Fewer Dallas-Fort Worth Homeowners Owe More Than Home is Worth
The number of Dallas-Fort Worth homeowners who owe more than their house is worth has declined significantly in the last year.
Just over 14 percent of Dallas-area homeowners who have loans were upside down at the end of June, researchers at CoreLogic report. The negative equity rate was 30.45 percent for the D-FW area a year earlier.
In the Fort Worth area, 13.5 percent of homes were under water with debt at the end of June.
About 155,000 D-FW home loans have negative equity, according to the report released Thursday.
Nationwide, 23 percent of residential properties with loans had negative equity in the second quarter, CoreLogic reports. That’s down from 24 percent in the first quarter and is the second consecutive quarter of improvement.
Homeowners who owe more than their house is worth are considered more likely to default on their loans.
“Negative equity continues to both drive foreclosures and impede the housing market recovery,” Mark Fleming, chief economist for CoreLogic, said in the report. “With nearly 5 million borrowers currently in severe negative equity, defaults will remain at a high level for an extended period of time.”
CoreLogic estimates that 11 million homes nationwide have negative equity. Altogether the owners owe $766 billion more than their properties would sell for.
The improvement in negative equity in the D-FW area comes at a time when home prices have increased marginally and the number of sales has risen.
But foreclosure rates in the D-FW area remain high.
The states with the highest negative home equity rates are those that have been hardest hit in the housing market shakeout. In Nevada, 68 percent of homeowners with loans owe more than their house is worth. And in Arizona, 50 percent of mortgage holders are underwater.
Texas has an 11.3 percent negative equity rate.
| — Hat tip: Lurker from Tulsa | [Return to headlines] |
How Bad is the US Economy? Russian Students Are Begging for Change to Go Back to Russia…
…they are Russian students (evident by their very thick Russian accents [not detectable in this picture]) who were lured to the United States and Austin with the promise of lucrative jobs in the fascinating field of Life Guarding, only to be swindled and cheated by an unsavory employer…
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Intel CEO: U.S. Faces Looming Tech Decline
ASPEN, Colo. — Intel Chief Executive Officer Paul Otellini offered a depressing set of observations about the economy and the Obama administration Monday evening, coupled with a dark commentary on the future of the technology industry if nothing changes.
Otellini’s remarks during dinner at the Technology Policy Institute’s Aspen Forum here amounted to a warning to the administration officials and assorted Capitol Hill aides in the audience: unless government policies are altered, he predicted, “the next big thing will not be invented here. Jobs will not be created here.”
The U.S. legal environment has become so hostile to business, Otellini said, that there is likely to be “an inevitable erosion and shift of wealth, much like we’re seeing today in Europe — this is the bitter truth.”
[…]
Otellini singled out the political state of affairs in Democrat-dominated Washington, saying: “I think this group does not understand what it takes to create jobs. And I think they’re flummoxed by their experiment in Keynesian economics not working.”
[…]
Take factories. “I can tell you definitively that it costs $1 billion more per factory for me to build, equip, and operate a semiconductor manufacturing facility in the United States,“ Otellini said.
The rub: Ninety percent of that additional cost of a $4 billion factory is not labor but the cost to comply with taxes and regulations that other nations don’t impose. (Cypress Semiconductor CEO T.J. Rodgers elaborated on this in an interview with CNET, saying the problem is not higher U.S. wages but antibusiness laws: “The killer factor in California for a manufacturer to create, say, a thousand blue-collar jobs is a hostile government that doesn’t want you there and demonstrates it in thousands of ways.”)
“If our tax rate approached that of the rest of the world, corporations would have an incentive to invest here,” Otellini said. But instead, it’s the second highest in the industrialized world, making the United States a less attractive place to invest — and create jobs — than places in Europe and Asia that are “clamoring” for Intel’s business.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
More Texans Fell Behind in Mortgage Payments in the Second Quarter
More Texans have fallen behind in their mortgage payments, the latest industry research shows.
In the second quarter, 9.28 percent of Texas homeowners with loans had late payments, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported Thursday.
That’s up from an 8.77 loan delinquency rate in the first quarter, according to the Washington, D.C.-based mortgage industry trade group. It was the highest late mortgage rate for Texas since the third quarter of 2009.
Fewer Texans — 3.39 percent — were 90 days or more behind in payments at the end of June. Those loans are considered the most likely to go into foreclosure.
The national picture improved.
Nationwide, 9.85 percent of homeowners with loans had one or more late payments. That’s a decrease of almost a quarter percentage point from the first quarter of 2010. Another 1.11 percent of U.S. home mortgage holders went into foreclosure in the second quarter.
In Texas, 0.7 percent of home loans fell into foreclosure during the same period.
Mortgage economists said the new home delinquency numbers offer mixed messages.
“The good news is that foreclosure starts are down and the inventory of homes anywhere in the process of foreclosure fell for the first time since 2006 and had the largest drop since 2005,” Jay Brinkmann, the Mortgage Bankers’ chief economist, said in the report. “Loans 90 days or more past due, the largest share of delinquent loans, also fell.’
But the number of homeowners who are just one payment behind has grown, Brinkmann said — probably due to continued high unemployment levels.
“Only when we see a consistent increase in employment will we see an increase in sales and starts and a sustained improvement in the delinquency numbers,” he said. “Until we see the increase in the number of households that comes with an increase in the number of paychecks, all measures of the health of the housing industry will continue to be weak.”
| — Hat tip: Lurker from Tulsa | [Return to headlines] |
Nine Dallas-Area Employers Unite to Collect Data on Health Benefits
Nine large North Texas employers have formed a partnership to help each other get a grip on rising health care costs.
The employers are Archon Group, Brinker International, the cities of McKinney and Mesquite, Energy Future Holdings, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, Haggar Clothing, Interstate Batteries and Triumph Aero- structures.
The group announced Thursday a three-year effort called the Texas Health Strategy Project to help the partners create better health benefit packages for their workforces.
They’ll do this by collecting more detailed employee health data, reorganizing how they manage benefits and purchasing only the most needed health options to keep workers healthy and out of doctor offices.
Their work also is intended to address the requirements of the health care overhaul law, which requires employers to cover preventive services, said Andrew Webber, president and chief executive of the National Business Coalition on Health.
“As health care costs continue to rise, more employers are recognizing the value of tailoring benefits to the health risks within their employee populations,” Webber said.
Most corporate employee benefit managers are pushing “value-based purchasing,” which refers to the method of using research to select the specific benefits that employees need most.
For instance, value-based benefits for a trucking company might include extra coverage for lower-back care because research shows truck drivers have a greater propensity for back pain.
Cyndie Ewert, director of benefits and human resources for Energy Future Holdings’ 9,000 employees, said her company spends about $160 million a year on health care, with costs increasing 8 percent to 10 percent a year.
“We keep looking for ways to mitigate that trend,” Ewert said.
Ewert and the benefit directors of the eight other North Texas employers are modeling their effort after one tried by 17 Kansas City companies in 2008. Members of that group assisted each other with analyzing a dozen types of data, including workforce demographics, health risk appraisals and medical claims.
“I don’t want to start from scratch every time a new idea comes up,” Ewert said in explaining the appeal of teaming with other employers. “We all don’t need to be entrepreneurs.”
