New York, NY, United States (4E) – Home Depot Inc. announced an 18 percent rise in quarterly net profit as the company posted stronger sales amid a recovery in the U.S. housing market.

Home Depot said profit stood at $1.22bn, or 83 cents per share, for the quarter ended May 5, compared last year’s profit of $1.04bn, or 68 cents per share. Meanwhile, sales jumped 7.4 per cent to $19.1bn during the period.

The Home Depot raised its guidance for the year after the stronger-than-expected figures. The home-improvement-products retailer increased its earnings outlook for 2013 to $3.52 per share on 2.8 percent revenue growth from its earlier estimate of $3.37 earnings per share on 2 per cent revenue growth.

Same-store sales in the U.S. for the period jumped 4.8 percent from the previous year, while the gain for all stores was 4.3 percent. The figures were adjusted by not including the figures in the 14th week in comparable quarter last year.

The company had to deal with less favorable weather in the quarter compared to the same period in 2012, but had a better-than-expected start to the year because of an improved housing market, according to Chief Executive Frank Blake.

Home Depot made changes earlier than its rivals because of the problems it had before the downturn in the housing market began, placing the company in a position to gain market share in an economy that is slowly bouncing back.

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People in Madagascar need to work together and the poor here need a direct approach to development. The products are there, but people also need the right education to be able to access them,” said Harinavalona Rajaonah, who works at Ombona Tahiry Ifampisamborana Vola (OTIV), one of the UNDP-partnered microfinance organizations.

“We have tried to put a culture of credit access into place here. The hardest part is to change the mentality of the people,” Jean Olivier Razafimanantsoa, regional director of the Central Bank-registered credit cooperative Caisses d’Epargne et de Crédit Agricole Mutuelles (CECAM), told IRIN.

“We work together with other organizations in the city, as some people are a member [of other MFIs] everywhere, and so they take out too many loans. Also, the farmers tend to overestimate how much they need. They want us to finance their rice crop, which is worth 700,000 ariary ($321), but they’ll come and ask for two million ($917). When you ask them how they got to this amount, they don’t know,” he said.

All microloan borrowers receive business advice, but with technical assistance and funding from UNDP, microfinance players have also established microcredit education programmes aimed at vulnerable groups.

One such programme, run by CECAM, mainly targets poor female street vendors. Razafimanantsoa says the programme has 1,303 clients, including Sija and other women from St Augustin Village. The women must save between 200 and 400 ariary ($0.09 to $0.18) a week, as part of the initial loan agreement.

They are then enrolled in lending system that goes through nine cycles, the first entitling the recipient to an 80,000 ariary ($36) loan. Each time the clients repay a loan, they are eligible for another, with progressively higher loan ceilings up to 300,000 ariary ($137). Repayment schedules range from a few months to a year. The programme also offers education on basic money management, family planning and health issues.

After completing all the cycles, the women become eligible for CECAM’s normal commercial microcredit system.

“Right now, our goal is for these women to eat three times a day and feed their children, but eventually, they should be able to build up a guarantee to get a commercial business going and enter into the regular CECAM system,” Razafimanantsoa said.

Cyclone

The weekly obligatory savings plan acts as a buffer against hard times, which is especially important in this cyclone-prone country.

After Cyclone Haruna struck Madagascar in February , many of CECAM’s clients in Toliara, the regional capital of Atsimo-Andrefana Region, were left penniless.

“The first weeks, we didn’t give out any more loans, as we were afraid people would just use the money to eat. We are now helping some of the women who have lost their homes to reschedule their loans,” Razafimanantsoa said.

Prisca, 33, who did not provide her family name, from Belem, a district of Toliara, had entered her second credit cycle, and was using the capital to buy eggs from producers to sell at the market. “After I got the microcredit, I went from selling 100 eggs a day to selling up to 300. I could send the children to a private school and was able to buy some chickens,” she told IRIN.

But she was left homeless in the wake of the cyclone, and now lives in a displacement camp, sharing a tent with 10 others. “We left with only the clothes on our back. The first week we stayed in a school. Then the BNGRC [National Disaster Risk Reduction Office] came to give us these tents,” she said.

