PRESS RELEASE: Successful design arouses desire. In order to achieve this, it is more crucial than ever before that car manufacturers create the conditions that allow customers to establish a close relationship with their cars. Therefore, designers seek ways to promote and intensify people’s identification with their car that reach beyond pure aesthetics. In the premium segment in particular, customers demand cars that stir emotions and allow them to express their individuality. BMW Group Design has set another deepened objective for designing new cars that moves today’s consumers and their demand for enhanced utility and more versatility to the top of their agenda. An innovative concept introduced by BMW Group Design prepares the ground for this new approach: the GINA (Geometry and Functions In ”N” Adaptions) principle grants more freedom for car design. It allows the creation of products with a design and functional range that express individuality and meet the wide variety of requirements of those who are using them.

In the 21st century, customers approach their purchasing decision with a high degree of assertiveness, clearly defined requirements and subjective conceptions- particularly when it comes to selecting their means of transport.  In recent years, the interests and priorities that motivated them have changed and, more importantly, they have become considerably more diversified.  This development will continue in the future. Today, the BMW Group is already responding to the highly diversified range of customer requirements and heightened expectations by providing services such as a substantially more varied product range, ever increasing possibilities for personalization and requirement-oriented production among others.

By introducing the GINA philosophy, BMW Group Design presents ways of meeting these challenges in the future. The philosophy expresses the readiness and ability of BMW Group Design to consider individual customer requirements as an integral part of car development. Christopher E. Bangle, Head of BMW Group Design, speaks with conviction when he says: ”Personal customer requirements will broaden the context of our products and change the core values that define our industry along the way.” For more than ten years now, these issues have inspired Bangle’s ideas. Time and time again, these ideas have been motivating the BMW Group Design team to break new ground and to find pioneering solutions. These results have spawned new customer expectations which in turn inspires designers to develop further innovations.

New cars model.

 American guns inscribed with Bible codes are being used by US forces and Afghans to fight the Taliban. 

 Al Jazeera has discovered that some Afghan soldiers are using guns engraved with coded biblical references. 

 The weapons come from Trijicon, a manufacturer based in Wixon, Michigan, that supplies the US military. The company’s now deceased founder, Glyn Bandon, started the practice which continues today. 

 David Chater, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in the Afghan capital Kabul, said: “It is a rallying cry for the Taliban. It gives them a propaganda tool. 

 ”They’ve always tried to paint the US efforts in Afghanistan as a Christian campaign.” 

 A Nato spokesman in Afghanistan has acknowledged that the practice is inappropriate but said that the guns will remain in use for now. 

 Nato reaction 

 Interviewed by Al Jazeera on Thursday, Colonel Gregory Breazile, of the Nato training command in Afghanistan, said: “We were told about it last night and when we looked into it, we noticed it was true. 

 ”We started to take action and notify both the ministry of defence and our chain of command and they have all taken action so that we don’t purchase any more of these sights. 

 ”We gave the Afghan military these weapons. We are very disappointed, but it’s a tiny little inscription and very hard to notice and I don’t think it will be an issue in the field.” 

 Acknowledging the mistake, Breazile said: “We would have not bought these sights had we known they had these inscriptions on them.” 

 No complaints
Trijicon says that it has manufactured weapons sights with biblical inscriptions for three decades and never before received a complaint. 

Officials from Trijicon also said that the US military had been a customer since 1995. 

The inscriptions on the sights refer to passages in the New Testament.

One relates to the second letter of Paul to the Corinthians and says: “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ”. 

Tom Munson, Trijicon’s sales director, said: “We don’t publicise this.”  

“It’s not something we make a big deal out of. But when asked, we say, ‘Yes, it’s there’.” 

  US contracts
 The US Marine Corps was said by ABC News, which broke the news of the inscriptions, to have a $660 million contract over multiple years with Trijicon to make 800,000 units of the product. Trijicon has other contracts to supply the US amy with the sights.
 

The sights are used on weapons used during the training of Afghan and Iraqi soldiers under contracts with the US army and Marine Corps.

The Marines Corps have said that they will meet Trijicon managers to discuss future deals.

“If determined to be true, this is clearly inappropriate and we are looking into possible remedies,” Commander Darryn James, a Pentagon spokesman, told the AFP news agency.

Meanwhile, the US-based Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) has called on Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, to immediately withdraw the equipment from combat.

“Having biblical references on military equipment violates the basic ideals and values our country was founded upon,” Haris Tarin, MPAC Washington director, said in a statement.

“Worse still, it provides propaganda ammo to extremists who claim there is a ‘Crusader war against Islam’ by the United States.”

US military forces have repeatedly stated that their missions in Afghanistan and Iraq are secular and they have a ban on proselytising.

Other countries
Separately, New Zealand has instructed Trijicon to remove the citations from future orders of the weapon sights.