After the employers have had an opportunity to make changes to their employee benefits, implement programs and evaluate their effectiveness, they will produce a template for the other 120 North Texas employers in the Dallas Fort Worth Business Group on Health to follow.
| — Hat tip: Lurker from Tulsa | [Return to headlines] |
American Airlines Flight is First to Use New Route System at Heart of Air Traffic Control Overhaul
American Airlines Inc.’s flight from Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport to Hartford, Conn., Thursday morning shows that a better air traffic control system will come one route at a time.
The Boeing 737 flown by American Capt. Brian Will used the first “public” precision flight route created for the Federal Aviation Administration by a private company.
The bread and butter of the overall air traffic modernization program dubbed NextGen involves straightening out the zigzag routes in the skies that old-technology navigation beacons require airplanes to follow. The newest technologies combine satellite global positioning with better gear in airplanes and on the ground to create “precise” takeoffs and landings.
The Required Navigation Performance routes save time, fuel and even cut down on chatter between pilots and air traffic controllers, reducing the chance for communication errors, which Will said improves safety.
The FAA has — ever-so-slowly — been adding these more efficient routings for planes around the network, but airlines are frustrated at the snail’s pace that NextGen has taken. Enter Naverus, a Kent, Wash.-based firm owned now by GE Aviation that has built 330 such routes, though mostly outside the U.S. China and other Asian airports have an edge over the U.S. in terms of modernization when it comes to RNP routes.
Airlines that have spent hundreds of millions of dollars preparing for NextGen will take any new routing they can fly.
“It is a little disappointing that it’s taking this long” to get more routes, Will said before taking the stick on flight 1916, which left 16 minutes after scheduled departure. American has spent $450 million on new gear, training and preparations only to wait for the FAA to do its part to make the system hum. “We’d like to see more of these RNP routes in really congested air space.”
Indeed, D/FW to Hartford is sort of a relative milk run for the enhanced routings because the flight isn’t too complicated and the route built by Naverus overlays an existing approach. That means fuel and time savings aren’t that great; by contrast, the precision route between New York and Los Angeles can shave 20 minutes off the flight time, Will said.
The biggest advantage for the new routes may come in bad weather; the plane can land safely even if clouds are as low as 350 feet from the ground.
For GE, which makes much of the gear in the aircraft that makes the NextGen system work, buying the company that builds routes makes sense because more routes mean more demand for on-board equipment, said Steve Fulton, GE Aviation’s general manager. “We feel really good about being the first public route in the U.S. and we’ll be doing more,” he said.
The FAA has added private companies to help its own people create more routes as it builds different parts of NextGen that include enhancements to weather and air traffic monitoring.
Airlines remain frustrated at the pace. “A tool sitting in the box isn’t much of a help if you can’t take it out of the box,” said Will, who added that American is spending upwards of $50 million a week for upgrading existing planes and buying new gear to improve its fleet.
| — Hat tip: Lurker from Tulsa | [Return to headlines] |
Americans Pushing Back Against Obama Agenda
‘This may well represent a mainstream rebellion of the masses’
“This may well represent a mainstream rebellion of the masses who are tired of being cowed by a national mainstream media that has offered little objective criticism of the president,” said Fritz Wenzel of Wenzel Strategies.
[…]
He said the poll suggests that while Americans are worried about a loss of freedoms to an “activist government,” they now “are more willing than before to stand up to these perceived losses in freedom.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
America’s Mental Illness Epidemic: It Turns Out That the Drugs Are the Problem
Tens of millions of innocent, unsuspecting Americans, who are mired deeply in the mental “health” system, have actually been made crazy by the use of or the withdrawal from commonly-prescribed, brain-altering, brain-disabling, indeed brain-damaging psychiatric drugs that have been, for many decades, cavalierly handed out like candy — often in untested and therefore unapproved combinations of drugs — to trusting and unaware patients by equally unaware but well-intentioned physicians who have been under the mesmerizing influence of slick and obscenely profitable psychopharmaceutical drug companies, a.k.a. BigPharma.
That is the conclusion of two books by investigative journalist and health science writer Robert Whitaker. His first book, entitled Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill noted that there has been a 600 percent increase (since Thorazine was introduced in the US in the mid-1950s) in the total and permanent disabilities of millions of psychiatric drug-takers. This uniquely First World mental ill health epidemic has resulted in the life-long taxpayer-supported disabilities of rapidly increasing numbers of psychiatric patients who are now unable to be happy, productive, taxpaying members of society. Whitaker has done a powerful, albeit unwelcome job of presenting previously hidden, but very convincing evidence to support his thesis, that it is the drugs and not the diagnosis that is causing the epidemic of mental illness disability. Many open-minded physicians and many aware psychiatric patients are now motivated to be wary of any and all synthetic chemicals that can cross the blood/brain barrier because all of them are capable of altering the brain in ways totally unknown to medical science, especially when the patients are taking the drugs long-term. .
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EPA Considering Ban on Traditional Ammunition
EPA wants to ban all traditional ammunition under the Toxic Substance Control Act of 1976, a law in which Congress expressly exempted ammunition.
With the fall hunting season fast approaching, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under Lisa Jackson, who was responsible for banning bear hunting in New Jersey, is now considering a petition by the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) — a leading anti-hunting organization — to ban all traditional ammunition under the Toxic Substance Control Act of 1976, a law in which Congress expressly exempted ammunition. If the EPA approves the petition, the result will be a total ban on all ammunition containing lead-core components, including hunting and target-shooting rounds. The EPA must decide to accept or reject this petition by November 1, 2010, the day before the midterm elections.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Inquiry Finds Gov. Paterson Misled Ethics Investigators in Ticket Case
Gov. David A. Paterson of New York misled investigators for the state ethics commission when he testified that he had intended to pay for free tickets he obtained to last year’s World Series, according to a report issued on Thursday by an independent counsel investigating the matter.
But the independent counsel, Judith Kaye, said it was up to the local district attorney in Albany, P. David Soares, to decide whether Mr. Paterson should be prosecuted for perjury.
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Queens Man Lives in Bathroom to Cut Off Tech Addiction
Enter bathroom. Lock door. Kick Web addiction.
A 34-year-old Astoria comedian is flushing his digital dependency by holing up in his bathroom for five days, with the wacky campaign kicking off in the tiled, pink room Monday.
“I fell like I was losing control and needed to do something extreme,” said Mark Malkoff, while sitting in the tub that now doubles as his bed.
All jokes aside, Internet addiction has become a serious problem, with the potential to strain relationships, rob sleep and fuel other compulsions such as gambling and pornography, psychologists say.
“You can lose your bearings of what’s going on with your life,” said Peter Kanaris, coordinator for public education at the New York State Psychological Association.
Some New Yorkers are fighting back by getting off the tech-grid entirely.
“We’re making ourselves sick by constantly being connected,” said Ann Webster, a Manhattan psychologist, who swears off technology on Sundays. “It’s very refreshing.”
One New Yorker we spoke to said Malkoff is setting a good example.
“We are too addicted,” said Chris Parker, 22, of Queens. “It’s cool that someone’s putting a spotlight on it. I should probably cut back, too.”
Others, though, weren’t quite ready to drop their tech gear.
“I don’t think it’s a problem,” said Lauren Burkh, 28, of Queens. “I depend on my BlackBerry for work, life and everything.” In recent years, Malkoff had become a full-blown tech addict, checking his iPhone constantly and flipping through Twitter, Facebook and the Drudge Report all day.