Prisca owes a 44,000 ariary ($20) debt to CECAM, and in the interim has enrolled in a cash-for-work project. “We’re working to rehabilitate the roads, earning 24,000 ariary ($11) a week. I want to pay the CECAM [debt] first, as that will enable me to take out a new loan. Then, I can earn money again and rebuild the house little by little. This credit is what takes care of our daily needs,” she said.

In the wake of the disaster, Sija, the fishmonger, was grateful for the loan’s savings requirement. “We pay back our loans from our savings,” she said. “After the cyclone in February, we had some problems paying, as there were no more goods to sell, so it was good I had saved up some money.”

Growing businesses

The programmes are working.

Hanisoa Ravalison, 43, operates a small roadside restaurant selling sausages and simple meals in the village of Ambanitsena, about 26km east of Antananarivo, the capital. Following a visit by an OTIV agent, who recruits prospective clients, Ravalison decided to expand her business.

“At first, I borrowed money to renovate and enlarge the snack bar and to buy a fridge,” she told IRIN. “Now, I use money to buy more goods, so I can make more profit.”

Ravalison is in the tenth borrowing cycle of OTIV’s 12 cycles – which have an initial loan of 60,000 ariary ($27.50) and reach a loan ceiling of 440,000 ariary ($201).

“Before I received training, I just used the money I made to buy whatever was needed. Now, I separate personal expenses and money for the business. I also know the difference between sales and profits and know that I need to use part of the profits to make the company run.”

On a good day, her restaurant takes in 85,000 ariary ($39). “During holidays and festivals, we sell as many as 100kg of sausages,” she said.

Her husband has set up a second restaurant, and two of their five children work in the family businesses. Ravalison said her next business plan was to open a wholesale food business.

Liva Harininana Ramanatenasoa began a small business selling charcoal in Ambanitsena. “One day, an agent from OTIV came along and explained that, with microcredit, I could do better,” she told IRIN.

With the first loan, Ramanatenasoa bought more charcoal. “Without credit, I would be able to buy 10 bags maximum, but with credit, I could afford as many as 22, so I made a lot more profit,” she said.

Two years after first enrolling in the microcredit scheme, Ramanatenasoa used the profits from her charcoal business to buy the rights to a stone quarry for 200,000 ariary ($90). She now employs a staff of-. Profits from the business have enabled her to build a house and put her children in school.

“If it wasn’t for the credit, I would have still been selling coal,” she said.

ar/go/rz

– Provided by Integrated Regional Information Networks.

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White Plains, NY, United States (ProPublica) – by Nikole Hannah-Jones

April 23: This post has been updated to include the response from the Westchester county attorney.

The showdown in Westchester County over a 4-year-old federal residential desegregation order just got real.

The U.S. Department of Justice sent a letter to the New York City suburb last Friday threatening to seek a contempt ruling in federal court. A contempt ruling could result in fines against both the county and County Executive Rob Astorino if he fails to agree to enact legislation that would ban discrimination against people who pay their rent with government assistance.

Westchester County signed a settlement with the federal government in 2009 over its failure to comply with fair housing requirements tied to federal grants. The settlement required Astorino to promote legislation — known as source-of-income measures — that would end discrimination against those using government subsidies to help pay their rents. Instead, Astorino vetoed the law passed by the county’s Board of Legislators in 2010 that would have addressed the issue.

Astorino — who campaigned for office on his opposition to the settlement — went to court to challenge the government’s contention that his actions had in fact violated the court order. He lost in that bid earlier this month. And on April 5, a federal appeals court upheld the district court’s ruling that Astorino’s action breached the settlement and ordered him to promote and sign the legislation.

“The County would have this Court rely upon the legitimate concerns that motivate modification of long-standing consent decrees to allow the County to shirk its voluntarily agreed to obligations, made less than four years ago, with no showing that the objects of the consent decree have been obtained and strong evidence indicating that they have not been,” the court ruled. “This we will not do.”

The Justice Department gave Astorino until Thursday to agree to comply and appears willing to head to court if he doesn’t. In the letter sent to the county last Friday, the Department of Justice said that it could first seek contempt fines against the county. If those proved fruitless, it could seek fines against the county chief himself.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development notified the county that it would permanently lose $7.4 million in federal grants if it did not produce a detailed plan to comply with three major requirements of the 2009 settlement, including the income discrimination ban and producing a plan to attack exclusionary zoning in the county’s whitest municipalities.

