Author: Admin

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Yesterday, Pierre Gemayel was shot in his car and was declared dead at the hospital. He was the Lebanese industry minister.

Today, his corpse was driven into his native town of Bikfaya followed by thousand of people mourning him.He is the fifth personality assassinated in Lebanon in one year and the fifth of the Gemayel’s family according to his father, former president Amin Gemayel.

One week ago, Samir Geagea, the commander in chief of the Lebanese Forces, announced rumor of assassination of one minister.

The funeral of Pierre Gemayel will be held tomorrow in the cathedral of Beirut.

According to the White House National Security Council spokesman, President Bush, having expressed his condolences to Lebanon’s Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, affirmed “the unwavering commitment of the United States to help build Lebanese democracy, and to support Lebanese independence from the encroachments of Iran and Syria.”

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Brooklyn Borough Hall featured a Who’s Who in New York’s literary community during the second annual Brooklyn Book Festival. According to Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, the borough’s zip code 11215 boasts more authors than anywhere else in the country. It appeared to be the case on Sunday. More than 100 authors were featured at the day-long event, including The Basketball Diaries writer Jim Carroll, former M*A*S*H star Mike Farrell, author and illustrator Mo Willems, Jack Kerouac‘s sometime lover and National Book Critics Circle Award recipient Joyce Johnson and PEN American Center President Francine Prose.

This year’s festival made use of Saint Francis College and the Brooklyn Historical Society to accommodate the big jump over last year’s 70 authors in participation to 115 this year. Although there is no official way to keep track of the numbers of attendees, Borough Hall officials estimated between 15,000 and 20,000 people attended.

Markowitz spoke with NY1‘s Inside City Hall host Dominic Carter, who shared stories of his childhood abuse. A lone protester from Develop Don’t Destroy, the group against the development of Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards, held up a sign decrying Markowitz’s support for the project.

A highlight of the festival was recent Heinz Family Foundation award recipient Dave Eggers discussing with Nigerian poet Chris Abani a slide show of Eggers’s trip to Marial Bai, Sudan. Eggers wrote a fictional account of the life of Valentino Achak Deng, one of the Lost Boys of Sudan. The book, What Is the What, was a critical success.

One of the featured panels on “soon-to-be-published works of groundbreaking authors” that included Jim Carroll, The Women of Brewster Place author Gloria Naylor and playwright and music journalist Joe Meno, ran into problems. The panel was the final program and started half an hour late. Naylor failed to show, reportedly due to a death in the family. In the middle of Carroll’s presentation he was asked to stop speaking so they could close the courtroom where the event was held in the Borough Hall. Carroll was visibly upset. He asked the audience if they wanted to hear one song, to which they enthusiastically cheered until the festival organizers cut off his microphone to keep to a schedule that required they vacate the premises by a certain time.

Steven Carter and Bernice McFadden also failed to attend; McFadden stated on her blog that she came down with a stomach illness. The Brooklyn Book Festival had no comment.

Sunday, July 5, 2009

The United Kingdom’s Serious Fraud Office is to launch an investigation into the collapse of car manufacturer MG Rover. The move follows the conclusion of a four-year enquiry started immediately after the firm became insolvent.

The group of four who owned MG Rover — John Towers, Nick Stephenson, Peter Beale and John Edwards — have been accused of asset stripping. The quartet, known as the Phoenix Four, paid a symbolic £10 (approximately €15) for Rover in 2000. At that time the company received an interest-free loan from former owner BMW for £427 million (approximately €700 million) and came with a large amount of unsold stock.

Between then and Rover’s April 2005 bankruptcy, by which time there were unpaid debts of £1 billion (approximately €1.5 billion), the Phoenix Four had removed an estimated £40 million worth of assets including pensions and salaries. An enquiry was launched by ministers that was expected to take a year, but the final report was not delivered to business secretary Lord Mandelson until three weeks ago.

The government used taxpayer’s money to fund a £6 million loan to MG Rover and attempted to negotiate a deal with a Chinese company, but these efforts failed. MG Rover’s collapse caused the loss of an estimated 15,000 jobs, including with various suppliers. A former MG Rover factory does still build a small number of MG sports cars in Longbridge by Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation, who bought most of the designs.

