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 Netherlands
NETHERLANDS News:
20071231
-
 Money
-  Politics
-  Federal
-  Housing
-  Legislation
-  New
Jersey -  Georgia
-  California
-  Texas
-  Utah
-  Maryland
-  Nevada
-  Oregon
-  Washington
-  2004
Election -  US
- Netherlands
- "Lender
Lobbying Blitz Abetted Mortgage Mess: Ameriquest
Pressed For Changes in Laws; A Battle in New Jersey." ... "During the housing
boom, the subprime industry succeeded at more than just writing mortgages.
It also shot down efforts by some states to curtail risky lending to borrowers
with spotty credit." ... "Ameriquest Mortgage Co. [ACC Capital Holdings],
until recently one of the nation's largest subprime lenders, was at the
center of those battles. Working with a husband-and-wife team of Washington
lobbyists, it handed out more than $20 million in political donations and
played a big role in persuading legislators in New Jersey and Georgia to
relax tough new laws. Those victories, in turn, helped blunt efforts by
other states to crack down on reckless lending, critics of the industry
contend." ... "Home loans made by Ameriquest and other subprime lenders
are defaulting now in large numbers, roiling global credit markets and
sparking debate about whether regulators and lawmakers should have anticipated
the mess and taken action. A close look at Ameriquest's lobbying and political
donations shows how the subprime industry maneuvered to defeat legislation
that might have contained some of the damage." ... "Data from federal and
state campaign-finance records, Internal Revenue Service filings, and the
National Institute on Money in State Politics show that from 2002 through
2006, Ameriquest, its executives and their spouses and business associates
donated at least $20.5 million to state and federal political groups. In
comparison, over the same time period, Countrywide Financial, another large
subprime lender, gave about $2 million in campaign gifts, and spent an
additional $6.7 million lobbying in Washington, records indicate." ...
"Some of the giving by Ameriquest executives and associates was high-profile.
[Republican] President Bush received more than $200,000 for his 2004 re-election
campaign, and Ameriquest founder Roland Arnall and his wife, Dawn, contributed
more than $5 million to political organizations that backed the president.
Last year, [Republican] President Bush appointed Mr. Arnall ambassador
to the Netherlands, and his wife took over as chairman of Ameriquest's
parent company. California [Republican Governor] Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's
campaigns received at least $1.4 million, along with stacks of tickets
to a Rolling Stones concert that were used to lure big donors." ... "Last
year, ACC Capital, its [Ameriquest Mortgage Company] parent company, agreed
to pay $325 million to settle regulators' claims that it charged excessively
high mortgage rates and didn't adequately disclose loan risks. Some of
the state attorneys general who signed the settlement, including Greg Abbott
of Texas, received campaign donations from the firm. Utah's attorney general,
Mark Shurtleff, received a $1,000 contribution and Rolling Stones tickets."
... "Ameriquest also handed out Rolling Stones tickets to state legislators
in Georgia, Maryland, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington and California,
according to ethics records and local news accounts." ... "Federal lawmakers
didn't pose much of a threat to the subprime industry in recent years.
Members of Congress received at least $645,000 in donations from Ameriquest
and large sums from other big subprime lenders, Federal Election Commission
records indicate." ... "ACC Capital, Ameriquest's parent company, and its
executives gave more than $350,000 to Texas politicians in 2006, including
$100,000 to [Republican Governor] Gov. Rick Perry, according to state records."
-By Glenn R. Simpson -WSJ.com
20070813
-
US
-
 Global
-  Germany
- Dutch
- Genetics
-  Environmental
-  Science
-  Children
- Safety
- Politics
- Free-Market
-  History
- "America
Loses Its Stature as Tallest Country." ... "Pundits
often opine that America's stature is declining on the global stage. It
turns out that Americans --literally -- are not standing as tall, compared
with the rest of the world, as they used to." ... "U.S. adults lost their
position as the tallest people on Earth to the Dutch [Netherlands], who
average about two inches taller than the typical American. In fact, American
men now rank ninth and women 15th in average height, having fallen short
of many other European nations." ... ""Americans, who have been the tallest
in the world for a very long time, are no longer the tallest," said John
Komlos of the University of Munich [Germany], who has published a series
of papers documenting the trend. "Americans have not kept up with western
European populations."" ... "The idea that many Europeans are looking down
on Americans has led to a flurry of interest in trying to explain the trend,
with debate focusing on whether to blame the lack of universal health care
and other holes in the nation's social safety net, particularly for children."
