EDITORIAL : THE NEW YORK TIMES, USA

Banks Are Off the Hook Again

Americans know that banks have mistreated borrowers in many ways in foreclosure cases. Among other things, they habitually filed false court documents. There were investigations. We’ve been waiting for federal and state regulators to crack down.

Prepare for a disappointment. As early as this week, federal bank regulators and the nation’s big banks are expected to close a deal that is supposed to address and correct the scandalous abuses. If these agreements are anything like the draft agreement recently published by the American Banker — and we believe they will be — they will be a wrist slap, at best. At worst, they are an attempt to preclude other efforts to hold banks accountable. They are unlikely to ease the foreclosure crisis.

All homeowners will suffer as a result. Some 6.7 million homes have already been lost in the housing bust, and another 3.3 million will be lost through 2012. The plunge in home equity — $5.6 trillion so far — hits everyone because foreclosures are a drag on all house prices.

The deals grew out of last year’s investigation into robo-signing — when banks were found to have filed false documents in foreclosure cases. The report of the investigation has not been released, but we know that robo-signing was not an isolated problem. Many other abuses are well documented: late fees that are so high that borrowers can’t catch up on late payments; conflicts of interest that lead banks to favor foreclosures over loan modifications.

The draft does not call for tough new rules to end those abuses. Or for ramped-up loan modifications. Or for penalties for past violations. Instead, it requires banks to improve the management of their foreclosure processes, including such reforms as “measures to ensure that staff are trained specifically” for their jobs. The banks will also have to adhere to a few new common-sense rules like halting foreclosures while borrowers seek loan modifications and establishing a phone number at which a person will take questions from delinquent borrowers. Some regulators have reportedly said that fines may be imposed later.

But the gist of the terms is that from now on, banks — without admitting or denying wrongdoing — must abide by existing laws and current contracts. To clear up past violations, they are required to hire independent consultants to check a sample of recent foreclosures for evidence of improper evictions and impermissible fees.

The consultants will be chosen and paid by the banks, which will decide how the reviews are conducted. Regulators will only approve the banks’ self-imposed practices. It is hard to imagine rigorous reviews, but if the consultants turn up problems, the banks are required to reimburse affected borrowers and investors as “appropriate.” It is apparently up to the banks to decide what is appropriate.

It gets worse. Consumer advocates have warned that banks may try to assert that these legal agreements pre-empt actions by the states to correct and punish foreclosure abuses. Banks may also try to argue that any additional rules by the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to help borrowers would be excessive regulation.

The least federal regulators could do is to stress that the agreements are not intended to pre-empt the states or undermine the consumer bureau. If they don’t, you can add foreclosure abuses to other bank outrages, like bailout-financed bonuses and taxpayer-subsidized profits.

Justice Kagan Dissents

In the Supreme Court’s 5-to-4 ruling about a school-choice program in Arizona, Justice Anthony Kennedy’s opinion leaves intact a program that has disbursed almost $350 million of state funds, most of it to schools choosing students on the basis of religion.

The holding all but overrules a landmark decision of the Warren court,Flast v. Cohen. As Justice Elena Kagan says powerfully in her first dissent “by ravaging Flast in this way,” the majority “damages one of this nation’s defining constitutional commitments.”

The First Amendment’s establishment clause — “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion” — is meant to protect citizens even when they are not harmed. Before, under Flast, a taxpayer could ask a court to enforce this central right. Now, under this ruling, a taxpayer all but can’t, and any government can use the tax system to avoid challenges to financing of religion.

The only difference between cases considered under Flast since 1968 and the current one is the means of government spending. In past cases, it has come through appropriations. In this case, the money comes through a tax credit: any taxpayer can redirect up to $500 of what he or she owes the state to a nonprofit that uses the money for scholarships. What the court calls a tax credit and Arizona calls a voluntary cash contribution is, concretely, a redirected tax payment.

Justice Kennedy, in an opinion clearly intended to overturn legal precedent, says that the program’s financing comes from taxpayers taking advantage of this credit, not from the state, so the taxpayers bringing the lawsuit can claim no harm from the state and lacked standing to sue. To Justice Kagan, “this novel distinction,” has “as little basis in principle as it has in our precedent.” Whether a state finances a program with cash grants or targeted tax breaks, the effect is the same. Taxpayers bear the cost.

