be. Consequently, many of the findings reported in this book are not overly surprising. Citizens in most post-Communist countries are very worried about economic conditions, but this is less true for those who live in countries where the economy is doing better, like the Czech Republic or Poland. Citizens in Ukraine and Belarus are more likely to worry about the effects of radiation exposure than are people who live farther from the site of the Chernobyl nuclear accident. Younger, more successful people tend to worry less about economic hardship, except in Belarus, where the lack of reform has left these same groups of people more dissatisfied. Some results are more unexpected. Poles, for instance, seem to be more worried about the imperialist aspirations of Americans than of Russians. Immigrants from the Soviet Union to the United States worry more about the return to mass repression in Russia than Russians still in Russia do.

In their concluding chapter, Shiraev and Shlapentokh hint that what worries ordinary citizens matters because demagogues can manipulate popular fears to rouse a troubled citizenry to extra-constitutional action. If so, the data in this book are somewhat encouraging. Mostly, citizens in post-Communist countries are worried about real things: rising prices, threats of unemployment, increasing crime rates, terrorism, environmental degradation, and the health and welfare of their families. Only small minorities are afraid of imaginary threats, like Masonic conspiracies or that an eclipse of the sun might result in the end of the world. As David W. Rohde points out in a brief essay at the end of the book, when people are preoccupied with real-world concerns, there is generally less room for politicians and the media to breed less grounded fears. Of course, the overwhelming preoccupation with economic difficulties remains a potential source for mobilization or manipulation.

Some aspects of presentation make this book less satisfying than it might have been. The treatment of people's fears is mostly descriptive, with some speculation about why people might worry about the things they do, but with little statistical analysis. Each chapter deals with one country, occasionally with some comparable data from other countries. If readers are interested in comparing the fears of one country to another, mostly they will have to do that for themselves. That said, it is not always clear that they can do so. Although each chapter deals with similar issues, there is not enough information about how survey questions were worded to be confident that results can be compared across chapters. For instance, one of the most widespread worries of Russians is the arbitrariness of authorities. This concern is not mentioned for any of the other countries. It is hard to know whether that is because Russians worry about different things than citizens in other former communist countries or because they were asked different questions. Overall, it seems that people in the various countries were asked similar, but not identical questions, at various points over the last decade. Direct comparisons across countries may be hazardous.

Much of the information reported in this book is quite current, from surveys conducted within the past five years. However, the haste to get the book out is evident in the final product. There are rather too many typographical and grammatical errors. Sources referenced in the text are not always included in the bibliography. Insufficient information is provided on the surveys upon which most of the conclusions are based. Some chapters are notably stronger than others. Even so, this slim volume is packed with pieces of information that probably would be hard to find elsewhere. A prodigious number of opinion surveys and some exceptional survey researchers from formerly communist areas contributed to this book. For readers interested in what troubles the citizens of post-communist countries, Fears in Post-Communist Societies is a useful resource.

[Author Affiliation]

Ellen Carnaghan, Saint Louis University