HUD also gave the county until Thursday to comply. The stripping of these grant dollars would be unprecedented.

Combined, this month’s efforts mark the federal government’s most aggressive steps to date to compel compliance with what was considered a landmark fair housing settlement. A ProPublica investigation published late last year detailed the reluctance on the part of federal officials to press county officials too hard to meet the terms of the settlement, even when those county officials were openly defiant of the settlement’s goals and mandates.

But Craig Gurian, who runs the nonprofit Anti-Discrimination Center that brought the lawsuit against Westchester leading to the settlement, remains skeptical of the government’s determination. He noted that the U.S. Attorney threatened to hold Westchester in contempt last year over the income discrimination ban but backed off when the county gave assurances it would comply.

“The U.S. Attorney’s promised action is welcome, but we remain concerned about the willingness of that office and of the Obama administration in general to vindicate fully the promise of the consent decree,” he said. “The U.S. Attorney continues to ignore the fact that Westchester has been violating every material obligation of the consent decree for three-and-a-half years. The proper course is to seek to hold Westchester in contempt for all of its violations; it is not acceptable to allow civil rights defendants to fail to obey any element of a court order.”

So far, the federal government’s threats have not prodded the county to change course. Astorino accused HUD of extortion and last week the Board of Legislators voted to support Astorino’s request to sue HUD over the imperiled grant money.

Astorino’s office did not respond to a request for a comment. But County Chairman Kenneth Jenkins, a harsh critic of Astorino’s handling of the settlement, released a statement today imploring Astorino to act. Jenkins, along with three other Democrats, voted against the county suing HUD. He said Astorino, a Republican, should deliver the legislation to the board by the end the day.

“I have been asking County Executive Astorino, both privately and publicly, to comply with the fair and affordable housing settlement, especially in regard to submitting Source of Income Legislation to the Board,” Jenkins said. “Obviously, the hammer is coming down.”

Jenkins knows how that hammer can work, and hurt. Jenkins once headed the Yonkers chapter of the NAACP, which had sued the Westchester County city of Yonkers over segregation in its schools and neighborhoods. Elected officials, in a long and brutal battle, nearly bankrupted the city when their efforts to resist a federal residential and school desegregation order led to massive fines.

Update: Westchester County Attorney Robert Meehan responded this afternoon to Friday’s letter from the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Read the letter here.

– Provided by ProPublica.org

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Washington, DC, United States (KaiserHealth) – Few aspects of the Affordable Care Act are more critical to its success than affordability, but in recent weeks experts have predicted costs for some health plans could soar next year.

Now health law supporters are pushing back, noting close ties between the actuaries making the forecasts and an insurance industry that has been complaining about taxes and other factors it says will lead to rate shock for consumers.

“Most actuaries in this country — what percentage are employed by insurance companies?” Sen. Al Franken, a Minnesota Democrat, asked an actuary last week at a hearing of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

The committee was discussing a study published last month by the Society of Actuaries (SOA) predicting that, thanks to sicker patients joining the coverage pool, medical claims per member will rise 32 percent in the individual plans expected to dominate the ACA exchanges next year. In some states costs will rise as much as 80 percent, the report said.

The witness was unable to answer Franken’s question, but the senator made his point. Insurance is why actuaries exist. The industry and the profession are hard to separate.

Using predictive math, actuaries try to make sure insurers of all kinds don’t run out of money to pay claims. Many actuaries also work for consultants whose clients include insurance companies.

Undisclosed in the SOA report was the fact that about half the people who oversaw it work for the health insurance industry that is warning about rate shock. The chairman of society committee supervising the project was Kenny Kan, chief actuary at Maryland-based CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield.

Others on the committee work for firms with insurer clients. The report included committee members’ names but not their affiliations.

The SOA “portray themselves as this nonpartisan think tank when in fact everything about the study is by people who have a vested interest in the outcome of the study,” said Birny Birnbaum, executive director of the Center for Economic Justice, a Texas group that advocates on behalf of financial and utility consumers.

To perform the research, the society hired Optum, sister company of UnitedHealthcare, the country’s biggest private health insurer.

