Toyota Motor Corp. is secretly developing a vehicle that will be powered solely by solar energy in an effort to turn around its struggling business with a futuristic ecological car, a top business daily reported Thursday.
The Nikkei newspaper, however, said it will be years before the planned vehicle will be available on the market.
According to The Nikkei, Toyota is working on an electric vehicle that will get some of its power from solar cells equipped on the vehicle, and that can be recharged with electricity generated from solar panels on the roofs of homes. The automaker later hopes to develop a model totally powered by solar cells on the vehicle, the newspaper said without citing sources.
Former Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney has called upon President-Elect Barack Obama to "please, say something about the humanitarian crisis that is being experienced by the Palestinian people, by the people of Gaza." McKinney spoke to CNN news from the Lebanese city of Tyre, where she had debarked from the relief vessel Dignity after it was rammed on the high seas by an Israeli patrol boat, early Tuesday morning. Passengers also report the Israelis fired machine guns into the water near their ship. 
Four leading Israeli rabbis have sanctioned the murder of civilian population in the Gaza Strip amid the Israeli onslaught on the region.
An extract from grape seeds can destroy cancer cells, US research suggests. In lab experiments, scientists found that the extract stimulated leukaemia cells to commit suicide.
Israel rejected calls by the UN, EU and France for a ceasefire and instead prepared for what could be "long weeks of combat," as a ferocious air offensive against Hamas in he Gaza Strip entered its fourth day Tuesday. An Israeli defence official said French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner had proposed to Israel that it unilaterally halt its assault for 48 hours to give Hamas a chance to end its rocket and mortar attacks as well.