The prankster has had previous similar schemes to live in unusual places, including sleeping in an Ikea store.
While he spends the next few days in his “new apartment,” Malkoff’s storing his clothes in a shower caddy and keeping his food in the bathroom cabinets. To pass all his new free time, Malkoff intends to read a friend’s screenplay, write letters to friends and finish a book proposal.
When his wife needs to use the bathroom, he’ll gather up his sleeping bag and then go right back in after she’s done.
“I’m not quite thrilled with this inconvenience in my life,” said Christine Peel-Malkoff, 32.
As of yesterday afternoon, Malkoff was feeling a bit anxious about his bold move into his loo.
“It’s a lot harder than I was expecting,” he said.
| — Hat tip: Lurker from Tulsa | [Return to headlines] |
‘Son of Hamas’ Warns U.S. Fatally Falling for Lies
‘Peaceful’ Muslims following Quran’s dictate to establish ‘global Islamic state’
Yousef, who recently was granted asylum in the U.S. after the Department of Homeland Security tried to deport him, told WND in a telephone interview Americans must understand that the ultimate goal of the highly influential Brotherhood is not terrorism but to establish a global Islamic state over the entire world.
“If they can establish this in a peaceful manner, that’s fine,” he said. “But they are required by the Quran to establish this global Islamic state on the rubble of every civilization, every constitution, every government.”
The Holy Land Foundation trial in Dallas in 2008 — the largest terror-finance case in U.S. history — presented evidence of the Muslim Brotherhood’s “100-year plan” to gradually destroy the U.S. and Western civilization from within “so that it is eliminated and Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”
“This is not a doctrine of some freak Muslim,” Yousef observed. “It’s the doctrine, the requirement, of the god of Islam himself and his prophet, whom they praise every day.”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
The Media’s Anti-Semitic Hate Machine
By linking Islamic terrorism to some form of Israeli provocation, and from there to the support for Israel by American Jews—the same media which would commit seppuku rather than blame Muslims for Islamic terrorism, instead blames Jews for Islamic terrorism. The steady drumbeat of such rhetoric, which exonerates Muslims but indicts Jews, for the actions of Muslims, is brilliantly perverse. And it also puts the lie to the media’s defense that it avoids attributing terrorism to Islam because it does not want to stoke bigotry. In reality, the media has no problem with using Islamic terrorism to stoke bigotry. It just has a different target in mind.
Behind the media’s long ugly history of misreporting terrorism against Israel, has been that one fundamental narrative, that it is not Muslims who are responsible for Muslim terrorism, but the Jews. When a Muslim terrorist attack happens in Tel Aviv, Madrid or New York—it turns out that the Jews are the ones to blame. It really doesn’t matter whether an Israeli soldier kills a Muslim terrorist, or a Muslim terrorist kills a Jewish father of four driving home from work, it is never the Muslim that is at fault. Always the Jew. Forget about even splitting the difference. There is never any difference to split. It is always Israel’s “humiliation” of Arab Muslims that is at fault for provoking their righteously murderous anger. A familiar theme that recalls Hitler’s constant invocation of “German humiliation” at the hands of the Jews.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
John Mauldin on Belgium, The Capital of the European Minefield
On the numbers alone, the most likely casualties are the UK and US in that order, but both have good odds of escaping. Many hard issues help. In America, one such is the dollar’s currently irreplaceable role as the world’s reserve currency. In the UK, the relatively excellent debt duration (i.e. it is spread over many years rather than near-term) is a plus. Each also has good soft issues: the market likes the new British government’s tax and slash policies so is a willing buyer of UK debt, whilst the Asian central banks have so many US bonds they simply self destruct if they refuse to keep buying.
The standout surprise candidate for sovereign default by end-2012 is Belgium. A decent country; civilised, at peace, wealthy and globally competitive in several areas. Moreover, first glance at the numbers gives no particular reason to expect Belgium to default. Its potential financial problems have been on the radar screen for so long that we have grown used to them, rather like those many parents who fail to recognise the repulsiveness of their offspring. With net government debt of €400bn, it is hardly a huge world borrower in absolute terms. Yet default could occur almost entirely by accident and the ripples be far greater than its size warrants, because of its position as the de facto federal capital of the EU. Belgium’s hastening car crash is not in current bond prices or exchange rates.
The glue has dissolved
There are five reasons why Belgium has hung together for the last 180 years: Britain, God, the King, fear and most importantly, money. Before addressing these, it is necessary to understand why Belgium exists at all. When in 1815 Britain was the Big Beluga after the battle of Waterloo, it wanted a buffer state to contain France. The easy solution was to give the area now known as Belgium to one of its staunchest allies, Holland. Unfortunately, King William I of the now-renamed United Netherlands was not, even according to Dutch history books, the smartest primate in the zoo, and he suffered from the diplomatic skills of a water buffalo. Holland (or the Kingdom of the Netherlands to give it its official name) had a long history of Calvinism. This was unpopular with the newly acquired Dutch and French Catholic subjects alike. Moreover, by deliberately ensuring the French were under-represented in all parts of government, yet overtaxed, the embers of resentment smouldered. These grew hotter in 1823 after an attempt to make Dutch the official language for the whole population. Surprisingly, full rebellion was ignited by the staging of a sentimental patriotic opera in Brussels in 1830. The crowds poured out of the theatre and went on the rampage. As Britain still wanted a buffer state, and was still the world superpower, it quickly moved to ensure the creation of a new country called Belgium, uniting Flanders and Wallonia (hence Flanonia might have been more appropriate).
The people, having suddenly been rebranded, opted for a French king. Britain growled, ever mindful of France’s latent imperial ambitions, thus a minor German duke’s second son was chosen instead. After nine years’ skirmishing, as Holland held onto a few strong points, and a minor invasion by France, Holland withdrew to sulk.
The Dutch king’s alienation of his many Dutch speaking but Catholic subjects in Belgium united them with their French counterparts, providing a powerful glue to hold society together well into the late twentieth century. Now, like most of Western Europe, society has rapidly turned secular. In 1967, 43% of the population attended Catholic mass every Sunday. By 1998 (the last year in which the Roman Catholic Church produced data) this was down to 11%. It is estimated to have fallen by 0.5% p.a. ever since, possibly accelerating given the latest sex-scandal investigations. (The Bishop of Bruges confessed to an unpleasant 20-year history and resigned; the police then raided and sealed off the Archbishop’s palace, also the national catholic HQ on similar charges. The investigation continues.)
In line with this trend, reverence for the monarchy has also waned, although most of the country’s kings have done a good job given they have forever walked the high wire over ferocious political and linguistic divisions. Little needs to be said of the fear quotient. Belgium has suffered from three highly aggressive neighbours: Germany, France and the Netherlands. It was a popular sport for each to routinely stomp all over the area. They have all changed their ways. Leaving aside a lack of clout, the British are now wholly ignorant of how or why they created Belgium at all.
