Archive for March 2008

Ministry of Education and Science disapproves the motion of introducing ethnic shifts in high schools Niko Nestor and Ibraim Temo in Struga.

Pero Stojanovski, a senior official in Education Ministry, conveyed the stance at the meeting with Struga’s local authorities, school principals and members of parent councils.

The ministry said it won’t accept ethnic shifts, but it stands ready to help improve the technical conditions to ensure resumption of teaching process in these two high schools.

The fianl position over the demands by Macedonian students for the introduction of ethnic shifts will be made later tiday at the meeting of Education Ministry representatives, local authorities, and school boards.

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Serbia proposed dividing newly independent Kosovo along ethnic lines on Monday, a move that was immediately rebuffed by Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian leadership in Pristina.

The proposal, submitted to the United Nations, is the culmination of a campaign by Serbia to entrench its political and administrative control over the northern part of Kosovo, which has a Serbian majority. Analysts said it was a largely symbolic gesture as the ethnic Albanian leadership in Pristina has vowed never to accept partition, while European countries and the United States would reject it at the United Nations Security Council.

“This proposal is a provocation from Belgrade, and we reject it 100 percent,” Kosovo’s deputy prime minister, Hajredin Kuqi, said in a telephone interview from Pristina.

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Known as the “Shameless” family among horrified neighbours, the McFaddens “boast” three generations of adults who are not working.

All ten members of the clan share a council house and live off benefits amounting to around £32,000 a year. And very happy they are, too.

Matriarch is grandmother Sue McFadden, 54. “Our neighbours are so snobby - they call us the “Shameless” family and say that we ought to go out to work. But how can we work when we have all these children to look after?

“The only problem is,” she says without a hint of irony, “that we’re living in a three-bedroom council house, which is ridiculous.

“I’m asking the council for a ten-bedroom home for all of us. We need more space. It’s awful sometimes when all the children are squabbling. Still, we do have a big TV with Sky, but we need some relaxation.”

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The increasing influence of Islam on British culture is disclosed in research today that shows the number of Muslims worshipping at mosques in England and Wales will outstrip the numbers of Roman Catholics going to church in little more than a decade.

Projections to be published next month estimate that, if trends continue, the number of Catholic worshippers at Sunday Mass will fall to 679,000 by 2020.

By that time, statisticians predict, the number of Muslims praying in mosques on Fridays will have increased to 683,000.

The Christian Research figures also suggest that, over the same period, the number of Muslims at mosques will overtake Church of England members at Sunday services.

Church spokesmen point out, however, that a growing number of Anglicans worship at other times of the week.

The projections show that, if the Churches do not reverse their historical decline, there will be more active Muslims than Christians in Sunday services across Britain before the middle of the century.

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The Bush administration’s latest salvo to reform the mortgage industry does little to clamp down on lax underwriting. More importantly, it does not dissuade Wall Street from scrutinizing bad loans and coating them with a layer of legitimacy by brandishing ill-gotten, investment-grade ratings.

To understand why we are in this conundrum and how to fix it, flash back to 1988 and the Atlanta Mortgage Consortium. It was formed by nine Atlanta banks in response to news reports that lenders were redlining black neighborhoods and charging borrowers higher rates.

The banks contributed funds to a lending pool that targeted loan applicants whose income was at or below 80 percent of the area’s medium income. Many also had atrocious credit and little-to-no savings.
I was the only mortgage banker on the consortium’s advisory council. Most of the others were community activists and believed that everyone was entitled to own a home regardless of their ability to make mortgage payments. As a result, the advisory council’s activists continuously bickered with the bankers and eventually got them to lower their underwriting benchmarks.

The consortium recognized “sweat equity” as down payments and winked at the dismal credit reports. But to bolster its chances for success, the consortium enlisted the help of community groups to counsel new homeowners on their responsibilities and to quickly intervene when payments were late or missed.

Even with these safeguards, delinquencies and foreclosures rose into the double digits. Nevertheless, the banks were committed to stay the course. However, a surprising phenomenon emerged — subprime lending.

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The Iraq veteran, 22, had wanted to be a cop since childhood and was advised to join the Army to get experience first.