... ""We conjecture that perhaps the western and northern European welfare
states, with their universal socioeconomic safety nets, are able to provide
a higher biological standard of living to their children and youth than
the more free-market-oriented U.S. economy," Komlos wrote in one of his
latest papers, published in June in the journal Social Science Quarterly."
... "While some researchers agree, others are more cautious, arguing that
height is determined by a complicated amalgam of genetic, environmental,
social and biological influences." -By Rob Stein
-WashingtonPost
20070810
-
Worldwide
- United
States -
 EU-  France
- Netherlands
-  Japan
- Germany
- Home
- "Mortgage
Losses Echo in Europe and on Wall Street." ... "Turmoil
in the home loan market ricocheted from the United States to Europe and
back again yesterday as stocks on Wall Street suffered their biggest one-day
decline since February, reflecting growing concerns about tightening credit
worldwide." ... "Big losses on packages of American home loan securities
sold to investors turned up unexpectedly in French and Dutch [Netherlands]
banks yesterday, adding to worries at hedge funds and financial institutions
around the globe. With trillions of dollars of securities outstanding,
those announcements raised expectations that more problems may soon emerge
in other unlikely places as well." ... "The spreading fears forced the
European Central Bank and, later, the Federal Reserve to inject billions
of dollars into the financial system to help prevent borrowing and lending
in credit markets from freezing up." ... "Japan’s central bank followed
suit, injecting more than $8 billion into money markets as stocks there
plummeted Friday morning." ... "Citing “tensions in the euro money market,”
the European Central Bank in Frankfurt [Germany] lent more than $130 billion
overnight at a rate of 4 percent to tamp down a surge in the rates banks
charge each other for very short-term loans. The Federal Reserve injected
$24 billion into the United States banking system to keep its benchmark
overnight lending rate at 5.25 percent, after it opened this morning at
5.5 percent." (1, 2)
-By Vikas Bajaj and Mark Landler with contributions
by Julia Werdigier, James Kanter, and Julie Creswell
-NYTimes
20060117
-
US
-
 Oregon
-  Health
-  Drugs
- Netherlands
- "Supreme
Court Upholds Oregon Assisted Suicide Law." ... "The
Supreme Court upheld Oregon's assisted-suicide law today, declaring that
the Bush administration had exceeded its authority in trying to undo the
statute by punishing doctors who help people end their lives." ... "In
a 6-to-3 decision, which would apply to other states if their people chose
to follow Oregon's lead, the court held that former Attorney General John
Ashcroft went well beyond his authority and expertise when he ruled in
2001 that doctors would lose their federal prescription privileges if they
prescribed lethal doses of medications for patients." ... "Today's ruling
allows the state of Oregon to continue to follow the practice of the Netherlands,
which in 2002 became the first country to legalize euthanasia and physician-assisted
suicide in limited circumstances." (1, 2)
-By David Stout -NYTimes
20051027
-
 Weather
- Hurricane
Katrina - Hurricane
Rita - Business
- "Exxon,
Shell Profits Soar as Oil and Gas Prices Rally (Update6)."
... "Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell Plc posted record net income
of almost $19 billion combined after energy prices surged to unprecedented
highs amid disruptions caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita." ... "Third-quarter
profit at Exxon Mobil, the world's biggest publicly traded oil producer,
jumped 75 percent to an industry record of $9.92 billion, the company said
today in a statement. The Hague-based Shell set the previous record about
six hours earlier, when it said net income rose 68 percent to $9 billion."