The language chasm
Belgium is a federation of three states: Flanders in the North, where Dutch (Flemish) is spoken by the native Flemings; Wallonia in the South where the official language is French; and thirdly the all-important region of Brussels. This is surrounded by Flanders although the majority of the region speaks French. The linguistic divide is well-known, but this is not of the Mandarin vs. Cantonese or Castilian vs. Catalan spat variety. It is aggressive. Ten metres either side of the official linguistic border, the other language does not exist. Municipalities can and often do insist official documents and meetings only take place in their local language. This draconian legal divide was foolishly legislated into place in 1980 and has become more intolerant every since. Belgian politics are so culturally divided that all 12 of the major parties break down on linguistic lines and cannot stand in the other language area.
A shifting balance of power
Post-independence the balance of power shifted to the French speakers…
| — Hat tip: TV | [Return to headlines] |
This Very Crowded Isle: England is Most Over-Populated Country in EU
England is now the most overcrowded country in Europe.
It has more people per square mile than the Low Countries, which has long been the most densely-populated region of the continent, MPs have been told.
Only tiny Malta, an island city state with a population no bigger than that of Bristol, has greater population pressure among the 27 EU members.
The confirmation of England’s position at the head of the European overcrowding league table was given by the highly authoritative House of Commons library, which examined figures from the Office for National Statistics and the EU’s Eurostat.
Officials said that by next year England will have 402.1 people for every square kilometre, overtaking the figure of 398.5 in Holland and 355.2 in Belgium.
The density of the population in England by 2011 will be more than four times that of France, which has 99.4 for each square kilometre.
According to the Commons Library estimates, it will reach double the density of Germany in 20 years’ time, when there will be nearly 460 people for every square kilometre in England against 224 in Germany.
The overcrowding figures come in advance of fresh official figures on immigration and its impact on the size of the population due for release today.
Ministers have promised to bring in a cap on immigration next year to bring numbers of arrivals down to 1990s levels and ease population pressures.
However some members of the Coalition, notably Business Secretary Vince Cable, are hostile to any move to reduce immigration and sympathetic to calls from industry to allow more foreign workers into the country.
The Commons figures showed how overcrowding is increasingly affecting England, which attracts almost all of the migrants who arrive in Britain.
England, it said, will hit a density level of 402.1 people for every square kilometre next year, which will rise to 524.1 in 2061.
But in Scotland the population density will barely increase at all, going up over the same period from 67.0 to 70.9 people for each square kilometre.
Over the whole of the UK, the density measure will go up from 256.9 next year to 326.9 in 2061.
Recent EU figures have shown that Britain accounted for nearly a third of the total increase in population across the whole of Europe last year, with 412,000 extra people in this country in 2009.
Whitehall has also acknowledged that 100,000 new homes will be required each year for the next 25 years to cope with the growth of population as a direct result of immigration.
The figures have underlined concerns over the effects of rising population on transport and housing, and on both cities and countryside, as numbers rise towards the officially predicted level of 70million by 2029.
James Clappison, Tory MP for Hertsmere, said: ‘Population density of such a level is an issue which politicians must address. Immigration is the major driver of population increase.’
He added: ‘This is something which the last government studiously ignored and this Government must deal with.’
The Commons figures for Holland differ from those used by the Luxembourg-based Eurostat in that they take into account the whole area of the country.
EU estimates use just the land area and do not count Dutch inland seas.
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
UK: I’m a Victim Too Says the Widow of 7/7 Bomber, In Legal Aid Claim That Could Delay Inquest
The widow of a July 7 suicide bomber yesterday launched a High Court bid to be represented at the victims’ inquest — saying she had also suffered the loss of a loved one in the atrocity.
Hasina Patel, whose husband was terrorist mastermind Mohammad Sidique Khan, is seeking legal aid to challenge the coroner’s decision to exclude Khan’s death from the hearing for the 52 victims of the 2005 London bombings.
If the mother of one’s application is granted, October’s long-awaited inquest could be delayed by months of legal wrangling, to the distress of those who have waited more than five years for it to take place.
Lawyers for Miss Patel claim there should be ‘no material distinction’ between her and the families of those killed, because she ‘equally suffered the loss of a relative’.
But the move will anger bereaved families, who do not want the deaths of the terrorists included in the same inquest as the 52 innocents whose lives they took.
Miss Patel hopes to overturn the decision made by Lady Justice Hallett in May to hold a separate hearing into the deaths of the four bombers — Mohammad Sidique Khan, 30, Shehzad Tanweer, 22, Hasib Hussain, 18, and Jermaine Lindsay, 19.
The Government has already agreed to give legal aid to the families of the 52 victims. But Miss Patel’s request for equal funding was refused in May this year.
Afterwards, her solicitor Imran Khan said: ‘There appears to be no material distinction between the victims’ families and the position of my clients as family members who, through no fault of their own, have equally suffered the loss of a relative.’
Yesterday Ian Wise QC, representing Miss Patel, told the High Court that she wanted legal aid ‘so that she can be represented to make representations on the resumption of the inquest into the death of her husband and whether it should be joined to the existing inquest’.
He referred to Miss Patel as the wife of the ‘alleged ringleader’, saying she could help the inquest by providing information. But Lord Justice Thomas demanded to know what information Miss Patel had that she had not already told police, warning that any application to include the bombers in the inquest would cause a delay.
Yesterday Ashley Underwood QC, representing the Lord Chancellor, said Miss Patel wanted legal aid only to defend her reputation.
Clifford Tibber of Oury Clark Solicitors, which represents several victims’ families, said: ‘They have waited for more than five years for this and for them to wait any longer would be devastating for them.’
Miss Patel, who was born in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, married Khan in 2002 after they met at Dewsbury College, where both were studying to work in the education sector.
She has described her husband as a ‘good person’ who was brainwashed by Islamic militants.
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Pensioner Who Wanted to See Council Electrical Wiring Report Told She Couldn’t Have it — Because it Was Written in Polish
A pensioner was left ‘fuming’ after she was unable to read the electrical safety report on her house — because she can’t speak Polish.
Two workmen arrived at 70-year-old Stella Sheen’s council house in Islington, north London, to check if her wiring was safe.
When the Polish electricians finished the job she asked them if she could have a copy of the safety certificate only to be told there was ‘no point’.
Mrs Sheen said she was ‘fuming’ when the council electricians told her that if she didn’t speak Polish then she wouldn’t be able to read the report on the work they had carried out.
She said: ‘I told them I wanted a copy of it but the contractor kept saying he couldn’t give it to me and to request a copy from the council.
‘He told me that if he gave me the report I wouldn’t understand it because it was written in Polish.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Riddle of the Missing Two Weeks: Why Did Body of British Spy With ‘Secretive’ Private Life Lie Undiscovered for So Long?
Police believe Mr Williams’s body could have lain undiscovered for up to a fortnight. Mystery still surrounds why no-one raised the alarm sooner.
It is thought he was on holiday at the time of his death. Another explanation may lie in claims that he travelled regularly to the U.S. for his work.
Detectives believe the key to the case could lie in his private life. His family said he was an extremely reserved person who kept himself very much to himself.
But investigators will be attempting to discover if the quietly spoken, mild-mannered codes and ciphers expert was leading a double life which he kept from his colleagues.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Sister of Suspected Honour Killing Victim Arrested Over Armed Robbery on Her Own Home
The sister of a suspected honour killing victim was being questioned by police last night over an armed robbery on her family home.
Alisha Ahmed — younger sister of Shafilea Ahmed who disappeared in 2003 and was later found murdered — was arrested after the raid.