The Phoenix Four released a statement criticising the criminal investigation. “There has never been any suggestion of improper conduct by the directors and this was confirmed in a report by the administrators PWC six months after they took over the running of the company. Four years on, any suggestion [of] another further investigation is frankly ridiculous and smacks of kicking this issue into the long grass. If the government has been so concerned to get to the heart of the matter why has it flatly refused more than 30 requests under the Freedom of Information Act which would have revealed correspondence and documents the directors believe would have shed some light on the government’s role in the affair?”

Saturday, July 16, 2005

A General in the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and dean at the National Defense University in China commented to visiting Hong Kong reporters on Friday that the PLA might use nuclear weapons against the U.S., in a conflict over the Taiwan Strait. “If the Americans draw their missiles and position-guided ammunition onto the target zone on China’s territory, I think we will have to respond with nuclear weapons,” Maj. Gen. Zhu Chenghu said to the reporters of the Asian Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times. “We Chinese will prepare ourselves for the destruction of all of the cities east of Xian [in central China]. Of course the Americans will have to be prepared that hundreds … of cities will be destroyed by the Chinese.”

U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack called the remarks “highly irresponsible” and “unfortunate”, and expressed the hope that they did not reflect the views of the Chinese government.

Echoing the official Xinhua News Agency, the People’s Republic of China’s Foreign Ministry officials said that Zhu was expressing personal views, and had warned the reporters accordingly, but stated that China would never tolerate “Taiwan independence”. Reportedly, Maj. Gen. Zhu is not directly involved in the formulation of Chinese military strategy.

The U.S. may defend Taiwan under the Taiwan Relations Act and is currently Taiwan’s largest arms supplier.

Thursday, October 3, 2013

A review this week by Wikinews of US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) complaints about mortgages in the United States shows Bank of America leads all lending institutions in complaints.

Since mortgages complaints were recorded in December 2011, 77,622 total have been added to CFPB’s database. 29.2% of these complaints involved Bank of America, with the second most received by Wells Fargo, accounting for 15.5% of all complaints. JPMorgan Chase ranked third by volume of complaints with 9.8%. Ocwen was fourth with 8.7% and Citibank was fifth with 4.8%. Nationstar Mortgage; Green Tree Servicing, LLC; HSBC; PNC Bank; U.S. Bancorp; OneWest Bank; SunTrust Bank; Flagstar Bank; and Select Portfolio Servicing, Inc. each had between 1.0 and 3.8% of total complaints. The remaining 14.4% of all complaints about consumer mortgages were divided between about 530 other lending institutions.

The Motley Fool reported last month that for the past fiscal quarter, the biggest US based mortgage lenders were from first to fifth Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Quicken Loans and U.S. Bancorp.

According to the US Federal Reserve, debt for family residences stands at US$10.706 trillion for the second quarter of 2013. As of the end of June of this year, Bank of America is the United States’s second largest commercial bank with US$1.343 trillion in domestic assets. Wells Fargo is the fourth largest commercial bank with US$1.251 trillion in domestic assets. JPMorgan Chase is the largest US commercial bank with US$1.329 trillion in domestic assets and US$1.947 trillion in total assets.

The mortgage complaints in the CFPB report include several subproducts. Conventional fixed mortgages account for 27.1% of all complaints. Conventional adjustable mortgages account for 10.0%. FHA mortgages account for 7.7% of all complaints. Home equity loans or lines of credit account for 3.8% of all complaints. VA mortgages are 1.4% of all complaints. Second mortgages and reverse mortgages each account for 0.6% of complaints. The remaining 48.7% of complaints are about other mortgages or other mortgage issues. A few years ago, FHA loans accounted for about 10% of all US mortgages while VA loans accounted for about 3%. Prime loans accounted for over 75% of the market and the rest were subprime mortgages.

California leads all states by volume of complaints with 14768. It is followed by Florida, New York, Georgia and Texas. When complaints are divided by a state’s total population, New Hampshire leads. The state is followed by Washington D.C., Maryland, Georgia and Florida. Complaints do not correlate with national rankings for August’s foreclosure rate by state where Nevada topped the list, followed by Florida, Ohio, Maryland and Delaware.

