Increased housing commitments swelled U.S. taxpayers’ total support for the financial system by $700 billion in the past year to around $3.7 trillion, a government watchdog said on Wednesday.
The Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program said the increase was due largely to the government’s pledges to supply capital to Fannie Mae (FNMA.OB) and Freddie Mac (FMCC.OB) and to guarantee more mortgages to the support the housing market.
Increased guarantees for loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration, the Government National Mortgage Association and the Veterans administration increased the government’s commitments by $512.4 billion alone in the year to June 30, according to the report.
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Bailout reaches $3.7T
In South Korea, Clinton announces sanctions against the north
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced new U.S. sanctions against North Korea Wednesday focused on halting money-making schemes employed by the regime to fund its nuclear program.
“These measures are not directed at the people of North Korea, who have suffered too long due to the misguided priorities of their government,” Clinton said at a news conference. “They are directed at the destabilizing, illicit, and provocative policies pursued by that government.”
The U.S. will freeze assets of businesses and individuals associated with the North Korean regime, and collaborate with banks to stop illegal financial transactions.
Arizona hearing begins
AP,
A federal judge will hear arguments Thursday from lawyers for the governor, the U.S. government and civil rights groups over whether Arizona’s new law requiring police to run checks on immigration status should take effect in a week.
U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton will consider a request by the U.S. Justice Department to block enforcement of the law. She also will hear arguments in a challenge by civil rights groups over whether the law should be put on hold and whether that lawsuit should be thrown out of court.
The judge has said she wasn’t making any promises on whether she would make those rulings before the law takes effect on July 29.
Navy laser system test successful, shoots down drone
During the test, the Navy’s Laser Weapon System (LaWS), guided by Raytheon’s Phalanx Close-In Weapon System sensors, engaged and destroyed four UAV targets flying over water near the Navy’s weapons and training facility on San Nicolas Island in California’s Santa Barbara Channel, about 120 kilometers west of Los Angeles. The Phalanx—a rapid-fire, computer-controlled, radar-guided gun More..system—used electro-optical tracking and radio frequency sensors to provide range data to the LaWS, which is made up of six solid-state lasers with an output of 32 kilowatts that simultaneously focus on a target.
Blago trial over: He won’t testify
Deposed Gov. Rod Blagojevich said Wednesday that he agreed with his attorneys not to testify in his own defense because he believes federal prosecutors have failed to prove their case.
The defense rested Wednesday without any testimony from Blagojevich, despite repeated promises over the past 19 months that he would.
But Blagojevich’s attorneys said prosecutors had relied primarily on tapes, and the testimony of two major witnesses – former Blagojevich adviser Lon Monk and chief of staff John Harris. Testimony was never heard from witnesses prosecutors said were at the center of the case.
Obama’s approval rating in Arizona drops to 28%
Most Arizonans no longer think Barack Obama is doing a decent job as president.
A new Behavior Research Poll released Sunday shows that nearly four out of every 10 Arizonans now rate Obama’s performance as poor or very poor. That’s up 5 points from the same survey taken in January.
What’s different is that the number of those who think he’s doing an excellent or good job has plummeted.
Three months after taking office, fully 51 percent of Arizonans gave Obama positive ratings, even though the state went for hometown favorite John McCain in the 2008 election.
A year into office, that had slid to 40 percent. But by the time pollster Earl de Berge conducted this latest survey, between June 30 and July 11, only 28 percent of Arizonans were willing to say they like the job he’s doing.
1,200 National Guard to deploy to border on Aug. 1
Administration officials on Monday announced that the 1,200 National Guard troops pledged weeks ago by President Obama will deploy to the southwest border starting on Aug. 1 as part of an effort to bring the region “under control.”
Alan Bersin, commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, said the troops would “support” the work of Department of Homeland Security personnel already operating on the border.
“The Guard has been a tried and tested support to law enforcement … and I’m confident they’ll prove it again in this instance,” Bersin said.
He said the deployment will coincide with a boost in surveillance technology in the region.
Two Venezuelans face prison for Twitter messages
Hugo Chavez seems to like Twitter as a mouthpiece for power. Since joining the service last April, he’s sent 522 messages, sometimes dozens a day, all apparently from his BlackBerry.
But he’s not such a fan of uncensored microblogging from the masses. Last week two Venezuelans, a 35-year old woman and a 41-year old man, were charged with making statements on Twitter critical of Venezuela’s banking system and face up to 11 years in prison, according to Reporters Without Borders. Fifteen more Internet users may face similar charges in the coming days.
The two defendants are accused of violating a 2001 law prohibiting spreading false rumors about or attempting to destabilize the nation’s banks, a loaded topic in the midst of wider financial troubles in the country. “Ladies and Gentlemen, don’t say you weren’t warned… Pull out today… I’m telling you, there are just a few days left,” Luis Acosta Oxford wrote late last month, for instance.
But the threat of a decade of imprisonment for 140 characters of investment advice goes beyond any financial fears, says Lucie Morillon, head of the Internet desk at Reporters Without Borders (RSF). “We see this arrest and the fact that these individuals face 11 years in jail as not just an unfortunate incident, but a way to intimidate other users who would use Twitter as a platform to criticize the government and its decisions”
Biden campaign directed to pay $219,000 for sloppy bookkeeping and improper contributions
AP,
Election watchdogs have directed Joe Biden’s 2008 presidential campaign to pay the U.S Treasury more than $219,000 to resolve issues caused by sloppy bookkeeping and accepting excessive contributions, including a discounted flight on a private jet.
The audit was released Friday by the Federal Election Commission.
It determined that the Biden campaign accepted an improper corporate contribution in the form of a round-trip flight between New Hampshire and Iowa in June 2007 for three people. The Biden campaign paid GEH Air Transportation $7,911 for the first-class airfare, but regulators say the campaign should have paid the charter rate of $34,800.
The FEC also found that the Biden campaign could not document repaying at least $106,000 in donations that were over the limit, and the campaign was ordered to pay the U.S. Treasury more than $85,000 for stale-dated checks.
UK raids dormant bank accounts to pay for community projects
U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron announced plans to use “hundreds of millions of pounds” from dormant bank accounts to fund community projects, while Business Secretary Vince Cable said lenders “ripped off” customers.
Cameron said he will press ahead with a proposal set out in the coalition government’s program to establish a “Big Society Bank” to finance moves by charitable groups and not-for-profit companies to take over jobs currently done by the government.
“These unclaimed assets, alongside the private-sector investment that we will leverage, will mean that the Big Society Bank will over time make available hundreds of millions of pounds of new finance to some of the most dynamic social organizations in our country,” Cameron said in a speech in Liverpool, northwest England, today.
17 gunned down in Mexico fiesta slaughter
AFP,
To cries of “Kill them all!” gunmen opened fire at a weekend birthday party Sunday, mowing down at least 17 people in an attack that laid bare the brutality of Mexico’s long-running drug war.
A dozen people were also wounded as the killers sprayed more than 200 bullets indiscriminately at the private celebration outside Torreon, an industrial city in the northern state of Coahuila.
Sunday’s attack brought the number of victims across the country, which has been blighted by drug-related violence since President Felipe Calderon launched a 2006 crackdown on the cartels, to at least 57 just in the past weekend.
The attack began at around 1:30 am (0630 GMT) as the murder squad rolled up at the popular rental venue in the usually calm suburb of Torreon, said Fernando Olivas, a Coahuila state government official.