The 22-year-old is accused of masterminding the robbery in Warrington, Cheshire, in a bid to clear her debts.A gang of masked men broke into the house and tied up Farzana Ahmed, 47, her daughters,Mervish, 19, and Saima, 14,and son Harun, 20. Their father, Iftikhar Ahmed, 50, was not in the house at the time of the raid.
The three men ransacked the property before escaping with a large quantity of jewellery and other valuables.
The family managed to wrestle free and alert police. Shortly afterwards Alisha Ahmed was arrested. She was being questioned by detectives last night over her alleged involvement in the raid at around 10.20pm on Wednesday.
Her parents, Iftikhar and Farzana, were arrested when Shafilea, 17, disappeared in 2003 shortly after rejecting a suitor in Pakistan.
She apparently refused to go through with an arranged marriage to the unknown man because she wanted a career. The A-level pupil drank bleach in an apparent suicide attempt while in Pakistan and returned to the UK to continue studying. But weeks later Shafilea, who wanted to become a lawyer, went missing after complaining she was being forced to marry.
Her father denied he had tried to force his daughter into an arranged marriage in Pakistan and claimed she accidentally drank the bleach during a power cut after mistakenly thinking it was fruit juice.
Her badly decomposed body was found in February 2004 in the River Kent in Cumbria.
Detectives said her body had been deliberately hidden there soon after she disappeared. An inquest ruled she had been murdered and a pathologist stated the schoolgirl was likely to have been smothered or strangled.
During the investigation into her death, it emerged that Shafilea had run away from the family home on previous occasions.
In February 2003 she had sought help from youth advisory service, Connexions, telling them she was going to run away because she was convinced her father was organising an arranged marriage for her.
Several songs written by Shafilea in the run-up to her death were discovered,
one saying: ‘I feel trapped.’
Another stated: ‘All they think about is honour, I was like a normal teenage kid, didn’t ask 2 much, I just wanted to fit in, but my culture was different. Now I’m sitting here playing happy families still crying tears.’
Her parents and five relatives from Bradford were repeatedly questioned by police but never charged with her murder.
In 2008 Mr Ahmed, a taxi driver, and his wife were re-arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.
Detectives are still making inquiries and insist the murder inquiry is still active.
Last night a spokesman for Cheshire Police said of the robbery: ‘As a result of initial inquiries, a 22-year-old local woman was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to rob.’
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
Serbia: EU Membership ‘Depends on Dropping Kosovo Claims’
Belgrade, 26 August (AKI) — German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle told Serbian leaders on Thursday to choose between carrying on a diplomatic battle for Kosovo, which declared independence two years ago, or membership in the European Union which Belgrade has proclaimed as its main goal.
On his first visit to Belgrade, Westerwelle left no doubt that Serbia’s membership in the EU depended on recognition of Kosovo independence, burying Serbian leaders’ theory that Kosovo and EU membership were “two separate tracks”.
After talks with Serbian president Boris Tadic, prime minister Mirko Cvetkovic and foreign minister Vuk Jeremic, Westerwelle said that “territorial integrity of Kosovo isn’t subject to any discussion”.
Westerwelle reprimanded Serbian leaders for carrying on the battle for Kosovo to the United Nations General Assembly, despite a recent ruling of by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that declaration of Kosovo independence wasn’t contrary to international law.
Serbia has submitted a draft resolution to the UN General Assembly, calling for new talks on Kosovo status, saying that the ICJ ruling wasn’t clearly in favour of Kosovo independence.
“We had hoped that the ICJ ruling would be a turning point and we are not happy at all that Serbia is once again trying to open that issue in New York,” Westerwelle told journalists in Belgrade.
“Those who are for confrontations, who open status questions despite the fact that international institutions have assessed that it is not necessary, correct of legally justified, have a lot of homework to do,” Westerwelle said.
“Serbia can’t become a member of the EU without the full support of Germany and that is of crucial importance,” said Jeremic. He added, however, that Belgrade was ready for constructive talks on any issues, including its proposed resolution, but couldn’t accept any solutions “which would confirm Kosovo independence”.
Responding to journalists questions, Westerwelle said “it very important to show flexibility and readiness for concessions, instead of opting for confrontations”.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Building Churches in Egypt and the Ground Zero Mosque
by Mary Abdelmassih
(AINA) — Egyptians, Muslims and Christians alike, are closely watching the controversy associated with the Ground Zero Mosque project, though for different reasons. The Egyptian media is giving this issue full coverage with articles mostly accusing Americans of Islamophobia, and supporting Muslims to hold on to their rights to build a mosque anywhere as guaranteed by the US constitution, regardless of what Americans think.
On the other hand, some influential Muslims rejected the idea of a Mosque near Ground Zero only on grounds that it would backfire on Islam, by connecting it to the 9/11 events. Dr. AbdelMotey Bayoumi, a member of Al Azhar’s Islamic Research Academy, believes it could be a “Zionist conspiracy” to harm Islam.
American-Egyptian Copts were also accused of organizing the rally which is to be staged on 9/11 with Geert Wilders, reported the Egyptian daily “youm7” on August 20, 2010.
“I cannot believe the double standards of the Egyptian Muslims,” commented Coptic activist Magdy Guindi. “It is obvious that Americans don’t approve of this Mosque being near Ground Zero. Is this not one of the conditions applied to church building in Egypt?”
Much of the on-going sectarian strife in Egypt is related to the ability to build churches. Unlike Muslim citizens, who only need a municipal license to build mosques, the Copts require presidential approval for a church, based on the 1856 Ottoman Hamayoni Decree, in addition to ten humiliating conditions laid down by the Ezaby Pasha Decree of 1934, before being considered for a presidential decree. These include the approval of the neighboring Muslim community.
“Muslim clerics and Islamists easily persuade Muslims that a church is equivalent to slandering Islam, so they take advantage of this “Muslim approval” condition,” said Guindi.
Even after obtaining licenses for a church, Muslims still attack Christians and demolish or burn their churches (AINA 7-12-2009). A rumor that Christians are meeting to pray is enough reason for Muslim neighbors to carry out acts of violence against them (AINA 8-21-2009). On various occasions, it only takes Muslims to protest against the building of a church for State Security to stop the works, under the pretext that it is causing “sectarian strife.”
In 2005 President Mubarak issued a decree, which delegated authority to the country’s 26 governors to grant permits to Christians to expand or rebuild existing churches. Instead of making matters easier, many local officials intentionally delay or refuse to process applications without “supporting documents” that are virtually impossible to obtain. State Security often block them from using permits that have been issued on “security concerns.”
Last month a problem arose between the Governor of Minya and Anba Agathon, the Bishop of the diocese of Maghagha and Edwah, which is still unresolved, despite mediation efforts by Coptic Pope Shenouda III.
The Governor suddenly suspended the license obtained for the renewal of the 1934 diocese in Maghagha, including the church, after it was demolished, as agreed with the governor. The pretext for the suspension was because the 45 square meters of rooms where the Bishop lives were not demolished as well. Although the Bishop confirmed that the governor agreed verbally to the Bishop staying in his dwelling until new rooms are built on the new site, the governor now insists that the Bishop “should find somewhere else to sleep.”
Since March 16, 2010, after the demolition of the old church, the Bishop and the congregation have been celebrating mass in a linen tent erected on the courtyard where the new church is planned, under the summer heat exceeding 45C. The Diocese of Maghagha serves 250,000 Copts.