Two zip codes account for over 1,000 total complaints between them. 565 complaints originated in the 48382 zip code, which is in Commerce Township, Michigan, located in suburban Detroit. 553 complaints originated in the 33071 zip code, in Coral Springs, Florida. According to real estate website Zillow, there are currently 1,033 properties in foreclosure in Coral Springs while Commerce Township only has 131 properties currently in foreclosure. Four other zip codes have 100 plus complaints originating from them. 91730, in Rancho Cucamonga, California, had 158 complaints. 33409, in West Palm Beach, Florida, had 132. 92626, in Costa Mesa, California, had 125 complaints. 92660, in Newport Beach, California, had 122 complaints. Respectively, the towns had 534, 1,068, 153, and 134 properties currently in foreclosure. These numbers are higher than for the cities of a few sampled zip codes where there was only one complaint, such as Gold Hill, Oregon which has 4 properties in foreclosure, and Decatur, Illinois which has 6 properties in foreclosure.

The CFPB categorizes complaints into six categories: “Loan modification, collection,foreclosure” or problems when a person is unable to pay; “Loan servicing, payments, escrow account” or problems with making a payment; “Application, originator, mortgage broker”; “Credit decision / Underwriting”; “Settlement process and costs”, and “Other”. The CFPB says the complaint types indicate consumers “appear to be driven by a desire to seek agreement with their companies on foreclosure alternatives. The complaints indicate that consumer confusion persists around the process and requirements for obtaining loan modifications and refinancing, especially regarding document submission timeframes, payment trial periods, allocation of payments, treatment of income in eligibility calculations, and credit bureau reporting during the evaluation period.” Currently, 59.6% of all complaints against lenders deal with being unable to pay. 25.1% deal with problems in making a payment. 7.0% have to do with the application process.

Of the complaint-heavy zip codes, for 48382 in Commerce Township, Michigan, 98.9% of all complaints have to deal with being unable to pay. Accounting for 23.4% of all mortgage complaints in Commerce Township, 132 of the complaints for being unable to pay were made regarding Bank of America, accounting for 97.8% or all but 3 complaints against them from the zip. 121 of the Bank of America responses in Commerce Township were closed with explanation and 12 were closed with non-monetary relief. 33071 in Coral Springs is different, with 537 of the 553 complaints being categorized under other. Only 11 complaints relate to foreclosure and issues with being able to pay. 92626 in Costa Mesa, where 32% of the mortgage complaints were about Bank of America and 26.4% were about Wells Fargo, had 93.6% of its complaints dealing with being unable to pay. 5 total complaints dealt with payment issues and 3 dealt with applications.

Beyond regional variance in complaint types lodged, the top five mortgage lenders by volume of complaints all had being unable to pay as their top complaint category, ranging between 55.8% for Citibank and 69.4% for Bank of America. Problems with payment accounted for the second largest area of complaints, with Ocwen having the largest percentage of complaints at 31.9% and Bank of America having the smallest at 18.8%. Foreclosure was the top area of complaints for a number of other lending institutions including 1st Alliance Lending, OneWest Bank, Ally Bank, Banco Popular de Puerto Rico, Bank of the West, BMO Harris, BOK Financial Corp, Caliber Home Loans, Inc, Capital One, Deutsche Bank and EverBank.

Nationally, complaints reached a high of 5,840 for January 2013, 1,107 more than the next highest month of April 2013. The total emerging for September is the second lowest since records were first kept in December 2011. On a state by state level, this pattern largely repeats with a major exception for Florida which saw a peak of 849 complaints in June 2012. Then, as now, Florida was one of the top five states in the nation in its foreclosure rate. The national January spike came as the Qualified Mortgage standard required by the The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 came into play. It required mortgage lenders to take steps to insure borrowers could repay their mortgages.

Bank of America’s complaint volume follows the national trend, with a spike in January 2013 with 1,925 total complaints. Unlike nationally, the next month by volume of complaints was February of this year with 1,598 complaints. Prior to that, the highest month was May 2012 with 1,418 complaints. The lowest volume of complaints is September this year with 334.

Wells Fargo matched national trends for volume of complaints by month, with the exception of the current month being the lowest on record for number of complaints with 197 compared to the next lowest month, December 2011, when they had 221. JPMorgan’s complaint volume by month spiked in January and March of this year with 504 complaints. April of this year was the next highest month with 493 complaints, edging out May of last year with 488 complaints. September this year is on track to be the lowest month by complaint volume.

