Current Affairs: A Coruña Firefighters Prevent Eviction Of 86-Year-Old Aurelia Rey

A Coruña Firefighters Prevent Eviction Of 86-Year-Old Aurelia Rey 

By Huffington Post

Firefighters in the Spanish city of A Coruña took a stand and thumbed their noses at authority on Wednesday, refusing to break down an apartment door to evict a woman in her eighties.

HuffPost Spain reports the city's firefighters refused to kick in Aurelia Rey's door after activists and supporters had rallied near her home to prevent the eviction. The firefighters were later seen supporting a sign saying "Stop Evictions" from their truck.

Rey, 86, has been living in her apartment in the center of A Coruña since 1979, El País notes. The octogenarian survives on a monthly pension of 356 euros -- a third of which she pays in rent. Rey's closest relatives live in Buenos Aires.

El Correo Gallego reported that Rey was offered two different social housing units, but declined them, as they would force her to move far from her current neighborhood. Surrounded by supporters, Rey told reporters on Wednesday that she was "tired" but "well."

Wednesday's incident was the third attempt by officials to evict the woman.

On Thursday, the firefighters union of Catalonia expressed its support for the firefighters who handled Rey's case in A Coruña, saying it will no longer aid in evictions. EFE reports that in a statement, the union stressed it will only force residents' doors in cases of emergency, "as the law dictates."

The growing number of evictions has been one of the most painful results of Spain's burst housing bubble and economic crisis. According to numbers reported by the Associated Press, more than 350,000 Spaniards have received eviction notices since the beginning of the crisis in 2008.

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Despite a government promise to end evictions of families in need, a worrisome number of Spaniards have chosen to commit suicide rather than be forced from their homes. Last week, four Spaniards facing eviction took their own lives. The Associated Press explains that evicted homeowners in Spain remain liable for huge payments, even after eviction.

Business&Finance: Standard & Poor's expects lawsuit over subprime ratings

Standard & Poor's expects lawsuit over subprime ratings

BBC

Standard & Poor's says it is to be sued by the US government over the credit ratings agency's assessment of mortgage bonds before the financial crisis.

The civil lawsuit would focus on S&P's high ratings in 2007 for some mortgage-backed securities that later collapsed in value, said the agency.

S&P says the case is entirely without factual or legal merit.

The suit would be the first such case over alleged wrongdoing by a ratings agency tied to the financial crisis.

S&P said the justice department had informed them of the impending civil suit, although the federal agency declined to comment.

The move follows a breakdown in talks between the justice department and S&P, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Several states are expected to join the suit, US media report.

Shares in S&P's owner, the US publishing and media group McGraw Hill, fell 14% on Wall Street on Monday following the announcement, while those in fellow ratings agency Moody's fell 10% - indicating the market expects that they may be next in the justice department's sights.

'Key enablers'

S&P and other agencies have faced criticism from investors, politicians and regulators for assigning their top AAA ratings to thousands of subprime and other mortgage securities that later collapsed in value.

Such agencies are paid by the issuers of bonds and other securities for ratings, raising concern about potential conflicts of interest.

Grades assigned by these firms can affect a company's ability to raise or borrow money as well as how much investors will pay for their securities.

In the case of the subprime mortgage bubble, ratings agencies including S&P were hired to assess collateralised debt obligations (CDOs) - complex financial transactions that packaged together thousands of loans to individual homebuyers.

The ratings agencies' job was to assess the likelihood that the home loans - and therefore the CDOs - would ultimately be repaid. Their ratings enabled the investment banks which put the CDOs together to then sell them to investors around the world.

In its January 2011 report, the US Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission called the agencies "essential cogs in the wheel of financial destruction" and "key enablers of the financial meltdown".

S&P has previously disclosed a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigation into its rating of a specific $1.6bn (£1bn) CDO known as Delphinus CDO 2007-1.

Delphinus was the basis of a $127m settlement by Mizuho Financial Group over allegations that the US unit of the company obtained false credit ratings for the CDO using millions of dollars in dummy assets.

It is unclear if Delphinus is included in the expected civil suit.

S&P has also faced lawsuits from investors, and argues its ratings constitute opinions protected by the First Amendment to the US Constitution.

The firm says it "deeply regrets" how its CDO ratings failed to anticipate mortgage market conditions as the financial crisis hit, and that it has since spent $400m to help bolster the quality of its ratings.

"Every CDO that [the department] has cited to us also independently received the same rating from another rating agency," S&P said in a statement on Monday.

"The Department of Justice would be wrong in contending that S&P ratings were motivated by commercial considerations and not issued in good faith."

VIDEO : Bar Rafaeli - Go Daddy SuperBowl Commercial

VIDEO : Bar Rafaeli - Go Daddy SuperBowl Commercial

There is hope for everyone ! ...

Business Humour: How To Get Ahead In Business - THE MEETING

Business Humour: How To Get Ahead In Business - THE MEETING

In most offices, there are two basic types of work: going to meetings, and taking messages for people who are in meetings and doing their work for them. When planning your career you should aim for the former as this is where the money and kudos are. Those present at a meeting will claim whatever credit is going and apportion any blame to those not present.

