WASHINGTON — A new Center for Responsible Lending (CRL) study reveals that 2.2 million American households will lose their homes and as much as $164 billion due to foreclosures in the subprime mortgage market. Titled, ‘Losing Ground: Foreclosures in the Subprime Market and Their Cost to Homeowners,’ the CRL study is the first comprehensive, nationwide review of millions of subprime mortgages originated from 1998 through the third quarter of 2006. CRL’s research suggests that risky lending practices have triggered the worst foreclosure crisis in the modern mortgage market, projecting that one out of five (19.4%) subprime loans issued during 2005-2006 will fail. ‘In the subprime sector, the most vulnerable borrowers are sold the most dangerous loans,’ said Mike Calhoun, CRL president. ‘At $164 billion, the losses from foreclosures could pay for the college educations of four million kids. For families who lose their houses because their loans fail, savings and economic security will be way out of reach.’ The report discusses a number of factors that drive subprime foreclosures — in the majority of cases, borrowers receive high-risk loan features, packed into an adjustable rate mortgage with a low start rate, that is approved without considering whether […]
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration on Monday will propose sweeping reductions in payments to pharmacies as a way to save money for Medicaid, the health program for more than 50 million low-income people. The goal is to ensure that Medicaid can get drug discounts similar to those provided to large customers in the private market, including companies like Caremark Rx and Medco Health Solutions that manage drug benefits for people who have health insurance through an employer. Congressional investigators have found that Medicaid pays 35 percent more than the lowest price available in the private market for some commonly used brand-name drugs. States, which share the cost of Medicaid with the federal government, make the final decision on what pharmacies are paid, subject to federal limits. The proposed rule would provide new data for states to use in their calculations, redefining the ‘average manufacturer price’ for brand-name and generic drugs. Consumers would not be directly affected by the proposed changes. But federal officials said they hoped consumers would press for lower drug prices after checking the price list, which will be posted on a Web site. S. Lawrence Kocot, a senior adviser to the administrator […]
White Fin dolphins have been swimming up and down China’s longest river, the mighty Yangtze, for some 20 million years. But no more. A few short years of breakneck development, over-fishing and a massive rise in shipping have meant sightings of the shy creatures, or ‘baijis’ have become very infrequent. A recent expedition failed to spot a single one, and conservationists fear the near-blind cetacean has gone for good. ‘We have to accept the fact that the baiji is extinct. It is a tragedy, a loss not only for China, but for the entire world,’ said August Pfluger, joint leader of the expedition. Chinese scientists say the search will continue for baijis, which were once worshipped in China as goddesses. Already listed as one of the 12 most endangered species in the world, there were still 400 white-fin dolphins alive during the 1980s, but that number dropped alarmingly to less than 150 in the last decade. A survey in 1997 listed just 13 sightings, with the last confirmed sighting in 2004. The last baiji in captivity, Qi Qi, died in 2002. (© Independent News Service)
VIENNA — ‘Islamophobia’ is on the rise across Europe, where many Muslims are menaced and misunderstood - some on a daily basis - the European Monitoring Center on Racism and Xenophobia said Monday in a new report. The Vienna-based center, which tracks ethnic and religious bias across the 25-country European Union, said Muslims routinely suffered problems ranging from physical attacks to discrimination in the job and housing markets. It called on leaders to strengthen policies on integration, and on Muslims to ‘engage more actively in public life’ to counter negative perceptions driven by terrorism or violence, such as the backlash this year caused by cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad. ‘The key word is ‘respect,” said Beate Winkler, director of the group. ‘People need to feel respected and included. We need to highlight the common ground that we have.’ Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, many of Europe’s nearly 13 million Muslims feel ‘they have been put under a general suspicion of terrorism,’ Winkler said. Although the center conceded that it had been hampered by incomplete data that make Islamophobic acts ‘underreported and underrecorded,’ it listed hundreds of cases of violence or threats against Muslims […]
Iraqi Red Crescent aid workers suspended work in war-torn Baghdad after two dozen of their colleagues fell victim to the latest mass kidnap to shock a city plagued by sectarian violence. More than 40 bullet-ridden corpses were discovered across Baghdad and 16 people killed in attacks as new US Defence Secretary Robert Gates took office in Washington amid deepening US divisions about how to handle the crisis. Hired guns from a US private security firm sprang a former Iraqi minister convicted of a 2.5-billion-dollar (1.9-billion-euro) fraud from a police cell, a judge said, in a further sign of the chaos engulfing the country. ‘We have frozen or stopped temporarily activities in Baghdad, but this is not affecting civilian needs. This was logical because our main staff is still kidnapped,’ the Iraqi Red Crescent’s secretary general Mazen Abdallah said. In addition to the main branch targeted in the kidnapping, the Iraqi Red Crescent has closed another 40 subsidiary offices in Baghdad, affecting more than 600 staff, a large proportion of them security guards, Abdallah said. Seventeen of more than 30 men snatched in Sunday’s brazen raid by gunmen dressed in police uniforms have been released, including […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