The federal government shutdown is unlikely to impact the current mortgage situation in the United States directly for most consumers, though mortgage processing by the Federal Housing Administration could be slower, resulting in fewer mortgages processed.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Investigators in Ireland have found wiring problems in several Virgin Atlantic Airbus A340s as part of their investigation into a fire on board one such aircraft that was forced to divert to Shannon Airport.

The Virgin jet was headed from London Heathrow Airport to Chicago with 143 passengers and thirteen crew on January 11 this year. A small fire was noticed in a waste bin storage area in the first class section’s bar unit.

A damaged wiring loom could be seen sticking out of a hole in the compartments floor, and there was visible electrical arcing in the area. An attempt was made to control the situation by switching off electrical circuits, but both the fire and the arcing continued unchecked.

The aircraft’s captain declared an emergency and diverted to Shannon, which the airliner reached thirty minutes later. During that time, the crew used five 1kg fire extinguishers upon the fire, but each time the arcing continued and after about five minutes the fire reignited. Witnesses described the fire as consisting of “licks of flame”.

After performing a safe emergency landing the airport’s Aircraft Rescue and Firefighting department tackled the fire with a 5kg extinguisher but met with similar results. After consulting with the crew the jet’s power was completely shut down, after which the fire was finally put out. Virgin initially claimed the fire had never occurred.

Investigators with Ireland’s Air Accident Investigation Unit (AAIU) inspected the loom and found it to be “completely severed” and exhibiting “strong evidence of burning/arcing” according to a preliminary report released on Friday. The loom was identified as providing power and dimming circuits for mood lighting in the bar.

The AAIU says that it seems the loom had contacted the metal waste bin in the compartment above. There should have been rails to hold up the bin and a protective metal cover, but “no evidence” of these was found and the report notes that “Initial inspection indicated the possibility that they were never fitted.”

The bar unit is a modification exclusive to Virgin. The AAIU ordered all 36 of the airline’s A340s worldwide inspected, with both France and the United Kingdom assisting with this. The UK has identified four other aircraft with faulty wiring, it has now been revealed. Virgin says that “A few minor issues were found and were immediately rectified,” and adds that “The installation of the bar was carried out in accordance with all relevant regulations. Virgin Atlantic continues to assist the AAIU in their investigation and looks forward to the full report with interest.”

The AAIU says that “significant other issues are being examined by the investigation” in addition to the wiring defects. “These include the difficulties faced by the crew in isolating the damaged circuits, the emergency checklist, the design of the modification and the standards relating to such modifications,” said the report.

Virgin’s Boeing 747-400 fleet also has a similar bar installed on it, but there was not considered to be a risk to the aircraft’s wiring on that model. The fire involved a bar added three years ago, with the aircraft manufactured in 1998.

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and the Duke of Edinburgh are set to visit the United States in May 2007 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the Jamestown Settlement.

This will be Her Majesty’s fourth State Visit to the United States.

Her Majesty and the Duke of Edinburgh welcomed President and Mrs. Bush on a State Visit to the United Kingdom at Buckingham Palace in November 2003 – during that visit, Her Majesty paid tribute to the ‘special relationship’ between the United Kingdom and the United States.

A statement released by the White House read:

“Laura and I welcome Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and His Royal Highness, Prince Philip, The Duke of Edinburgh, for a State Visit in May 2007 to celebrate the 400th Anniversary of the Jamestown Settlement.

“The United States and the United Kingdom enjoy an extraordinary friendship that is sustained by deep historical and cultural ties and a commitment to defend freedom around the world. We look forward to Her Majesty’s State Visit as an occasion to celebrate these enduring bonds.”

The Queen herself mentioned the upcoming visit in this week’s Speech from the Throne during the British State Opening of Parliament.

“The Duke of Edinburgh and I look forward to our State Visit to the United States of America in May 2007 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the Jamestown Settlement.”

Virginia officials coordinating the ongoing Jamestown commemoration have scheduled an America’s Anniversary Weekend event on and near Jamestown May 11, 12, and 13.

Jamestown, the first British settlement of North America, was established in the name of His Majesty, King James I of England.