NEW YORK — Non-profit organisations may find it harder to raise money, and will almost certainly face calls for greater scrutiny by donors and regulators, after losing billions of dollars by investing with Bernard Madoff. Mark Charendoff, the president of the Jewish Funders Network, which represents 900 philanthropists and foundations, said: ‘There’s no question that donors are going to be asking very, very hard questions of non-profits before they give to them. His views were echoed by others in the non-profit world, who said they had faced questions not only about their endowments’ exposure to Mr Madoff’s alleged $50bn ‘Ponzi scheme, but also about the safety of their other investments. Several foundations and charities have closed after losing either their endowment or their donors through investments with Mr Madoff. Others have lost money but say they will continue and try to replace funding. Many endowments had all their money, or a large part of it, invested with Mr Madoff. Jeff Solomon, president of The Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies, said: ‘There was a failure here by governing bodies to do due diligence . . . diversification is the first rule of investment. He said: […]
WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama and his team have signaled that they plan to work jointly with Congress to overhaul the healthcare system, rather than produce a separate White House bill that would be sent to Capitol Hill, according to people involved in healthcare strategy discussions. The Obama team is determined to avoid the mistakes of the early 1990s, when the Clinton White House created a healthcare policy team that had more than 500 members and spent months secretly developing a 1,342-page proposal with minimal input from Congress. A lack of investment among congressional leaders helped doom the bill, which never even went to a vote. Obama and his team – headed by former Senate majority leader Tom Daschle, who will serve as a bridge to Congress – have already begun privately engaging with congressional leaders and have emphasized that they intend to work more collaboratively on healthcare than the Clintons did, said the two leading Democratic senators on healthcare reform. ‘Congress did not want to be told what to do,’ said Max Baucus, the Senate Finance Committee chairman, whose committee will determine whether a healthcare overhaul is fiscally feasible. ‘They’re very cognizant of that and they […]
A national survey announced today in ‘USA Today measures a key component in America’s social health by ranking the culture and resources for reading in America’s largest cities. The study’s author, Dr. Jack Miller, president of Central Connecticut State University, also reports on the impact of the internet on the decline of newspapers and also finds the US doing less well than its global competitors on a key index of literacy. The study — ‘America’s Most Literate Cities 2008 — identifies the top ten cities in this order: Minneapolis, MN 1.5 Seattle, WA 1.5 Washington, DC 3 St. Paul, MN 4 San Francisco, CA 5 Atlanta, GA 6 Denver, CO 7 Boston, MA 8 St. Louis, MO 9 Cincinnati, OH 10.5 Portland, OR 10.5 Minneapolis and Seattle have traded the number 1 and 2 spots over the six years the survey has been conducted. This is their first tie for the top spot. The national survey develops a statistical profile of cities with populations of 250,000 or more. This is the sixth year of the study, which is available online at: www.ccsu.edu/AMLC08. According to Miller, ‘This study attempts to capture one critical index of our nation’s well-being — […]
GAZA — Israel launched air strikes on Gaza for a second successive day on Sunday, piling pressure on Hamas after 229 people were killed in one of the bloodiest 24 hours for Palestinians in 60 years of conflict with the Jewish state. ‘Palestine has never seen an uglier massacre,’ said Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and his Islamist group, which has controlled the coastal territory since June 2007, vowed revenge including suicide bombings in Israel’s ‘cafes and streets.’ Israel bolstered armored and infantry forces along the Gaza Strip border, and a military spokesman said on Sunday: ‘The (Gaza) operation is continuous. It is still taking place.’ The Jewish state said it was responding to ‘intolerable’ almost daily rocket and mortar fire by Gaza militants that intensified after Hamas ended a six-month ceasefire a week ago. The militant attacks caused some injuries, raising the stakes for Israeli leaders ahead of a February 10 election which surveys show the right-wing opposition Likud party may win. Israel said its warplanes mounted about 100 strikes on Saturday and that Palestinian militants had fired some 70 rockets at the Jewish state, killing one Israeli man. ‘There is a time for […]
WASHINGTON, DC — The national trade association of America’s wind industry says in 2008 the industry had another record growth year – the third record year in a row and generated more than $18 billion in revenues. This year, the United States passed Germany to become the world leader in wind generation, said the American Wind Energy Association in its year-end report. AWEA says that this summer, the U.S. wind industry reached the 20,000-megawatt installed capacity milestone, doubling installed wind power generating capacity since 2006. By the end of September, the U.S. had over 21,000 megawatts of wind capacity up and running. Germany had 22,300 megawatts, but U.S. windpower developers sprinted to the end of the year while German wind development slowed. ‘With additional projects coming on line every week since, the wind industry is on its way to charting another record-shattering year of growth,’ AWEA said in its report. That 21,000 megawatts of capacity are expected to generate over 60 billion kilowatt hours of electricity in 2009, enough to serve over 5.5 million American homes. This means that in 2009 wind power is estimated to displace the burning of 30.4 million short tons […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