Since the Flast case, she writes, “no court — not one — has differentiated between these sources of financing in deciding about standing.” In five cases where taxpayers challenged tax expenditures, the court has dealt with the merits “without questioning the plaintiffs’ standing.” The court has relied on some of these decisions as “exemplars of jurisdiction” in other cases. (“Pause on that for a moment,” the justice entreats.)

When this case was argued last fall the convolutions of the Arizona program seemed intended to mask its violation of the Constitution. The court’s ruling is another cynical sleight of hand, which will reduce access to federal courts while advancing endorsement of religion.

What Happened to the Investigation?

Last summer the House Ethics Committee accused Representative Maxine Waters of bringing discredit on Congress by helping to secure a government bailout for a troubled bank where her husband held stock and had been a director. Ms. Waters, a California Democrat, angrily denied the charge and demanded a public hearing.

Nothing has happened since — except key committee investigators were placed on administrative leave. The public needs to know the full story. Has Ms. Waters violated ethics rules or worse? Did the investigators make a major error? Or did someone want them muzzled?

The public record does not look good for Ms. Waters. A recent report by The Washington Post found that federal bank examiners had complained to superiors of political interference and called the bailout of Boston-based OneUnited Bank “a travesty of justice.”

Examiners found that the bank’s chairman had rendered it insolvent through bad investments and lavish personal spending. Representative Waters arranged a Treasury Department meeting attended largely by officials from OneUnited, according to investigators. Soon after, the bank won a $12 million bailout.

The Ethics Committee charged that Ms. Waters used her office improperly — that while she had been cautioned not to get involved by Representative Barney Frank, chairman of the Financial Services Committee, she did not stop her chief of staff from continuing to seek assistance.

Ms. Waters insists that she sought the meeting with Treasury officials to help not just OneUnited, but all minority-owned banks sideswiped by the financial crisis. The reputation of the bipartisan Ethics Committee can only sink lower if the case continues to drift.

The Truth About Charley

Bill Steigerwald has made an intriguing, if disheartening, discovery that seems to have eluded admirers and scholars of John Steinbeck for decades. Steinbeck’s “Travels With Charley in Search of America” is shot through with dubious anecdotes and impossible encounters.

Mr. Steigerwald, a former newspaperman, said he was planning to pay respectful tribute last year when he retraced Steinbeck’s 1960 journey — 10,000 miles from Long Island to Maine to California and back. But as he explained in a blog and an article in this month’s Reason magazine, facts got in the way.

He checked the book against Steinbeck’s actual itinerary, letters from the road, the book’s draft and revisions. They convinced him that Steinbeck misrepresented dates and places and had not spent all that time alone with his dog. His wife, Elaine, was along for most of the trip; they often stayed in deluxe hotels and camped hardly at all.

This might not flabbergast anyone who has read the book lately. It is full of improbably colorful characters and hard-to-swallow dialogue straight out of a black-and-white 1960s TV show. “What’s the matter with you, Mac, drunk?” says a red-faced New York cop. “You can just rot here,” says a forlorn young man in the Rockies who wears a polka-dot ascot and dreams of being a beautician in New York. “Flops. Who hasn’t known them hasn’t played,” says a traveling Shakespearean actor in North Dakota.

One especially incredible melodrama is set in New Orleans. It is a meditation on racism with a scary white bigot, a white moderate and two emblematic African-Americans: a timid, weather-beaten field hand and a bold young student who is tired of the boycotts and sit-ins.

It is irritating that some Steinbeck scholars seem not to care. “Does it really matter that much?” one of them asked a Times reporter.

Steinbeck insisted his book was reality-based. He aimed to “tell the small diagnostic truths which are the foundations of the larger truth.” Books labeled “nonfiction” should not break faith with readers. Not now, and not in 1962, the year “Travels With Charley” came out and Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize for literature.

EDITORIAL : THE DAILY YOMIURI, JAPAN

Nation must pool wisdom to prepare for 'unforeseeable'

The Yomiuri Shimbun

About a month has passed since a massive earthquake and tsunami hit northeastern and eastern parts of the nation. A powerful aftershock, measuring upper 6 on the Japanese seismic intensity scale of 7, jolted the region Thursday, causing power outages over a wide area.

People affected by the disaster have surely passed many long, hard days, unable to feel completely at ease.