... "The world's five biggest investor- owned oil companies are heading
for combined 2005 profit of almost $107 billion, according to analyst estimates,
partly on the widening gap between crude [oil] costs and refined fuel prices."
-By Joe Carroll and Jim Kennett -Bloomberg
20050917
-
Netherlands
- US
- New
Orleans - LA
-
-
- "Dutch
Can Relate to New Orleans Disaster: Netherlands Toughened
Dams, Levees After Deadly 1953 Storm." ... "Half of the Netherlands sits
below sea level, so the tragedy in New Orleans hits home with the Dutch."
... "They have been through it themselves: In 1953, a huge flood in the
Netherlands killed nearly 2,000 people and left 70,000 homeless." ... "The
flood led to dramatic changes. The Netherlands spent $8 billion over 30
years fortifying the coastline with a sophisticated system of dikes, dams
and levees." ... "Ted Sluiter, a spokesman for Waterland Neeltje Jans,
a recreational park and information center set up at the base of a major
dam, said the hydraulic sea wall that is considered the crown jewel of
the system would protect the country against all but a biblical flood.
The dam is constructed in a way that protects the region's wetlands, environmentally-sensitive
areas that serve as natural storm buffers." (1, 2)
-Originally reported by David Wright for "World News
Tonight" on Sept. 11, 2005 -ABCNEWS.com
20050602
-
- Netherlands
- "Double
'no' to treaty plunges Europe into crisis." ... "The
European Union faced a deepening crisis of confidence on Thursday after
the Dutch joined the French in rejecting a new constitution in a move that
could stall the bloc's expansion and disrupt decision-making." ... "EU
leaders urged member states to press on with ratification of the treaty,
drawn up to make the bloc run more smoothly after its enlargement to 25
states from 15 last year." ... ""The referendum result from the Netherlands
was as expected, but it doesn't change our position. We will push ahead
with ratification," said Czech Prime Minister Jiri Paroubek." (1, 2)
-By John Chalmers -Reuters
via-WashingtonPost
-
- Netherlands
- "Latvia
ratifies EU constitution: Message from 'new Europe'
that expansion should continue." ... "After several European leaders urged
other member states to press ahead with the endorsement process after convincing
rejections in the French and Dutch referendums, Latvia's 100 member parliament
voted 71 for the constitution with 5 votes against and 6 abstaining."
-Reuters via -CNN
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- 
- "Second
Sudan aid worker arrested: An aid official has been
detained in Sudan's Darfur region, a day after his director was charged
with spying and spreading false information." ... "Vince Hoedt, Darfur
co-ordinator for the Dutch section of Medecins Sans Frontieres has not
yet been charged." ... "MSF Sudan director Paul Foreman was arrested on
Monday and later released on bail, over a report on rape." ... "The Sudanese
authorities deny accusations that they back the Arab Janjaweed militias
alleged to have committed widespread atrocities, such as mass killings
and mass rape." -BBC
/News
- "Europe's
rising class of believers: Muslims." ... "Religion's
place in public life has shot to the top of the agenda in France, and in
the rest of Europe, for one reason: Islam, and the growing millions of
people on the Continent who practice it." ... "Shocked by the discovery
of Islamic terrorist networks on their soil, Europeans have suddenly woken
up to the existence of an often marginalized Muslim minority that takes
religion more seriously than they do." ... "Today, the relationship between
native Europeans and their Muslim neighbors is fraught with tension. Mistrust
on both sides threatens to explode into violence. Late last year, arsonists
destroyed two mosques and a Muslim school in the Netherlands after an Islamic
radical there was arrested for murdering filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who had
criticized Muslim treatment of women." -By Peter Ford
-CSMonitor
- 
- "Iraq's
students say, 'Welcome back, professor'." ... "In
recent months, university presidents report that dozens of professors have
returned from exile and are looking to get their jobs back. At the US-led
Ministry of Higher Education, staffed by expatriate professors, hundreds
more have e-mailed from England, the US, and the Netherlands to inquire
about returning. They also want to offer donations and scholarships, and
to start partnerships." -By Christina Asquith
-CSMonitor
- 
