United States

For the Jobless, Little U.S. Help on Foreclosure

The Obama administration’s main program to keep distressed homeowners from falling into foreclosure has been aimed at those who took out subprime loans or other risky mortgages during the heady days of the housing boom. But these days, the primary cause of foreclosures is unemployment. As a result, there is […]

From Guantanamo to Makkah

By NASIM CHOWDHURY | ARAB NEWS JEDDAH: The Grand Mosque in Makkah is a very long distance in every sense of the word from Camp Delta, the infamous US Navy detention center at the base at Guantanamo Bay, but life has its ironies and this one involves the journey made […]

China calls US culprit in global ‘Internet war’

BEIJING (AP) — The Chinese military accused the U.S. on Friday of launching a global “Internet war” to bring down Arab and other governments, redirecting the spotlight away from allegations of major online attacks on Western targets originating in China. The accusations Friday by Chinese military academy scholars, and their […]

NZ speller stumbles in US spelling bee

The New Zealand entrant in the US “Olympics of spelling” has been eliminated, although she did not botch her words on stage. Belinda Gibbon, 14, from Wellington Girls’ College, correctly spelled “terraqueous” meaning consisting of, or formed of, land and water, and “upsilon”, the 20th letter of the Greek alphabet […]

Non Means Non by Maureen Dowd (The NY Times – OP:ED)

In Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris,” an American writer clambers into a yellow vintage Peugeot every night and is transported back to hobnob with Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Picasso, Dali, Toulouse-Lautrec and Gertrude Stein in the shimmering movable feast. The star-struck aspiring novelist from Pasadena, played by Owen Wilson, […]

S.E.C. Case Stands Out Because It Stands Alone

At the height of the housing boom, the 26th floor of Goldman Sachs’s former headquarters on Broad Street in Lower Manhattan was the nerve center of Goldman’s fast-growing mortgage trading business. Hundreds of employees worked closely in teams, devising mortgage-based securities — billions of dollars’ worth — that were examined […]

Cakewalk to (Baghdad) Tehran

Eli Clifton and Ali Gharib Imagine there’s a Middle Eastern country with a history of rocky relations with the United States. Washington hawks insist the country poses a threat to both the United States and its allies. They undertake a PR campaign demonizing the country’s polity and make cocksure claims […]

A Tale of Two Raids

by John Feffer They were both responsible for thousands of civilian deaths in causes they believed were righteous. They both occupied top spots on the World’s Most Wanted list. They were both the subject of raids that were years in the making and required extensive intelligence work. But in all […]