“No matter where you went, there was no way to leave,” he said. “A lot of people were saying, ‘I’m just trying to leave.'”

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A study shows that people who abruptly and intentionally abandon their mortgages often have high credit scores, in stark contrast with most financially distressed borrowers.

By Kenneth R. Harney, latimes.com, 20 September 2009

Who is more likely to walk away from a house and a mortgage — a person with super-prime credit scores or someone with lower scores?

Research using a massive sample of 24 million individual credit files has found that homeowners with high scores when they apply for a loan are 50% more likely to “strategically default” — abruptly and intentionally pull the plug and abandon the mortgage — compared with lower-scoring borrowers.

[Read the report | h/t]

by Al Giordano, The Field, 26 September 2009

On the website of today’s daily La República – an important newspaper in Perú – a YouTube video by Honduras’ Gremio de Cineastas (a filmmaker’s association) that we published on Narco News on Wednesday – and something we reported from that video – has now launched a national polemic in that Andean country, including a threat of “legal action” by the country’s Government Minister against those of us that reported it.

The video shows Honduran coup regime police invading the Hato de Enmedio neighborhood of Tegucigalpa shooting tear gas canisters clearly stamped, “National Police of Perú.”

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Okigaijin Okinawa
What is this?
Sun, 27 Sep 2009 06:53:54 -0700

Invitation from HI- Gaza. Photo Album about archaeological site in Gaza.

Samah El-Shahat, Al Jazeera’s resident economist, writes a regular column analysing key events that contributed to the global financial downturn and its impact across the world.

Have you heard the joke about the German who woke up one day after his country’s September 27 general election to find out that things are not at all as they seemed to be the night before, that things are actually so bad that he could be forgiven for thinking that he is still in bed experiencing a cruel nightmare? And I shall resist from making any Kafka references here.

But this is no nightmare – it is reality. Okay, I grant you, it is no joke either.

So, what could have possibly happened in 24 hours, you may ask. And before you attempt to work it out, let me give you a hint: It has nothing to do with who wins the election but has everything to do with the state of the German economy.

[Read the report]