Society spokeswoman Kim McKeown said the project was overseen by credentialed actuaries “from a cross-section of industry organizations” and was “exposed for review and comment to the broad health care actuarial community.”

Even supporters of the health act worry about premium increases next year, when many of its provisions take effect. But the debate fits into a larger discussion about actuaries’ public role. Actuaries are self-regulated, which some say makes them unaccountable.

Their associations set conduct standards and investigate malpractice in confidential proceedings. During the previous two decades the Actuarial Board for Counseling and Discipline, which works with the Society of Actuaries, has recommended public disciplinary measures for fewer than two people a year, according to its annual report.

Yet actuaries play many public roles. By calculating the adequacy of employer pension contributions they affect the retirement of millions. And they’ll act as virtual referees for important aspects of implementing the health act.

“I have a great deal of respect for actuaries,” said Timothy Jost, a law professor at Washington and Lee University and health law expert. “But I do think they often end up in … situations where the interests of the public and of their employers might be in conflict.”

While the Obama administration has developed a calculator plans must use for determining whether insurance plans meet the health act’s standards for benefits and value, recently finalized regulations give insurer-employed actuaries the power to override it by substituting one benefit for another.

Insurance company actuaries calculate rates when plans file with states, which act as the industry’s primary regulators. Charged with making sure the prices are justified, state insurance departments often have far less actuarial expertise at their disposal than the insurers.

The Vermont Department of Financial regulation “does not have actuaries on staff,” a spokeswoman said. “We outsource our review of rate filings.”

The situation in 2011 was the same in a dozen other states, according to information compiled by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.

Health-act supporters complained that that the actuary society’s study predicting a 32 percent increase in claims didn’t account for key factors, including the potential for competition to lower prices, the subsidies people will receive to buy the coverage and the fact that next year’s plans will be more generous than this year’s.

Often actuaries’ predictions are not significantly better than, say, those of the Weather Channel. Recent premium increases of 50 percent and higher for nursing home insurance reflect a previous under-calculation of costs by actuaries. Actuarial models didn’t work especially well at calculating subprime mortgage risk a few years ago, either.

A settlement in New York last month revealed cases in which actuaries overestimated liabilities and a mortgage insurer paid out as little as 20 percent of collected premiums in claims.

Jost and Birnbaum want representatives of consumers and state insurance departments to be included on the actuaries’ discipline board. In proceedings at the insurance commissioners’ group, consumer advocates also want the board to state that actuaries’ first duty is to the public whenever they furnish calculations to state or federal regulators and to tighten conflict-of-interest standards for firms producing work relied on by both insurers and regulators.

“There is always room for improvement in everything,” said Karen Terry, an actuary for State Farm and the vice president of professionalism at the American Academy of Actuaries, an umbrella group that works with the discipline board and groups such as the SOA that represent professional subspecialties such as health or pension actuaries. “We’re open to that dialogue.”

– Provided by Kaiser Health News.

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loan from the International Monetary Fund have struggled over the Fund’s desire for reforms to the subsidy system.

Other countries like Qatar and Libya have stepped in – the former offering a loan of $3 billion and Libya depositing $2 billion in the Egyptian Central bank.

Meanwhile, the government is finding it increasingly difficult to afford the 10 billion pounds ($1.5 billion) it spends on subsidized bread, and any disruption could provoke further unrest (Arabic).

ae/jj/rz

– Provided by Integrated Regional Information Networks.

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Moscow, Russian Federation (4E) – Russia’s OAO Rosneft reached a deal with the Chinese government Friday to double its crude-oil deliveries from its current volume, boosting energy links between the two major emerging economies, Russia and China.

Under the agreement, China will provide Rosneft, the world’s largest listed oil producer, a $2bn loan in exchange for 25 years of deliveries, according to Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin after the signing of the agreement.

The Russian state oil firm already supplies 15 million metric tons to China every year under a deal signed in 2009. Russian pipeline operator OAO Transneft and Rosneft received a $25bn loan from China in that deal.

The deal was finalized during the visit to Moscow by Chinese President Xi Jinping, his first official trip abroad since taking office.

Rosneft will also be partnering with China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) in the development of onshore blocks and offshore licenses. The Chinese energy firm is Rosneft’s latest foreign partner in its long-term development plan to tap resources in the Arctic shelf.