The number of people killed or unaccounted for in the wake of the March 11 Great East Japan Earthquake now stands at more than 27,000.

As many as 460,000 people were evacuated to shelters at one time. The number has been decreasing--some returned to their homes after the water receded, some are staying with relatives, and others have moved outside their home prefectures in group relocations.

However, more than 150,000 people are still living in shelters.

We hope local governments will maintain close contact with disaster victims and continue to extend all necessary support, including housing, goods, medical care and employment.

Although reconstruction work is proceeding, removing the huge amount of rubble scattered around disaster-hit areas is expected to be a long battle. Construction of temporary housing units has begun, and we hope a sufficient number will be built as soon as possible.

To help disaster-stricken towns be reborn as municipalities better able to cope with major disasters--this will be the predominant theme of reconstruction efforts. We must thoroughly examine the damage caused by tsunami and the accidents at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant operated by Tokyo Electric Power Co.

All possible measures then must be taken so we will not succumb to even "unforeseeable" scenarios.

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Breakwaters, dikes broken

In terms of its height and destructive force, the gigantic tsunami on March 11 was much more powerful than the local governments and residents in the affected coastal areas expected.

According to surveys by experts, the tsunami was more than 10 meters high at many points along the Sanriku coast. In Ofunato, Iwate Prefecture, it reached as high as 23.6 meters. Tsunami waves rose up the slopes in Miyako, Iwate Prefecture, to a point 37.9 meters high.

Local governments along the Sanriku coast, which is known for frequent tsunami, drew up hazard maps and conducted evacuation drills before the March 11 disaster. They also reviewed their disaster management plans in preparation for record-level tsunami.

There were a number of enormous breakwaters and dikes at the mouth of bays and ports in those areas, such as the "Taro great wall" dike in the Taro district of Miyako.

In some areas, these structures protected towns and people, but in many other places, they were fractured and many local residents engulfed by water.

When rebuilding communities, it is vitally important to draw lessons from instances in which people survived tsunami of an "unforeseeable scale."

At Okirai Primary School in Ofunato, school authorities were well-prepared enough to have an emergency passage connecting the second floor of the school building to a road leading to high ground, for quick evacuation in the event of giant tsunami. Although the school building was destroyed March 11, all its students and teachers escaped unhurt.

Also, it should be noted that many ferroconcrete buildings in the disaster areas were not swept away. This attests to the wisdom of increasing the number of strongly tsunami-resistant medium-rise ferroconcrete buildings over 30 meters high, which can be used as shelters in the future.

As noted by Prime Minister Naoto Kan, a completely new concept of city planning should be studied, such as the idea of having residents live in elevated areas and work in low-lying companies and fishing ports.

We must urgently investigate and learn lessons in various disaster-hit regions, with the participation of experts.

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Safety checks needed swiftly

The crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, and the way the government and TEPCO responded to it, can never be swept aside simply by saying it was "unforeseeable."

Shocks in the March 11 earthquake were more than 20 percent stronger than the maximum temblor envisioned in the nuclear plant's seismic resistance design. There must be careful scrutiny to clarify what specific damage was caused by the earthquake.

TEPCO operated on the assumption there could be no tsunami over 5.7 meters high. However, the actual height on March 11 was more than 10 meters, and the tsunami disabled all the plant's emergency power sources.

As a result, TEPCO became unable to pump water to cool the reactor's nuclear fuel, which caused nuclear fuel rods to be exposed.

Some experts had earlier forecast the possibility of a colossal tsunami comparable to the one in 869, during the Jogan era of the Heian period (794-1192), that submerged much of the region where the nuclear power plant is located.

These experts strongly urged the government two years ago to review its estimate of the biggest possible tsunami that could hit the nuclear plant.

In the Diet, too, questions were raised several times in interpellations about whether there was a danger of tsunami or other causes stopping the reactor cooling systems of the Fukushima nuclear plant and elsewhere.

To ensure the safe operation of nuclear power plants, "unforeseeable" things can never be left unaddressed.

There currently are 54 nuclear reactors in the country. They should all be given thorough safety checks immediately, including 40 in areas other than the Tohoku region.

The Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry has called for the nation's nuclear power plants to complete emergency safety arrangements, including the deployment of power-supply vehicles and fire engines, by the middle of this month.