The country said on Thursday that its military would remove the biblical citations from the rifle sights, as the messages were unsuitable given its involvement in operations in Muslim countries.

“The inscriptions … put us in a difficult situation,” Kristian Dunne, a New Zealand defence force spokesman, said.

“We were unaware of it and we’re unhappy that the manufacturer didn’t give us any indication that these were on there.”

Dunne said that New Zealand has 260 such sights, first bought in 2004, which will continue to be used once the codes are removed as they are the best quality available.

Wayne Mapp, New Zealand’s defence minister, said: “We all know of the religious tensions around this issue and it’s unwise to do anything that could be seen to raise tensions in an unnecessary way.”

The British defence ministry said it had placed an order for 400 of the gun sights but said it had not been aware of the significance of the inscriptions. 

By Adam Mynott
BBC News, Port-au-Prince

 This, we are told by the international medics who have come here, is one of the better-organised hospitals in the city. We are standing by the entrance, which has in effect been turned into a ward.

 It is a quite extraordinary sight. There are people with injuries lying everywhere, some on beds, some on mattresses, some just lying on bits of cloth stretched out on the stone floor.

 There are amputees here, people with their heads swathed in bandages and, right in front of me, a Cuban doctor is treating a young girl, Fleury Solange, who was crushed as she tried to run from a building when the earthquake happened.

 Medical teams from Spain, Colombia, Cuba, Venezuela and Chile are working here in very exacting conditions.

 Ivan, a doctor from Havana, says Fleury Solange has now been stabilised.

 ”On the day of the earthquake, she suffered this injury to her abdomen,” he says.

 ”She arrived here in a very bad state. We treated her wound and put this pipe in to try to drain her lung. She is a lot better but she is still in a critical state.”

 She is being looked after by her brother who, using a piece of cardboard, is fanning the flies away from her wound and from the drain that has been inserted into her lung.

 He is very worried that, despite reassurances from the doctor, his sister is going to die.

 The doctor says that one of the big risks now is that of secondary infection.

 ”Almost all of the patients who arrive here are septic,” he says.

 ”They arrive here with gangrenous limbs because they are arriving very late and have often been under rubble for days.”

 Three hundred amputees

 Outside the hospital, what once was the car park has been turned into an outpatients’ department and there must be more than 100 patients here.

 Many of them have been treated and could go home but, of course, they have no homes to go to. They were destroyed in the earthquake and every two or three minutes another patient arrives.

 There is no functioning ambulance service so they are being brought in on the back of any available vehicle. A moment or two ago, one man came in on the back of a motorbike. It is a never-ending flow of humanity.

 Daniel Rincon, a Colombian doctor with the Red Cross, says the injuries have been quite appalling, and international surgeons have been carrying out an average of about 50 amputations a day.

 ”Maybe 300 people have lost a leg or foot or some part of their body,” he says.

 ”Our surgeons have been working 24 hours a day.”

 Dr Rincon says that, compared to other hospitals in Port-au-Prince, they are quite well-equipped with bandages, medicines and other materials but he knows there are problems getting vital medical supplies in through the airport.

 ”It is too complicated to land at the airport because there are too many flights arriving but we have been coordinating our work with the United Nations and that is making our job easier,” he adds.

 The Red Cross has been able to set up a system to purify the limited mains water supply but, in common with most of Port-au-Prince, and the rest of Haiti, no international food relief has arrived here.

ISLAMABAD, Federal Minister for Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs Dr Babar Awan on Wednesday told the National Assembly that the government can file a review petition within 30 days after examining the detailed judgement of the Supreme Court on NRO.

“The government has no intention to create confrontation among the institutions. If anybody desires this, we will disappoint him. There is no threat to democratic system with the decisions of the Apex Court,” the Minister categorically said while responding to the Leader of the Opposition’s speech.

He said the Parliament could bring changes, or amendments, in the constitution, not the Supreme Court. He said appointments of judges, which were made so for have been carried out harmoniously. “All the appointments would be made in accordance with constitution, law and the dignity of judiciary,” he said.

About the plan of attack on the Chief Justice’s convoy near Kharian, disclosed by former Punjab Chief Minister Pervez Elahi in a TV interview, the Minister said he would contact the IG Police Punjab for conducting an inquiry of this plot. He said that if it had taken place in Punjab it is the responsibility of provincial to investigate the matter.

About the Kashmir issue, Babar said that peace could not be brought in the region without resolving it. He said that Kashmir issue should be resolved according the United Nations’ resolutions. He said that misbehaviour of India with Pakistani cricket players was not ‘Aman ki Asha but it was Nirasha. He said that in this regard a parliamentary committee should be constituted and the government would accept its decision. “Pakistan wants relations with India on the basis of equality and it wants to resolve all issues through negotiations.”