CNPC also signed a memorandum last week with Russian state oil company OAO Gazprom to deliver gas to China from Russia’s far east fields.

On Thursday, Rosneft announced that it acquired TNK-BP for $60bn to become the world’s biggest listed oil producer.

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Beijing, China (4E) – The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said China’s economy will accelerate in 2013 and 2014, weathering the fragile global recovery.

The OECD estimates gross domestic product (GDP) will grow 8.5 per cent in 2013 and 8.9 per cent in 2014, higher than the forecast of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) of 8.2 percent in 2013 and 8.5 per cent in 2014.

The group said that the world’s second-largest economy could benefit from the rising demand for housing and improving business investment, even as export growth continues to stay subdued.

The new leadership under Premier Li Keqiang faces the major challenge to sustain the recovery coming from the weakest economic growth in 13 years while putting curbs on property and consumer prices.

The OECD acknowledges its growth forecast may be too high given the risk from price pressures, especially in the property sector. The group prescribes easing of restrictions on land supply as a measure to prevent strains in the sector.

China’s GDP rose 7.9 percent in the final three months of 2012, rising for the first time in the last two years. Last year’s full-year growth of 7.8 percent was the slowest since 1999.

The OECD also increased its forecast for inflation, expecting that the consumer price index to climb 2.7 percent in 2013 and 2.9 in 2014, compared to an earlier estimate of 1.5 per ent in 2013 and 1.4 per cent in 2014, which was released in November.

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housing units and hotel rooms near the Ma’ale Adummim settlement, has garnered much attention in the media because it would sever Palestinian East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank. (See IRIN’s briefing on E-1 here.)

But at the same time, Israel has been moving forward with equally controversial settlement plans under less scrutiny and with unusual speed.

As US President Barack Obama prepares to visit the region this week, IRIN takes a look at some of the details that have been overlooked in the discussion.

What’s the Giv’at HaMatos plan?

According to Israeli NGO Ir Amim (“City of Nations”), which works to preserve Jerusalem as a home for both Jews and Palestinians, one settlement plan of “critical importance” is Giv’at HaMatos.

In a sense, Giv’at HaMatos does in the south what E-1 does in the east. The planned large housing and hotel complex at the southern perimeter of Jerusalem would further disrupt the contiguity of land between East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank required for a future Palestinian state, seriously impeding a two-state solution, research and rights groups say.

It would also mark the first new settlement construction in Jerusalem since’97.

“All construction is problematic but there are several plans that are, in our view, more dangerous if implemented,” Hagit Ofran, director of the Settlement Watch project at the Israeli NGO Peace Now, told IRIN. “Giv’at HaMatos is the most dangerous plan that is now approved.”

Part of the plan – to build 2,612 units – was approved by the Jerusalem Regional Planning Committee on’ December.

Most of Giv’at HaMatos is currently uninhabited, but according to the International Crisis Group (ICG), which recently released a two-part report on the future of East Jerusalem, its build-up would cut off Arab neighbourhoods in southern Jerusalem, like Beit Safafa and Sharafat, rendering them “Palestinian enclaves”.

Giv’at HaMatos would connect the dots of several other planned or expanding settlements along southern Jerusalem – including Giv’at Yael in the southwest; and Har Homa and East Talpiyot in the southeast – forming “a long Jewish continuum severing Bethlehem’s urban continuum from Palestinian Jerusalem”, ICG said. Last year, the Israeli government also approved more than 2,000 new units in neighbouring Gilo.

This kind of attachment to Jewish expansions could make peace negotiations even harder.

“From an Israeli public opinion perspective, Giv’at HaMatos is in the municipal border of Jerusalem,” Ofran said. “It’s considered a legitimate part of Israel.”

Barak Cohen, the Jerusalem Municipality’s adviser for foreign affairs and media, told IRIN Giv’at HaMatos is part of Jerusalem’s “natural and much-needed growth”, allowing both Arab and Jewish landowners to develop their properties.

Indeed, part of the Giv’at HaMatos plan, approved on 18 December, allows for the building of 549 units for Palestinians – though Betty Herschman, director of international relations and advocacy at Ir Amim, points out much of it retroactively legalizes building that has already been completed. The figures, she added, amount to just over one-fifth of the Jewish expansion.