However, these are nothing more than stopgap measures against accidents similar to the ongoing crisis at the Fukushima plant. After the crisis subsides, every nuclear power plant must conduct in-depth probes into the causes of the accidents and review tsunami damage estimates and related matters.

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Do what you can

Many people who live far from the disaster areas may have been asking themselves what they can do to help. What is important is to do whatever one can, keeping in mind the affected areas and the people there.

Sending relief money, going to a disaster area to work as a volunteer or purchasing products from the Tohoku region: All such actions are of course commendable. It also is important for us to maintain as much as possible our ordinary daily lives.

Although the path ahead may be rocky, Japan will rise again and grow strong. We will continue to move forward in this belief.

EDITORIAL : THE DAWN, PAKISTAN

 

Human rights record

IN the introduction to its 2010 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices , the US State Department has listed “specific countries where abuses were especially serious”. One of these countries is Pakistan. Along with only two other states in South and Central Asia and 23 other states around the world (from over 190 that were included in the report), we are among a subset of nations that have failed particularly badly to provide citizens with the dignity, equality and justice they deserve. The detailed write-up on Pakistan makes it clear why, with a slew of abuses that should be a source of embarrassment for the nation. More disturbingly, the violations are all too familiar: extrajudicial killings and detentions, torture, discrimination against religious minorities, violence against women, honour killing, murders of journalists, bonded labour — the list goes on. While some specific instances reared their heads last year, including increasing targeted killings in Karachi, discoveries of the dead bodies of missing people in Balochistan and murders in the name of the blasphemy laws, the broad categories have remained the same. Recent years have also seen the addition of terrorism and of actions against suspected terrorists and militants, thousands of whom have been detained or killed without trial.

Nor did we need the United States to tell us all this — Pakistani human rights activists and journalists have been pointing out human rights abuses for decades, sometimes at great risk to their lives and their families. Consistently, however, any steps taken by one organ of the state are stymied by another or are abandoned due to inertia or lack of political will. Gen Kayani`s promised investigation into a 2009 incident of soldiers carrying out extrajudicial killings seems to have been forgotten. Judicial inquiries into the cases of missing people are obstructed or delayed. And there are certain issues the government treats as being untouchable through legislation, such as violence against women and the blasphemy laws.

Given that the report was not conducted by an international human rights agency but rather a particular country`s government, it is tempting to respond with questions about the United States` own human rights record. This is particularly true when it comes to drone attacks and to torture and extrajudicial detention, especially the continued existence of Guantanamo Bay and its trials by military commissions. But criticism of this kind cannot become an excuse to ignore our own unacceptable human rights record. It is a source of deep shame that anyone is able to declare us among the worst offenders in the world when it comes to protecting the rights of our own citizens.

 

Missing ministers

THE rule dividing the two items on Dawn` s page 5 on Saturday was not really required. The line is usually there to separate unconnected pieces of news. In this case, the distinction was difficult to make. The page had a five-column picture showing Chaman`s Bibi Tuhiba in her father`s arms along with two other children and a young man. Tuhiba`s claim to fame is that hers is one of the three new polio cases in the locality — this at a time when polio should have been eradicated from the country. And if this reminder of the inability of the government officials to do their duty by the people was not sad enough, to the left of the sombre picture, across the dividing line, was a news story about the truant ministers who find the climb up to the elected upper house in the country all too taxing an exercise to be done regularly. On Friday, as Chairman Farooq Naek called out for ministers, he was lucky to find a couple sitting somewhere in the house. While the chair managed to activate the two ministers at hand by asking them to move to their allotted seats, the duo deserved some credit at least for showing up in a place their cabinet colleagues have routinely found unworthy of their exalted presence.

If the honourable ministers are put off by the gravity of the business that awaits them in the upper house, they appear to have similar feelings for the more happening lower house of parliament. Concerned — or simply relevant — ministers are often missing from the National Assembly, too, and it is not odd for one cabinet minister to be fielding questions on behalf of another. This betrays a lack of enthusiasm on the part of public representatives to perform in a job that is otherwise so coveted, in which case the rule that divides Tuhiba and the Senate would be justified. Importantly, the cabinet members also stand apart from a prime minister who is much at home at his desk in the house and who swears by the supremacy of parliament.