But when he applied he was told: “Unfortunately, some people feel intimidated by the word England.”

Last night Craig, who has just completed 4½ years with the 3rd Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment, said: “I am shocked and disgusted.

“I don’t understand how it can cause offence. It is our country, after all.”

Craig applied to join Greater Manchester Police shortly before returning to civvy street this month.

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TOKYO — Thousands of Okinawans rallied on Sunday to protest crimes by U.S. troops and demand a smaller U.S. military presence on the southern Japanese island after last month’s arrest of a Marine on suspicion of raping a schoolgirl.

“Crimes and accidents due to the bases have happened over and over and Okinawa has protested with intense anger to both the U.S. and Japanese governments,” Kyodo quoted Okinawa City Mayor Mitsuko Tomon as telling a crowd gathered in heavy rain in the town of Chatan, where the February incident occurred.

“But each time, our voices have been trampled and there has been no end to the heinous crimes,” the mayor added.

Organizers estimated about 6,000 people took part in the rally, Kyodo news agency said. Police declined to give an estimate.

The arrest of U.S. Marine Tyrone Hadnott, 38, on suspicion of raping a 14-year-old girl sparked outrage on Okinawa, host to a big chunk of the nearly 50,000 U.S. troops in Japan, and stirred memories of the 1995 rape of a 12-year-old girl that prompted huge anti-base protests and jolted the U.S.-Japan alliance.

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by Patrick J. Buchanan

How would he pull it off? I wondered.

How would Barack explain to his press groupies why he sat silent in a pew for 20 years as the Rev. Jeremiah Wright delivered racist rants against white America for our maligning of Fidel and Gadhafi, and inventing AIDS to infect and kill black people?

How would he justify not walking out as Wright spewed his venom about “the U.S. of K.K.K. America,” and howled, “God damn America!”

My hunch was right. Barack would turn the tables.

Yes, Barack agreed, Wright’s statements were “controversial,” and “divisive,” and “racially charged,” reflecting a “distorted view of America.”

But we must understand the man in full and the black experience out of which the Rev. Wright came: 350 years of slavery and segregation.

Barack then listed black grievances and informed us what white America must do to close the racial divide and heal the country.

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What started as a small, online grassroots effort now appears to have the potential for something bigger.

Dan Little, the owner/operator of a livestock hauling company in Carrollton, Mo., estimated Tuesday that at least 1,000 other truckers from across the United States have committed so far to joining him in a strike on April 1.

Although none of the truckers interviewed Tuesday at the Iowa 80 Truck Stop, Walcott, which is just off Interstate 80 west of Davenport, has heard of the intended strike, some said they would shut down, too.

Weldon Kinnison, a Virginia trucker who was hauling soft drink from Indiana to Denver, heard about the plans for a strike for the first time Tuesday while stopping at Walcott.

“I’m an owner/operator with the American Truckers Association,” he said. “I’d park my truck for a week with the cattle haulers.

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EVERY Sunday Elias Loera stands behind a pulpit made from motorcycle parts and preaches family values to the people of Fresno. He rails against sinful living and neglectful fathers, yet is careful not to offend. Mr Loera reckons more than half of the women in his almost entirely Hispanic congregation are single mothers. He tries to avoid speaking of “father God”, so dismal are many people’s experiences with fathers in this struggling Californian city.

Whether Cuban, Mexican or Puerto Rican, most Latinos revere la familia. But the Hispanic family is changing. In the past ten years the birth rate among unmarried Latinas has risen from 89 to 100 per 1,000. It is now much higher than the rate among black or white women (see chart). Late last year came a significant but little-noticed announcement: probably for the first time, half of all Hispanic children in America were born out of wedlock.

The Latino family is not in such a dire state as the black family, where 71% of children are born to single mothers. Yet the gap appears to be closing. In 1995 the unmarried teenage birth rate for Latinas was 20% lower than the rate for blacks. It is now 12% higher. This is not just a worry for socially-conservative preachers. More than half of all young Hispanic children in families headed by a single mother are living below the federal poverty line, compared with 21% being raised by a married couple.

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