Realizing that the governor has tricked them into getting them to demolished the old church first, Bishop Agathon, 75 clergy and nearly 150,000 Copts from parishes all over the Diocese of Maghagha and Edwah have staged a three day sit-in in Maghagha tent church from July 25, 2010, protesting against the intransigence of the Governor of Minya. They wanted to travel to Cairo to continue their sit-in at the Coptic Patriarchate in Cairo, after presenting a petition signed by 160,000 Copts from the Diocese to President Mubarak. It was reported that the Pope, who was undergoing medical treatment in the U.S., asked the Bishop to wait until his return.
Most Copts interviewed on the issue of the Ground Zero Mosque thought that even if Moslems had the right to build a mosque, it should be somewhere else, to save the victims families any pain. Others thought the Muslim attitude was typical “They go to a country and want to take it over, making the best of democratic rights to their advantage, but when it comes to Islamic countries, matters are different, and they forget about the rights of others,” commented one young Coptic girl.
“Let Muslims experience the rage and frustration we have been going through for centuries, every time we want to build or repair a dilapidating church in our own country,” commented Coptic activist Mina Hanna, in what sounded like Schadenfreude. “It would be interesting to see what happens if the West decided to treat Muslims like Christians in Egypt.”
| — Hat tip: Mary Abdelmassih | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Vandals Attack Israeli Cosmetics Store
An Israeli skin care shop has had red paint thrown across its windows in a suspected targeted attack.
The Ahava store — famous for its Dead Sea products — was covered in the paint during the incident in Covent Garden, central London, on Wednesday night.
Staff discovered the damage when they arrived for work on Thursday morning.
Shop assistant Rita Trindad said: “We don’t know exactly what happened. I came in this morning and there was red paint all over the windows. We cleaned the windows this afternoon and we are still open — it’s business as usual.”
She said the attack had been reported to police who are now investigating.
The Ahava store has been the scene of regular anti-Israel demonstrations. Neighbouring shopkeepers have repeatedly called police as protestors have driven customers away and disrupted business in the busy shopping area.
Demonstrators claim Ahava acts unlawfully by labelling its products “Made in Israel” when they are made in Mitzpe Shalem, an Israeli settlement in the West Bank.
A fortnight ago four people were acquitted of chaining themselves inside the store.
| — Hat tip: KGS | [Return to headlines] |
Briton, 20, ‘Raped Twice by Arab Soldier’ In Dubai After Accepting a Ride in the Back of His Car
A British woman was raped twice by an Arab soldier in Dubai after accepting a ride back to her apartment in his car, a Dubai court has heard.
The 20-year-old, who works as an office secretary in the Muslim state, said she was attacked after enjoying a night out with friends in the Buddha Bar on January 4.
During the evening she struck up a conversation with Saif Khamis Jumaa Al Suwaidi.
The 30-year-old Emirati soldier bought her a drink before persuading her to let him drive her back to her apartment on Palm Jumeirah, the man-made island.
But once she was in his Nissan Altima, he drove to a spot in the desert, she told the Dubai Court of First Instance.
‘I refused [the lift] but he kept insisting so finally I accepted.
‘He was totally drunk and after ten minutes we reached an empty place in the desert. I was scared because I didn’t know what he was going to do to me.’
When she challenged him she claims he became aggressive and started to smash her head against the car window on the passenger’s side before raping her.
Al Suwaidi allegedly drove his victim back to her apartment on Palm Island where he raped her for a second time.
When they reached her apartment the woman told Al Suwaidi her father was in the house, but he is said not to have believed her. He allegedly raped her again.
She claims Al Suwaidi then grabbed her mobile phone and saved his number and name in it, asking her to call him, before leaving the flat.
Police found his DNA on the victim’s underwear, the court heard.
Al Suwaidi denies rape.
The trial, which was adjourned until next month, continues.
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
Energy and Security Issues in the Red Sea as the Age of Gas Begins
Much of the anticipated change is developing around the flood of new discoveries and exploitation of natural gas fields in the Indian Ocean region, particularly extending through Ethiopia, Egypt, and other countries of the Red Sea region. Apart from the impending influx of new energy wealth into the region, facilitating new levels of confidence and capability in the security environment, the boom of the “Gas Age” also seems set to promise — within a decade — an oversupply of gas to the world market, almost certainly precipitating a collapse in price for gas and petroleum.1
The strategic balance in the Horn of Africa, and reaching through the Red Sea to Egypt and the Mediterranean, is changing rapidly — and in many respects is becoming more unstable — as political, geopolitical, economic, and ideological issues begin to clash…
[..]
[Be sure to read footnotes and comments at the link]
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Iran: Iranian Footballer Escapes With a Fine of 30 Thousand Euro for Breaking Ramadan,
Ali Karimi has returned to play in the Steel Azin. Last week he was sacked by the club. He must pay the fine for drinking water during training, for insulting the Football Association and a former Revolutionary Guards.
Tehran (AsiaNews / Agencies) — Ali Karimi, a former Bayern Monaco footballer nicknamed the “Asian Maradona”, may return to play in the Steel Azin, the Iranian club that fired him for not respecting Ramadan. But he will have to pay a 30 thousand euro fine
On August 15 Karimi was fired from Steel Azin for drinking during a training session, for criticizing the Iranian Football Federation and insulting Ajorlou Mostafa, Managing Director of Steel Azin and former Revolutionary Guard. On 12 August Iran started Ramadan and Iranian law requires all Muslims to observe fasting from dawn until sunset.
Ali Karimi is an Iranian of the greatest players of all time and is famous for having played a game in 2009 against South Korea wearing green wristbands, the symbol colour of opposition to the regime of Ahmadinejad.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Iraq: Karakosh — Baghdeeda: A Christian Originally From Mosul is Kidnapped
Louyaé Behnam was kidnapped yesterday by a group of armed men. The family has already paid a ransom of 15 thousand dollars, but the kidnappers have not yet released the man. Throughout the country attacks continue after the withdrawal of U.S. troops.
Mosul (AsiaNews) — A Syrian Catholic Christian was kidnapped yesterday in Karakosh — Baghdeeda by a group of armed men, who immediately after the abduction demanded a ransom of 15 thousand U.S. dollars. Local sources told AsiaNews that the family has already paid the sum, but the kidnappers have not yet released the man. Louyaé Behnam, 35, is originally from Mosul, where until a few years ago he ran a glaziers shop. For security reasons, he moved along with his family Karakosh — Baghdeeda 30 km from Mosul. The city is located in a Christian majority district of Karakosh (Nineveh Plain), and is home to many displaced Christians from Mosul and Baghdad.
Northern Iraq has long been the scene of targeted attacks against the Christian community, the centre of a power struggle between Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen. According to Christians attacks are linked to the creation of a Christian enclave in the plain of Nineveh, which the government does nothing to counter.
The announcement of the withdrawal of the last contingent of U.S. troops, which marks the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom, “only adds to the climate of general insecurity. For six months Iraqis have been waiting for the formation of a government and the country is being taken over by criminal gangs and Islamic extremists.