Still, Cohen insisted, the development would benefit Jerusalem as a whole: “Not planning and developing Jerusalem neighbourhoods ultimately harms all residents and landowners – Arabs and Jews alike.”

Last year, Israel also issued tenders for the construction of 606 new housing units north of East Jerusalem, in the Ramot settlement, just north of the Green Line marking the border between Israel and the West Bank, and approved another 1,500 units in the neighbouring settlement of Ramot Shlomo, according to Ir Amim.

What other settlements are planned?

Beyond Jerusalem, there was movement on a number of other settlements projects in disputed areas, according to Settlement Watch.

In June 2012, the Israeli government announced it would build 851 new units in the West Bank, including more than 230 in the controversial settlements of Ariel and Efrat. Like Giv’at HaMatos, these two settlements make a contiguous Palestinian territory impossible, Settlement Watch says .

Overall, settlements expanded much faster than usual last year.

In 2012 the Israeli government approved the construction of 6,676 settler housing units in the West Bank, compared with 1,607 in 2011 and several hundred in 2010, according to Peace Now.

For plans that were already approved, it issued more than 3,000 tenders to construction contractors – more than any other year in the last decade, Peace Now said . Construction has actually begun on 1,747 homes .

Regardless of the settlements, Palestinians, especially in Area C, are under immense pressure. Recent weeks have seen a considerable upswing in demolitions of Palestinian structures.

According to the Displacement Working Group, a grouping of aid agencies helping displaced families, Israeli forces destroyed 139 Palestinian structures, including 59 homes, in January – almost triple 2012′s monthly average. The demolitions occurred in East Jerusalem and the West Bank – with a majority taking place in Area C – and left 251 Palestinians, including over 150 children, displaced.

The office of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the (Palestinian) Territories (COGAT) told IRIN there was no connection between the removal of unauthorized buildings and the construction of Israeli settlements. “All construction in the West Bank is subject to building codes and planning laws and unauthorized constructions are dealt with accordingly,” the office said in an email.

What are the knock-on effects?

Settlements are often discussed through the lens of their illegality under international law or as obstacles to a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. But everything associated with the settlements – including Israeli-only infrastructure, the separation barrier, military checkpoints, restrictions on Palestinian freedom of movement, suppression of freedom of expression and political life, and control of Palestinian natural resources – causes a ripple effect through Palestinian society, adversely impacting the people .

The UN estimates there are now 520,000 Israeli settlers in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, with 43 percent of the land there allocated to local and regional settlement councils. According to the UN Secretary-General, Israel has transferred roughly 8 percent of its citizens into OPT since the’70s, altering the demographic composition of the territory and furthering the Palestinian people from their right to self-determination.

Baker, of the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office, said a future Palestinian state should include a Jewish minority. “The assumption behind this… is that Jews have no right to live in the West Bank, an assumption that we reject. In fact we see ourselves as the true indigenous people of this land.”

But Israeli settlements have violated Palestinian rights to equality under the law, to religious freedom and to freedom of movement, according to the UN fact-finding mission. They have also eroded Palestinian access to water and to agricultural assets, and the ability to develop economically, it said.

For example, Bedouins from the Palestinian village of Khan Al Ahmar, northeast of E-1, cannot sell their dairy products at their traditional Souq Al Ahmar market any more. Because of movement restrictions (they hold West Bank IDs and lack the proper permits to enter East Jerusalem), they cannot get there.

The UN secretary-general has said that Palestinians “have virtually no control” over the water resources in the West Bank, with 86 percent of the Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea under the de facto jurisdiction of the settlement regional councils.

There is a statistical correlation between Palestinians’ proximity to settlements and their rates of food insecurity, according to a UN and government survey , which found that one quarter of Palestinians who live in Area C, home to the largest number of settlements in the West Bank, are food insecure. In Areas A and B, the average rate of food insecurity is 17 percent.

In addition, “all spheres of Palestinian life are being significantly affected by a minority of settlers who are engaged in violence and intimidation with the aim of forcing Palestinians off their land,” the mission said.

Operation Dove, an international organization working in the Palestinian village of At-Tuwani and the South Hebron Hills, reported that Palestinian children have a very hard time going to school due to settler attacks.