Meetings are like funerals, everyone´s dressed up and nobody wants to be there. There is, however, a crucial difference. Nothing is truly buried in a meeting. Stale ideas that were deemed pointless or unworkable leap up out of the ground like zombies to terrorize employees that were harmlessly wondering what to have for dinner or if it would rain later.

Just as there are two basic types of work, so there are two different types of meetings - the traditional and the functional. The traditional meeting, like Halloween, is held at a certain time because that´s the way it´s always been done. For instance, in some companies, managers may like to put their heads together over a cup of coffee around 11 on a Thursday morning, and call it a weekly meeting. This meeting is similar to an Alcholics Anonymous meeting in that everyone says something, even if it´s just a few mumbled sentences. When it´s your turn, just say you´re still working on it and/or you´re waiting for so-and-so to get back to you. Most people will follow this tried and trusted formula and once everyone´s had their say, you can all file out secure in the knowledge of a job well done.

The functional meeting is a trickier proposition. Most functional meetings are safe enough - some kind of presentation, or the handing out of a weighty report and you can sit there concoting outlandish fantasies, sleeping or doodling to your heart´s content before filing the aforementioned report in your waste bin once back in the relative security of your own office or cubicle. Some meetings have a real purpose, and although infrequent, these are dangerous and you need to get out of there before someone asks you a question. Arrange for an accomplice to call you with an urgent matter or feign illness or death but on no account say anything.

Current Affairs: Q&A: Spain's opposition tells PM to go

Q&A: Spain's opposition tells PM to go

Spanish opposition leader Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba has called on PM Mariano Rajoy to resign amid corruption allegations.

What are the allegations?

BBC

 

The central claim is that documents published by El Pais newspaper are a list of undeclared or secret cash payments linked to senior members of Spain's ruling Popular Party (PP).

El Pais is adamant that these documents were written by the party's former treasurer, Luis Barcenas.

The PP says the documents, and anything that can be inferred from them, are false.

What do the documents say?

The hand-written documents, marked with dates from 1990 to 2008, contain a series of columns. The names of senior members of the Popular Party often appear in a left-hand column. In another column, marked as "have" or "out", appear numbers.

Private companies and businessmen are also mentioned in the documents. Alongside these names, in another column marked "owed" or "in", there are also often large numbers.

El Pais claims that these numbers were "donations!", and that 70% of them would not have fallen within Spain's party financing laws at the time.

The law stated that a private donor could not give more than 60,000 euros to a political party in a single year, and the money could not come from a company carrying out work commissioned by the Spanish state.

El Pais describes the documents as the Popular Party's "hidden accounts".

What do the documents NOT say?

If the documents are genuine, they still do not prove that all the people or companies mentioned actually received or made any of the alleged payments.

It is also possible that if payments were made, that they could have been declared.

Who is Luis Barcenas?

Luis Barcenas is a former senator, and was the treasurer of the Popular Party from 1990 to 2009.

He stepped down from the post, after being implicated in a separate, high-profile corruption case in Spain, known as the Gurtel scandal.

In that case, he stands accused of tax fraud and receiving illegal payments.

As part of an ongoing investigation into the Gurtel case, it emerged last month that Mr Barcenas had previously held a bank account in Switzerland containing 22 million euros.

The Popular Party has denied that the account is in any way linked to the party.

Mr Barcenas also denies he has done anything wrong.

Is Spain's Prime Minister involved?

Mariano Rajoy's name is written a number of times in the documents published by El Pais.

Alongside his name are numbers totalling 25,200 for each year, from 1999 to 2008, the dates to which the documents apparently correspond.

Two days after the documents were published, the prime minister publicly denied ever having received any secret payments. He said the allegations against him and his party were false.

Is this case unique?

People in Spain are used to corruption cases against politicians being reported in the media, and sometimes going to court.

However this is the first time that so many current and former leaders of the governing party, including the prime minister, have been linked to such a high-profile case.

How damaging could this case be?

Even journalists in Spain's right-wing newspapers who back the Popular Party believe that the scandal, so far, has already damaged the image of the prime minister and his party.

There were relatively small, but angry protests outside the party's headquarters in Madrid after El Pais published the documents.

The problem for Mariano Rajoy is that this scandal chimes with a widely held perception amongst people in Spain, that politics can often be dirty, because of the number of corruption cases investigated in the past and present.

The prime minister reminded voters in his address that he did not go into politics for the money.

However, the scandal has been covered so widely in the Spanish media that some damage has already been done.

What happens next?

The Popular Party has said it will take legal action against those responsible for what it says is a smear campaign.

Meanwhile, Spain's chief state prosecutor has also said that there could be enough evidence to investigate the allegations against the PP, to see if anything illegal has taken place.

The Popular Party has announced an internal audit of its finances and the prime minister has said he will publish his earnings online.

While the leader of Spain's main opposition party, Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba, has called for the prime minister to resign, as things stand that looks unlikely.