Yesterday, more than 50 people were killed in a series of attacks that struck the city of Kirkuk, Fallujah, Tikrit, Mosul, Basra, Ramadi and Karbala. Official sources said the attacks are the work of the extremists of al-Qaida, but local sources say that “the attacks are politicized and al-Qaida has nothing to do with them. Their purpose is to intimidate the population”.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Saudi Couple Hammer 24 Hot Nails Into Their Maid After She Complained of Heavy Workload
A Saudi couple tortured their Sri Lankan maid by hammering 24 hot nails into her after she complained of her heavy workload.
X-rays showed the brutal result after the nails were hammered into the hands, legs and feet of LT Ariyawathi, a 49-year-old mother-of-three.
Mrs Ariyawathi had returned to Sri Lanka on Friday after five months in Saudi Arabia.
Her family took her to the hospital after it became clear she was in massive amounts of pain.
[…]
It was then that doctors discovered the 1in to 2in nails inside her body. One had been hammered in over her eyes, officials said.
Mrs Ariyawathi told a local newspaper that her employers tortured her with the nails as punishment.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Afghan Outrage: U.S. Troops Scrounge for Blankets, Bullets
‘One of my soldiers went without ammo for 5 weeks’
The parents of an American soldier in Afghanistan have accused the U.S. government of leaving defenders of its freedoms without basics such as blankets, food, feminine hygiene supplies and even bullets, according to a report from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.
“One of my soldiers went without ammo for five weeks once they got to Afghanistan because of shortages. I can’t reveal the name, because they are frightened of reprisals. If they can do what they did to a four star general like [Gen. Stanley A.] McChrystal, what would they do to a buck private?”
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Indonesia: ‘Playboy’ Chief Editor to be Jailed
Jakarta, 26 August(AKI) — Prosecutors were searching on Thursday for the former editor-in-chief of Playboy Indonesia after the Supreme Court sentenced him to two years in prison for publishing pictures of scantily clothed women.
The South Jakarta prosecutor’s office said it would carry out a ruling by Indonesia’s Supreme Court’s that found the chief editor of Indonesia’s Playboy adult magazine, Erwin Arnada, guilty of indecency and sentenced him to two years in prison.
The court issued a guilty verdict in 2009 but only informed the prosecutors on Wednesday. It was not clear why.
Chief of the prosecutor’s office Muhammad Yusuf said state prosecutors would send Arnarda to jail as soon as they receive a copy of the Supreme Court’s verdict.
“I have ordered the investigators to execute the ruling immediately after they obtain the copy,” Yusuf said.
Following violent protests from hard-line Islamic groups, the magazine’s office was relocated from Jakarta to Denpasar.
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
No Nudes for Nerds. Gold Coast Meter Maids Upset Delegates at Microsoft’s Australian Teched Conference
A PROMOTIONAL stunt for Microsoft backfired spectacularly this week after the technology giant hired iconic Gold Coast meter maids to appear at its Australian TechEd conference — not realising the women would show up half-naked.
The company apologised after complaints from staff and conference participants about the meter maids, who traditionally feed parking meters in the Gold Coast while dressed in skimpy gold bikinis, the Gold Coast Bulletin reports.
“It seems that there are still marketing and promotional folks in the IT world who consider objectification of women to be OK,” female IT worker Kate Carruthers told a Fairfax newspaper.
Carruthers said the meter maid stunt detracted from Microsoft’s long history of supporting and encouraging women in the information technology sector.
And ironically the conference, which is aimed at encouraging developers to write software for Microsoft, also devoted a key session to “women in IT.”
Even some of Microsoft’s own icons, Nick Hodge and Catherine Eibner, went on Twitter to express their disapproval. Eibner said it was “a badly done attempt at providing local Gold Coast context.”
Microsoft released a statement saying they would like to “sincerely apologise for any offense caused by the promotional staff.”
“We were unaware of their exact costuming until the day of the event, at which time it was too late to be addressed,” the company said.
| — Hat tip: Lurker from Tulsa | [Return to headlines] |
Marxist Terrorist is Next Brazil President
“My friend, they have found the formula. Give the people a cell phone, cable TV, the “feeling” they are participating in the economy and they won’t even think about liberty. Billions of pawns, the so-called middle-class of China, the “climbing” poor of Brazil, have no idea what the Bill of Rights, the Carta Magna was. Their sheer number, like a barbaric horde, will crush the poor Americans, the last people in the world who have some remaining tradition of freedom and individual rights. Those Third World nouveau-riche folks will burn the constitution for a new TV, bought in 12 installments with a credit card.”
The sad fact about the next election in Brazil is that it will not be decided based on principles or values. Nobody cares if Dilma Roussef murdered or robbed. It is just populism in the cruelest form. She is Lula’s lady. Poor people have benefited a little from the end of inflation, and they forgot that this situation was inherited by Lula.
What is interesting is that the Worker’s Party is neither Communist nor the helper of workers. IBGE, the main statistical institution in Brazil, has just released the information that illiteracy in Brazil increased during Lula’s reign. Basic sanitation is in the same level as it was at the time of his coronation. 50,000 Brazilians die violent deaths, most caused by guns and drugs smuggled into the country by the FARC Marxist terrorists, allies of Lula. Who cares? I have a cell phone and tv set. The next World Cup will be in Rio.
On the other hand, the Federal Development Bank (BNDS) has received this year US$ 100 BI to lend to large corporations, in order to “buy” their good will towards the government during the election year. The capitalists get the money for 3,5% to 7%, while the government pays 10% to 12% for the banks. Itaú bank had the largest profit of any bank in the Americas, including the ones in the US.
Other acts of largesse of the government include the distribution of TV and radio licenses to capitalists and politicians, a TV network for the union leaders (who take one day of salary from the workers and can’t be audited — Lula forbid it) and the definition of the targets of investment of the pension funds from state companies, in the order of hundreds of billions of dollars. They can make you or break you.
FASCISM
This is a fascist economy, in its purest definition. Mussolini would be proud.
It is hard for the common folk to understand how Communism has changed from a social utopia to this raw fascism. The reason is that they retain the old veneer in cultural causes, such as free abortion, gay marriage, globalism, ecological radicalism, etc. Just like in China, they tell you how to live your private life. Censorship or “media control” is in Dilma’s agenda, as it is in full course in Argentina and Venezuela today. The fiscal privacy of Dilma’s opponents has been broken with no consequences. Basic constitutional rights are worth nothing to the Worker’s party, and they are challenging property rights. A bunch of communist peasants, all funded and led by professional agitators, will invade farms, kill people (as they do now) and the issue will be decided by popular acclamation, in a commune.
We are being prepared to be pawns of the world government.
I predict rough times ahead for Brazil. Dilma is incompetent and stubborn. Brazil’s public debt has almost tripled and is about to explode, due to to the high interest rates. The boom in the exportation of minerals and agro-commodities that gave Lula’s popularity such boost can end anytime, especially if a heavy crisis hits the dollar. The taxation level in Brazil is one of the highest in the world, at 40,5% and bureaucracy, with 85 different taxes in the last count, is astronomical. They won’t be able to raise tax anymore to support the do-nothings employed in the government and the corruption.
When the government crashes, the social aids that supported Lula’s popularity will be at risk. Without the booming exports, there will be fewer jobs, and it is possible that we see riots and protests. Things have always been too easy in this country, where food grows even in a crack in the sidewalk. Perhaps it is time for Brazilians to mature from suffering.