The UN and rights groups say radical settlers use violence against Palestinians with impunity and their illegal outposts are often recognized and retroactively legalized by the government.

Since the occupation began, Israel has detained hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, some of them without charge, and some of them children. Most of the minors are arrested “at friction points, such as a village near a settlement or a road used by the army or settlers”, the fact-finding mission said.

Israel uses what they term “administrative detention” when it considers the detainee a threat to the security of the state.

Ir Amim’s Herschman says Israel is also attempting to create a “greater Jerusalem” through additional means, for example: the Israeli separation barrier, planned national parks, and the construction of highways dividing villages, dispossessing Palestinians of their land and making it harder for them to access services like schools and mosques.

In recent weeks, residents of the Palestinian village of Beit Safafa have been protesting against the planned extension of the Begin Highway that would divide their village in order to connect major Israeli settlement blocks outside the city to Jerusalem.

The planned root of the separation barrier, in addition to a potential national park around the perimeter of the barrier would also close off nearby Palestinian village al-Wallajeh.

The planned route of the barrier extends all the way around and far beyond Muale Adummim and in other areas south and north of Jerusalem. “These lines are a unilateral declaration of a much greater Jerusalem, a unilateral expanding of the boundaries, an exponential increase,” she told IRIN.

Or as the ICG put it, “for many Arab East Jerusalemites, the battle for their city is all but lost.”

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This is the second in a two-part series on Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory

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– Provided by Integrated Regional Information Networks.

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Detroit, MI, United States (4E) – Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder announced Thursday the appointment of Washington, D.C. bankruptcy attorney Kevyn Orr as emergency financial manager tasked to fix the financial crisis gripping Detroit.

Snyder introduced Orr in a press conference also attended by Mayor Dave Bing at the Cadillac Place in the New Center area. The 54-year-old University of Michigan law school graduate was a partner with the Jones Day law firm and served as lead bankruptcy attorney of Chrysler in 2009.

The Local Emergency Financial Assistance Loan Board unanimously approved Orr’s appointment at a hearing in Lansing also Thursday. The City Council decided in the morning not to challenge Orr’s appointment in court.

Orr, who quit Jones Day for his new job, starts working on March 25 under an open-ended contract that will pay him $275,000 annually. He is expected to turn around the state’s largest city in 18 months and avert a municipal bankruptcy.

The new emergency manager law or Public Act 436 of 2012 that takes effect March 28 was the basis of Orr’s appointment. The law gives him extensive powers, including eliminating the pay and fringe benefits of the mayor and City Council members as well as stripping them of their fiduciary powers. Orr could also cancel or modify labor union and vendor contracts and sell city assets with the governor and state treasurer’s permission.

Orr is tasked to negotiate with the city’s creditors to reduce Detroit’s $14.9 billion in long-term debts and liabilities

Detroit was declared under financial emergency on March 1. State Treasurer Andy Dillon cited findings of his financial review team that the Motor City faces $100 million cash shortfall in the next four months and has no plan to pay $1.9 billion in debts in the next five years.

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Washington, DC, United States (ProPublica) – by Christie Thompson

Last week, the Obama administration formalized the legal standard it has used to enforce fair housing laws and hold banks accountable for their role in a foreclosure crisis that hit black and Latino homeowners the hardest.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development issued a regulation on “disparate impact,” codifying a long-used legal precedent that says the Fair Housing Act prohibits practices that result in discrimination “regardless of whether there was an intent to discriminate.”

After decades of being denied credit, many minority communities were victim to “reverse redlining” during the foreclosure crisis, as mortgage companies pushed risky loans in hopes of profiting from their higher interest rates and fees. With the disparate impact standard, the Department of Justice was able to argue that the disproportionate harm to communities of color put predatory lenders in violation of the Fair Housing Act and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act.

Now, the Supreme Court is considering hearing a challenge to the disparate impact standard. Some say HUD’s new guideline could be “the deciding factor” in whether the standard will withstand the Supreme Court’s scrutiny.

As housing officials and civil rights advocates keep their eye on the high court, we’ve rounded up seven key disparate impact cases you should know about.

