Remember That It Isn’t
Only America That Is Effected
By The Economic Meltdown
Firms Charge Thousands To Modify Mortgages
Nonprofits Offer Service For Free, Advocates Say
By Renae Merle
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 26, 2008; Page A01
A growing industry has emerged to take advantage of the unprecedented wave of foreclosures, charging distressed homeowners for help negotiating better loan terms — a service provided for free or for a nominal fee by many nonprofits.Such companies charge $500 to $2,500 or more and are drawing the ire of consumer advocates, regulators and lenders, who say many are just the latest version of foreclosure rescue scams and can make it more difficult for homeowners to get help.
“You don’t need to go out and hire someone to help you,” said Michael Gross, managing director of mortgage servicing for Bank of America.
In a Teeming French City, Safe Harbor at the Movies
By STEVEN ERLANGER
Published: December 25, 2008
MARSEILLE, France – Marseille prides itself on being a port city, a rough melting pot of differences rather like its signature dish, bouillabaisse, which combines various fish, some very expensive and some considered just a cut above trash.Some of the toughest districts in France’s second-largest city are in the hills above L’Estaque, which inspired Braque and Cézanne. But poverty is high, drug use is common and resentments run deep.
Samia Ghali, 40, is the new Socialist mayor of these districts, or arrondissements, with nearly 100,000 constituents. Of Algerian descent herself – like roughly a quarter of Marseille’s 826,700 people – she is consumed by the economic crisis washing over France and its poor, and she is convinced that these neighborhoods are going to burn.
USA
Expansion of Clinics Shapes a Bush Legacy
By KEVIN SACK
Published: December 25, 2008
NASHVILLE – Although the number of uninsured and the cost of coverage have ballooned under his watch, President Bush leaves office with a health care legacy in bricks and mortar: he has doubled federal financing for community health centers, enabling the creation or expansion of 1,297 clinics in medically underserved areas.
For those in poor urban neighborhoods and isolated rural areas, including Indian reservations, the clinics are often the only dependable providers of basic services like prenatal care, childhood immunizations, asthma treatments, cancer screenings and tests for sexually transmitted diseases.As a crucial component of the health safety net, they are lauded as a cost-effective alternative to hospital emergency rooms, where the uninsured and underinsured often seek care.
The danger of DNA: It isn’t perfect
By far the most reliable forensic science, it still has limits: Samples can be contaminated and may go untested for years. And collecting it may violate privacy laws.
By Maura Dolan and Jason Felch
December 26, 2008
In 2004, a New Jersey prosecutor announced that DNA had solved the mystery of who killed Jane Durrua, an eighth-grader who was raped, beaten and strangled 36 years earlier.“Through DNA, we put a face to the killer of Jane Durrua, and that face belongs to Jerry Bellamy,” prosecutor John Kaye said.
The killer, however, turned out to be someone else.Two years after Bellamy’s arrest, investigators discovered that evidence from the murder scene had been contaminated by DNA from Bellamy, whose genetic sample was being tested at the same lab in an unrelated case. He was freed. Another man ultimately was arrested in the killing but died before trial.
Asia
China begins anti-piracy mission
Three Chinese naval ships have set sail for waters off Somalia to protect Chinese vessels from pirate attacks.
The BBC
Two destroyers and a supply ship left the port of Sanya on Hainan island to join warships from other nations already patrolling the area.
It will be the Chinese navy’s first operation beyond the Pacific.
There have been more than 100 pirate attacks this year off Somalia and in the Gulf of Aden, one of the world’s busiest sea lanes.
On Thursday, the German navy said it had foiled an attempt by pirates to hijack an Egyptian cargo vessel off Somalia.
Six Somali pirates were captured by sailors of the frigate Karlsruhe in the Gulf of Aden. However, the pirates were immediately released on the orders of the German government, officials told the BBC.
Japan’s industrial output plunges
Industrial output in Japan dropped just over 8% in November compared with the previous month, the biggest fall on record, government figures show.
The BBC
At the same time, unemployment rose to nearly 4% of the population.
More than 2.5m people were out of work in Japan in November, a rise of 100,000 compared with the year before. Those on temporary contracts are worst affected.
Factories were closed and jobs cut as demand for manufactured goods slumped amid the global financial downturn.
Production at major Japanese manufacturers fell by 3.1% in October.
November’s 8.1% drop was the largest since records of such output statistics began.
Dismal data
The new numbers released by Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, suggest industrial output will continue to decline, perhaps by about 8% in December.