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UK: Immigration Jumps Amid Surge in Student Visas
Net migration to Britain rose by more than 20 per cent last year amid a surge in the number of students coming to the country.
Net long-term immigration was 196,000, compared with 163,000 in 2008, a rise of 33,000, the figures from the Office for National Statistics showed.
The number of visas issued to students rose 35% to 362,015 in the year to June.
Increasing numbers of foreigners have been arriving in the country claiming they are attending colleges and universities since a points-based system was introduced by the Labour Government.
Campaign groups have claimed the system is a loophole, and pointed out that many British students are giving up their plans to pursue further education because of unprecedented places.
Damian Green, the immigration minister, has announced that there will be a thorough review of the rules.
Many students enter Britain to take legitimate degrees, with universities increasingly seeing them as a lucrative source of income at a time of cuts to higher education budgets. Recent research showed that as many as a third of universities were preparing to increase the number of foreign undergraduates they admit from September.
As well as attending traditional universities, tens of thousands of foreign students have been admitted to 600 “lower tier” colleges, at which it is easier to gain a place but which are still accredited to hand out bachelor degrees.
Last year, it emerged that some of these colleges offered qualifications in subjects such as circus skills, acupuncture and ancient medicine. Many of their students are given the right to work in Britain after graduating.
About 4,000 illegal immigrants are also thought to have taken advantage of bogus colleges to slip into the country.
Other figures released by the Home Office today showed the number of asylum seekers arriving in Britain fell sharply in the second quarter of 2010.
The Home Office said there were 4,365 applications for asylum between April and June — a 29% fall on the 6,110 applications in same period last year.
Two-thirds of this decrease was due to a drop in applications from Zimbabwe, down to 405 from 1,560 in the same period last year.
There was a 15% fall to 2,380 in the number of asylum seekers leaving and a 13% fall to 11,750 in the number of people departing in non-asylum cases.
| — Hat tip: Gaia | [Return to headlines] |
UK: Why Does a Tory Minister Want to be a Stalinist Social Engineer?
Can we really believe what we are hearing? After only 100 days in power, the Tories’ David Willetts is sounding like a tired Labour minister bankrupt of ideas.
Once again it is education and social mobility that is the issue. Mr Willetts, the Coalition’s higher education minister, is right to be concerned.
But he is very wrong on who to blame and what to do about it. He wants universities to promote social mobility by accepting candidates from poor backgrounds — even if their A-levels are lower than those of middle-class applicants.
But this is nonsense. It is not the universities who are at fault where this country’s lamentable failure over education and social mobility is concerned.
| — Hat tip: JD | [Return to headlines] |
Nonie Darwish: Sharia for Dummies
Imam Feisal Abdel Rauf claims that the US constitution is Sharia compliant. Now let us examine below a few laws of Sharia to see if Imam Rauf is truthful or a fraud:
1- Jihad defined as “to war against non-Muslims to establish the religion” is the duty of every Muslim and Muslim head of state (Caliph). Muslim Caliphs who refuse jihad are in violation of Sharia and unfit to rule.
2- A Caliph can hold office through seizure of power meaning through force.
3- A Caliph is exempt from being charged with serious crimes such as murder, adultery, robbery, theft, drinking and in some cases of rape.
4- A percentage of Zakat (alms) must go towards jihad.
5- It is obligatory to obey the commands of the Caliph, even if he is unjust.
6- A caliph must be a Muslim, a non-slave and a male.
7- The Muslim public must remove the Caliph in one case, if he rejects Islam.
8- A Muslim who leaves Islam must be killed immediately.
9- A Muslim will be forgiven for murder of : 1) an apostasy 2) an adulterer 3) a highway robber. Making vigilante street justice and honor killing acceptable.
10- A Muslim will not get the death penalty if he kills a non-Muslim.
11- …
| — Hat tip: Henrik | [Return to headlines] |
Sun’s Fluctuations Caused Partial Collapse of Earth’s Atmosphere
As the sun’s energy rises and falls, so goes the Earth’s atmosphere, a new study suggests.
These fluctuations in the sun’s energy explain a recent partial collapse of the Earth’s upper atmosphere, which had previously puzzled scientists.
A sharp drop in the sun’s ultraviolet radiation levels triggered the collapse, according to the new study, detailed in the Aug. 25 edition of the journal Geophysical Research Letters. The researchers also found that the sun’s magnetic cycle, which produces differing numbers of sunspots over an approximately 11-year cycle, may vary more than previously thought.
“Our work demonstrates that the solar cycle not only varies on the typical 11-year time scale, but also can vary from one solar minimum to another,” said study team member Stanley Solomon of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo. “All solar minima are not equal.”
The findings may have implications for orbiting satellites, as well as for the International Space Station.
During a collapse, the fact that the layer in the upper atmosphere known as the thermosphere is shrunken and less dense means that satellites can more easily maintain their orbits. But it also indicates that space debris and other objects that pose hazards may persist longer in the thermosphere. [Graphic: Earth’s Atmosphere Top to Bottom]
“With lower thermospheric density, our satellites will have a longer life in orbit,” said study team member Thomas Woods of the University of Colorado at Boulder. “This is good news for those satellites that are actually operating, but it is also bad because of the thousands of non-operating objects remaining in space that could potentially have collisions with our working satellites.”
Greater than expected change
Recently, solar activity was at an extreme low. In 2008 and 2009, sunspots were scarce, solar flares almost non-existent, and solar extreme ultraviolet light (EUV) — a class of photons with extremely short wavelengths — was at a low ebb.
During this time, the Earth’s thermosphere shrank more than at any time in the 43-year era of space exploration.
The thermosphere, which ranges in altitude from about 55 to more than 300 miles (90-500 km), is a rarified layer of gas at the edge of space where the Sun’s radiation first makes contact with Earth’s atmosphere. It typically cools and becomes less dense during low solar activity.
But the magnitude of the density change during the recent solar minimum appeared to be about 30 percent greater than would have been expected by low solar activity.
Radiation or carbon dioxide?
Researchers used computer models to analyze two possible culprits in the mystery of the shrinking thermosphere.
They simulated both the impacts of the sun’s output and the role of carbon dioxide, a potent greenhouse gas that, according to past estimates, is reducing the density of the outer atmosphere by about 2 percent to 5 percent per decade.
However, scientists were uncertain whether the decline in extreme-ultraviolet radiation would be sufficient to have such a dramatic impact on the thermosphere, even when combined with the effects of carbon dioxide.
The computer models showed that the thermosphere cooled in 2008 by 41 Kelvins (about 74 degrees Fahrenheit or 41 degrees Celsius) compared to 1996, with just 2 Kelvins attributable to the carbon dioxide increase.
The results also showed the thermosphere’s density decreasing by 31 percent, with just 3 percent attributable to carbon dioxide. The results closely approximated the 30 percent reduction in density indicated by previous work.
“It is now clear that the record low temperature and density were primarily caused by unusually low levels of solar radiation at the extreme-ultraviolet level,” Solomon said.
Woods says the research indicates that the Sun could be going through a period of relatively low activity, similar to periods in the early 19th and 20th centuries. This could mean that solar output may remain at a low level for the near future.
“If it is indeed similar to certain patterns in the past, then we expect to have low solar cycles for the next 10 to 30 years,” Woods said.
| — Hat tip: Fjordman | [Return to headlines] |
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