United States v. Countrywide Corporation, Countrywide Home Loans and Countrywide Bank

Countrywide, a now-defunct mortgage company owned by Bank of America, gave subprime loans to 10,000 Hispanic and African-American borrowers, while providing prime loans for white borrowers with similar financial situations. (Subprime loans come with higher interest rates to account for a supposed higher risk of default.) A Bank of America spokesperson said the DOJ reviewed loans made before Bank of America purchased Countrywide in July 2008.

As we reported last week, the DOJ reached a $335 million settlement, the US’ largest fair lending settlement on record, using the disparate impact standard. Countrywide has not admitted to any discriminatory practice.

United States v. Wells Fargo

The DOJ case against Wells Fargo over violation of the Fair Housing Act is the second largest fair lending settlement in the DOJ’s history, after the lawsuit against Countrywide Financial. Brokers at the country’s largest mortgage lender were found to have raised interest rates and broker fees for more than 30,000 minority customers. According to lending data, African-American customers in the Chicago area paid on average $2,937 more in broker fees than similarly situated white customers. Hispanic borrowers were charged $2,187 more. Black and Hispanic homeowners also were encouraged to take on riskier subprime loans.

Wells Fargo agreed to a $175 million settlement in July, though the company denies any wrongdoing and says they settled to avoid a “costly legal fight.”

Adkins et. all v. Morgan Stanley

The ACLU, along with the National Consumer Law Center and the law firm of Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein, filed a lawsuit in October against Morgan Stanley claiming the financial services firm encouraged lenders to push high-risk mortgage loans on African-American borrowers. The case centers on Detroit, where from 2004 to 2006, African Americans were 70 percent more likely to receive a subprime loan than white borrowers with the same income and credit background.

The case was the first to charge the secondary mortgage market, and not just mortgage companies themselves, with violating the Fair Housing Act. The plaintiffs contend that Morgan Stanley encouraged now-defunct New Century Financial Corporation to sell predatory loans, which targeted predominantly black communities. Morgan Stanley profited by bundling and selling those loans to investors, allegedly knowing borrowers were likely to default.

Morgan Stanley filed a motion to dismiss the case at the end of December. Oral arguments are scheduled to be heard in March.

United States v. SunTrust Mortgage Inc.

The DOJ found that Sun Trust Mortgage allowed its brokers considerable leeway in determining a customer’s interest rate, resulting in discriminatory prices for minorities. They were charged with violating both the Fair Housing Act and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act in charging more than 20,000 black and Hispanic customers with higher interest rates and fees between 2005 and 2009.

SunTrust denied any wrongdoing, but settled for $21 million in May.

United States v. C&F Mortgage Corporation

The Justice Deptartment charged C&F Mortgage with violating the FHA and ECOA by raising interest rates for black and Hispanic mortgage customers. C&F did not require its loan officers to document reasons for changing a customer’s interest rate from the standard rate, and increased compensation for brokers who charged higher loan prices.

Though C&F denied allegations of discrimination, they settled for $140,000 and began reviewing brokers’ compliance with nondiscrimination standards, specifically their justification for large interest rate adjustments. The company also agreed to institute new pricing policies and employee training policies.

Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center et. all v. HUD and Paul Rainwater, Executive Director of the Louisiana Recovery Authority

In 2008, New Orleans housing organizations and local homeowners accused HUD and the Louisiana Recovery Authority of discriminating against black homeowners in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The Road Home program was supposed to provide storm victims with funding to rebuild their homes, but based their compensation on their house’s original value rather than the cost of damage. Houses in black neighborhoods that were identical to houses in white neighborhoods were given far less money to rebuild.

In 2011, HUD agreed to pay roughly $62 million under a new Blight Reduction Grant Adjustment program. The funding will serve 1,460 eligible homeowners in four parishes that suffered the most damage.

United States v. PrimeLending

The Department of Justice found that PrimeLending regularly set higher loan prices for African American borrowers. As one of the country’s biggest Federal Housing Authority lenders, PrimeLending provides mortgage loans to low-income customers that are guaranteed by the FHA or the Department of Veterans Affairs. PrimeLending incentivized increasing “overages” (higher interest rates) by providing higher compensation for brokers.

The mortgage company settled for $2 million in 2010, and set new loan pricing policies and employee training requirements.

Keep up with our investigations by following us on Facebook and Twitter, or read more about the Fair Housing Act, and how the government betrayed a landmark civil rights law.

– Provided by ProPublica.org

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