Middle East
Army readies for ‘limited’ Gaza action as 22 mortars hit Negev
By Amos harel, Barak Ravid and Avi Issacharoff, Haaretz Correspondents and News Agencies
Palestinian militants fired 22 mortar shells from the Gaza Strip overnight Thursday and early morning Friday, as the Israel Defense Forces continued its preparations for military action in Gaza.The mortars struck the Western Negev, damaging one building. No one was hurt in any of the incidents.
Reportedly, a “limited operation” will begin within days that will combine an air attack with some ground operations against Hamas and other Gaza terror groups.
The cabinet has given the go-ahead for an operation of a few days’ duration with clearly defined goals.
In Mosul, Iraqi Christians Brave the Violence to Celebrate Christmas
By SAM DAGHER
Published: December 25, 2008
MOSUL, Iraq – Iraqi Christians in the northern city of Mosul say this year has been the worst in living memory. After a wave of killings and attacks in October, more than 2,000 families fled to nearby villages.Mosul remains one of the most dangerous places in Iraq and a stubborn holdout of the insurgency, but security has improved enough that at least half of those families have returned. On Thursday, they braved the violence and biting cold and rain to attend Christmas Masses and pray for their safety.
At the nearly thousand-year-old Chaldean church of Miskinta, where a bomb had exploded in October and graffiti praising the insurgency remains on a nearby wall, about 50 parishioners followed a deacon outside to the courtyard, where a fire was lighted to symbolize the birth of Christ.
Africa
Zimbabwe’s Main Opposition Calls for Police Commissioner’s Resignation
By James Butty
Washington, DC
26 December 2008
There are unconfirmed reports that Zimbabwean human rights activist Jestina Mukoko, who had been accused of plotting to overthrow President Robert Mugabe, has gone missing again. Zimbabwe’s High Court Wednesday ordered that Mukoko and eight co-defendants be transferred to a Harare hospital until their next court date this coming Monday.But Zimbabwe lawyers say police defied the court order and instead took Mukoko and other activists to an undisclosed location.
Mukoko heads the Zimbabwe Peace Project, but prosecutors say she recruited people to go to neighboring Botswana for military training. Botswana has denied the allegations.
Caught between hope and fear in Zimbabwe >
Two women, each expecting a baby, find it difficult to smile as conditions in their country collapse around them. The joy that marked early 2008 has been snuffed out by Mugabe.
By Robyn Dixon
December 26, 2008
Reporting from Harare, Zimbabwe — When Asiatu thinks about having her first child, she wipes her hands over her face, as if washing away bad memories.When Junica Dube thinks about giving birth again, she rests her hands on her belly, as still and silent as a statue.
The story of two babies, to be born in the new year, should be a joyful one. But their mothers do not smile.
Dube’s baby will be the first to arrive, in January. Last year, she spent four days in labor, in a hospital where nothing worked and the nurses scolded her for crying out in pain. Her firstborn son lived just a few minutes. He died with no name.
Asiatu’s baby is expected in May. Pretty and slender, with the same thin wrists and sad eyes as Dube, she doesn’t know who the father is. All she knows is that he isn’t the man she loved, the man she lost
Europe
A Private Feud Turns Into a National Issue
France Overrules Muslim Couple’s Annulment
By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, December 26, 2008; Page A12
MONS-EN-BAROEUL, France — It was a match made in heaven, and both families approved. The groom was a computer engineer, the bride a nursing student. Children of Moroccan immigrants, they had thrived in French society and seemed at home with its ways.But on their wedding night, the groom discovered that his bride was not the virgin she had said she was. He stormed out of the bridal chamber. His father, outraged, said the marriage was off. That same night, he returned the young woman to her family home.
An underground fortress of silence is breached
Beeping, ringing, and intimate chats – oh my! – now heard on Glasgow’s subway. Next stop, the London Tube?
By Ben Quinn
from the December 26, 2008 edition
London’s subway has its drawbacks: A lack of air conditioning makes it unbearably hot in summer and temporary line closures are frequent.However, in a country with more cellular phones than people (74 million mobiles for 60 million citizens), one major plus for a lot of riders of London’s “Tube” is the lack of cellphone reception on large underground sections in the city center.
So it was with a sense of horror that many – myself included – greeted the news that even this subterranean refuge could soon succumb to the din of ring tones and other people’s loud conversations.
The threat comes from the north, after a scheme was unveiled this month on the subway in Glasgow, Scotland. Commuters on the five busiest platforms are now able to send and receive calls, transmit texts, and, should they wish, engage in the all-too-common mobile-phone user behavior of publicly and loudly broadcasting intimate details of their private lives.