Monday, October 6, 2014

Ex-Fed chief Bernanke denied loan to refinance his home


Former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke revealed last week that he was turned down when he tried to refinance his home loan.
According to Bloomberg News, Bernanke, in speaking at a conference in Chicago Thursday, told the crowd, “I recently tried to refinance my mortgage and I was unsuccessful in doing so.”
“I recently tried to refinance my mortgage and I was unsuccessful . . ."- Ben Bernanke
The audience reportedly laughed, and Bernanke responded: “I’m not making that up.”
“I think it’s entirely possible” that lenders “may have gone a little bit too far on mortgage credit conditions,” he said.
Bernanke also told the conference of the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing and Care that the first-time homebuyer market is “not what it should be.”
Bernanke was paid $199,750 annually as head of the central bank and reportedly earned $250,000 in March for his first public speaking engagement since stepping down in January.
He also reportedly received $1 million in a deal to write his memoirs.

Shipment of medical supplies to fight Ebola in Sierra Leone reportedly delayed for weeks


A shipping container filled with approximately $140,000 worth of medical equipment needed to fight the spread of the Ebola virus in the West African country of Sierra Leone has sat untouched on the docks of the country's capital for nearly two months according to a published report. 
According to The New York Times the shipment of hospital linens, protective suits, face masks, and other items arrived in the port of Freetown Aug. 9, but has still not been cleared by government officials.
The Ebola outbreak has killed over 3,000 people, with the vast majority of deaths occurring in Sierra Leone and two other West African countries, Liberia and Guinea. Local health officials have been overwhelmed by the spread of the virus, and some say the case of the delayed container is a vivid illustration of how government corruption has undercut efforts to fight Ebola as well. 
The Times reports that the shipment was organized by Chernoh Alpha Bah, an opposition politician in Sierra Leone. A government official told the paper that approval of the shipment may have been delayed to prevent the opposition from scoring political points about their response to the outbreak. 
The paper also reported that the $6,500 shipping fee for the container had not been paid by the Sierra Leone government, resulting in three other other containers of supplies being kept at the docks by the shipping company. According to The Times, government officials disputed the fee before arguing that proper shipping protocols had not been followed. An official at the country's health ministry said the shipment should have been cleared with them first, before adding that the supplies would be cleared "very soon."
Meanwhile, another would-be donor, an expatriate Sierra Leonean living in Canada, tells the paper his shipment has been delayed for over a month because of the government's unwillingness to pay a $5,000 shipping fee. In context, the government official told The Times that the country has received over $40 million in cash donations to help fight Ebola. 
Sierra Leone is still recovering from an 11-year-long civil war, and the country's health ministry was beset by corruption charges levied at dozens of health officials over misappropriation of vaccination funds.

Biden issues second apology of weekend, after offending US allies in fight to destroy Islamic State


Vice President Biden on Sunday issued his second apology of the weekend for remarks that offended allies that the U.S. needs in the fight to destroy the Islamic State.
Biden apologized by phone Sunday to Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, saying he never meant to imply that his country was supporting Al Qaeda fighters in Syria. Al Nahyan is also the deputy supreme commander of the United Arab Emirates’ armed forces. 
Biden made the remarks at a speech Thursday, suggesting U.S. allies including Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates had funded and armed extremist groups linked to Al Qaeda. The UAE was exasperated and requested a formal clarification.
"The Turks … the Saudis, the Emirates, etc. What were they doing? They were so determined to take down (Syrian President Bashar) Assad and essentially have a proxy Sunni-Shia war," Biden said during the speech at Harvard University.
"What did they do?” he continued. “They poured hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad -- except that the people who were being supplied were al Nusra and Al Qaeda and the extremist elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the world."
The White House said Biden clarified his remarks Sunday and recognized the UAE's strong steps to counter extremists and participation in U.S.-led air strikes on the Islamic State, also known as ISIL and ISIS.
On Saturday, Biden apologized to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for also saying during the speech that the Turkish leader admitted his country made mistakes by allowing foreign fighters to cross into Syria.
Biden also spoke directly to Erdogan -- to “clarify” his comments and to apologize for “any implication" that Turkey or the other allies had intentionally supplied or helped in the growth of the Islamic State or other extremists groups in Syria, the White House said.
Erdogan denied making such remarks and said Biden would become "history to me" over the comments unless he fixed the situation.
The speech was an especially bad event for the vice president, who has a history of gaffes and unscripted, problem-causing remarks.
Biden also took a question from a student who identified himself as being the vice president of the student body by jokingly saying first: "Ain't that a b-tch? … I mean ... excuse me, the vice president thing?”
In 2010, after President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law on national TV, Biden was caught on a live microphone saying to the president this is "a big f---ing deal."
Turkey, a NATO ally, is expected to define the role it will play in the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State militants who have captured a swath of Iraq and Syria, in some cases right up to the Turkish border.

Netanyahu: US criticism of Israeli settlements ‘against the American values’


Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday criticized the White House’s rebuke of his country’s settlement construction as “against American values,” but praised President Obama’s decision to launch airstrikes against the Islamic State militant group in Iraq and Syria.
Israel came under fire last week after a Jerusalem city official signed the final go-ahead for construction of a new housing development in east Jerusalem. Israel says east Jerusalem is part of its capital and considers Jewish housing developments there to be neighborhoods of the city, but the international community, including the U.S., does not recognize Israel's annexation of the area and considers construction there to be illegitimate settlement activity.
In a striking public rebuke last week, the Obama administration warned Israel that the new project would distance Israel from "even its closest allies" and raise questions about its commitment to seeking peace with Palestinians.
Netanyahu, in an interview on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” called the administration’s condemnation of the project “baffling.”
"It's against the American values. And it doesn't bode well for peace," he said. "The idea that we'd have this ethnic purification as a condition for peace, I think it's anti-peace."
However, Netanyahu said he supported the Obama administration’s decision to launch airstrikes in the battle against the Islamic State, and that Israel is ready to help the U.S. in “every way that we're asked.”
Netanyahu said he believes the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, Hamas and Iran are all locked in a competition to be the dominant militant Islamist group in the Middle East. He said the greatest threat to both the U.S. and Israel is the possibility that one of the groups could “marry their mad ideologies to weapons of mass death.”
"ISIS has got to be defeated because it's doing what all these militant Islamists are trying to do. They all want to first dominate their part of the Middle East, and then go on for their twisted idea of world domination," Netanyahu said. “The difference between ISIS and Hamas and ISIS and Iran and so on is they all agree that the world should be an Islamist hill, but ... each of them wants to be the king of the hill."
Netanyahu also spoke positively about his sometimes testy relationship with Obama, saying he has a good working relationship with the president.
"I don't want to say like an old married couple, but the president said that we had-- he's had more meetings with me than with any other foreign leader,” he said. “And I think you get to a point of mutual respect. You cut to the chase very quickly. You talk about the real things openly, as befitting real allies."

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