Fishermen`s plight

THE manner in which Pakistan and India habitually keep the poorest of the poor hostage to interstate relations speaks poorly of the two countries’ commitment to resolving the real issues. Reports about fishermen from one country being picked up by the security forces of the other appear in the newspapers with such frequency that they hardly draw comment. Most of the fishermen are taken into custody because they have inadvertently strayed into the other country’s maritime territory, but there have been cases where they have been picked up from the high seas as well. Not in a position to hire lawyers or to expect any sort of justice, they are sent to jail. The length of detention is indefinite, usually lasting until Pakistan and India embark upon yet another round of talks, upon which they are repatriated with back-slapping all around. But by then, their livelihoods have been destroyed because their fishing vessels, which constitute their main asset, have been
permanently confiscated. This is the reality faced by 10 Indian fishermen who were remanded into judicial custody in Karachi last Wednesday.
If Pakistan and India cannot settle even this most basic point, then it would seem that the two countries’ relationship is based on false pretences. In over six decades, there has been little progress on prioritising the formulation of an agreement in this regard. Neither country has made any real effort to ensure that these people, amongst the most deprived sections of the populations on both sides of the border, are dealt with in a humane manner. Despite all the fanfare whenever there is a thaw in India-Pakistan relations, the real issues — those that concern the people — remain unaddressed. Yet the fact is that until issues such as these are settled, no real progress can be said to have been achieved.

 

 

EDITORIAL : THE DAILY STAR, BANGLADESH

 

Resource-strapped returnees

Explore new avenues for them

A very large chunk of the 34,000 Bangladeshi migrant workers who have just returned from Libya by way of camps in Tunisia, Greece, Egypt and Algeria remain in dire financial straits because of the wages they have not received in Libya. That is worrying, for both the returnees as well as the Bangladesh government. With employment a perennial problem for this resource-strapped country, one can surely understand the hurdles before the government where rehabilitating these workers is concerned. It is a situation which gravely taxes the imagination and calls for a clear, well thought out approach to the issue.

A bit of good news here is the apparent readiness of the World Bank to come forward with loans aimed at easing the burden on the returnees. If the WB wishes the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) to be involved in the disbursement of the loans to the returnees, we ought not to set up bureaucratic roadblocks through insisting that the money be routed through the Expatriate Welfare Bank. The IOM has done a creditable job by ensuring the safe return of the migrant workers and so has the skill and ability to follow it up by acting as a link between the WB and the workers in providing financial aid to the latter. The imperative now is for those who have returned home empty-handed to be given some economic lifeline.

Mapping that future will be a huge challenge. For the government, this crisis should be a chance for serious thinking on employment generation in the country. It is unfortunate but true that successive governments have not clearly shaped strategies to employ people in the various professions. That attitude must now come to an end. Meanwhile, with such a large number of workers not just from Libya but from elsewhere in Asia and the Middle East coming back home, it is of critical importance that the government explore, from a sense of immediacy, newer avenues of manpower export. It is not merely the welfare of the workers that is important. The matter of remittances in our economy is crucial as well. 

 

IT education at schools ,colleges

Infrastructure direly inadequate

WHEN the government envisages building a Digital Bangladesh, the news that computer studies at secondary and higher secondary levels are conducted without specialized teachers in the state-run educational institutions is indeed appalling. It is unbelievable that governments have not created any permanent post for teachers in this discipline at 570 schools and colleges since introducing the subject fifteen years ago. Classes are conducted by teachers of other subjects that too in makeshift arrangements.

The current situation, if not redressed would jeopardize the progressive plans of the government with regards to spread of IT education.

By contrast, private educational institutions run by government subsidy have permanent posts for this field. They have efficient IT teaching staff enabling students to flourish in computer education.

While the students take keen interest in the subject the government lags behind in making the infrastructure available. Strangely, there's still no recruitment provision of IT teachers in the staffing pattern and there's no sign of efforts to create such posts. Situation is worse in the Upazila levels where teachers seldom use computers for teaching.

Sadly, many institutions have neither computers nor teachers. Education experts and teachers have underscored the need for making computer education, which is now optional, compulsory to help implant IT skills in talented minds which will stand them in good stead in the cyber world.

Here computer is not only a tool for information but also an integral part of the learning process. We should modernize the learning methods at all levels. There's been a huge demand and enthusiasm among all classes of students starting from Upazilas for IT education. Hence the opportunity to rear a strong IT proficient generation for the future. This prospect should not be squandered. Digital Bangladesh is only possible if we have an army of IT educated force.