Spain facing ‘humanitarian’ crisis over evictions

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As eviction-related suicides continue to rise in Spain, protests are becoming more frequent with the public outraged at the government’s lack of action to combat social ills. Evictions are a “humanitarian concern,” the national bank chief has said. The governor of the Bank of Spain, Luis Maria Linde, said that the increasing number of evictions related to financial woes should be combated through “social initiatives.” The evictions have driven over 100 people to commit suicide, and mass protests on the issue have become a regular occurrence in Spain.

“We must urgently address and social humanitarian issues, this will have to be organized, but we can do it,” Linde said, adding that the root cause of the crisis was a lack of information and reliable statistics. There have been numerous calls in Spain for a modification of mortgage law in order to mitigate evictions and stem a mounting social crisis. One particular concern is legislation that forces those evicted to continue to make mortgage payments even after they have been ejected from their former property. Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy condemned the law for allowing “inhuman situations” to transpire on a daily basis, but the government has yet to take action on the matter.

Linde broached the issue, saying that it was very “delicate.” He argued that the most important issue was ensuring that the mortgage system remains stable, as it is one of the cornerstones of the Spanish banking system. Around 500 people are ejected from their homes every day in the crisis-wracked nation, a 30 percent increase over last year, Spanish publication LaTercera said. The report estimates that around 2 million homes across Spain are currently unoccupied. ‘Homicide not suicide’ The suicide of 53-year-old Amaia Egaña – who jumped to her death from the fourth floor of her building after she was issued an eviction notice for defaulting on her mortgage payments – sparked outcry across Spain two weeks ago. Thousands of people in the Basque region marched to protest mortgage legislation, chanting slogans such as “This isn’t suicide, this is homicide,” “They get the money and we get the dead,” and “We need to put an end to financial terrorism.”

Cases like Egaña’s are an increasingly common occurrence in a country where unemployment is over 25 percent, and seems likely to keep rising. At the end of October, three suicides driven by the financial downturn reportedly took place in three consecutive days. A young man threw himself off a bridge in Gran Canaria after losing his job and receiving an eviction notice, while a 53-year-old father kissed his daughter goodbye in Burjassot before jumping from his second-story flat. In the southern province of Granada, 54-year-old Jose Miguel Domingo hanged himself minutes before the bailiffs arrived to evict him from his home. The growing suicide rate across Spain has sparked mass protests and calls for the immediate reform of mortgage legislation. Since the beginning of this year, over 100 Spaniards have killed themselves over financial woes.

(RT)

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Economically Crippled EU cuts Financial Help to Afghan Puppets

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The economically crippled EU has been forced to cut financial aid to Kabul, citing inefficiency and lack of progress in governance and justice system reforms in Afghanistan in order to hide its own hollow economical situation at home. The EU ambassador warned that future help will also depend on actual positive results obtained. ­The planned US$25 million aid meant to reform Afghan justice system has been postponed, the EU special representative and head of the mission in Afghanistan, Vygaudas Usackas, announced on Monday. Nevertheless the EU gave the green light to a new financing agreement allocating $76 million on programs of efficient governance and “justice for all”. The agreement was signed by Afghanistan’s Finance Minister Omar Zakhiwal and Usackas, who made an important statement on the new rules of financing Afghan government.

Usackas voiced European Union’s concerns over lack of practical improvement in Afghanistan governance. “If the European Union is deeply committed in supporting Afghanistan, it needs to stress that in the spirit of the Tokyo agreement, support will be increasingly conditional of the delivery of the Afghan government on the agreed reform agenda,” the EU ambassador said. In July this year donor nations held a conference in Tokyo where they agreed to spend $16 billion through to 2015 to prevent Afghanistan sliding into chaos after the foreign troops’ pullout by the end of 2014. The final document signed by participants stressed that implementation of broad reforms holds the key to Afghanistan’s future well-being. "An efficient administration, non-corrupted civil servants and a fair and balanced justice for every Afghan is the basis of a respected state," Usackas said.

Vygaudas Usackas (AFP Photo / John Thys)

The EU member states have been financing special programs aimed at improving the governance and justice systems of Afghanistan for years, having already spent on country’s development $1.5 billion over the last decade, he recalled. The World Bank reported this year that aid makes up more than 95 per cent of Afghanistan's GDP. The budget of Afghanistan consists therefore mostly of the foreign aid. That explains fears that once the foreign troops withdraw from the country, the flow of financial aid would dry up, making the situation in the country unpredictable. "That is the reason why the European Union is highly involved in those specific sectors,” Usackas explained.

The ambassador warned though that any pecuniary assistance to Afghanistan in the future will be conditional and depend of visible results of the reforms. Afghanistan’s governance is notorious for its inefficiency and corruption. This fact is duly admitted by Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Speaking on CBS’s 60 Minutes program in September, the president admitted that corruption in his country has reached the level “not ever before seen in Afghanistan.” Karzai partially shifted the blame for rampant corruption on the foreign occupation forces. The president recalled that in the 1980s, during the Soviets rule in the country, the Afghan government was far less, “not even 5 percent as corrupt.” Karzai pointed out that the Soviets did not practice nepotism, whereas the present occupation forces, Americans in the first place, are giving contracts to “the relatives, brothers and the kin of the influential and high ups,” Karzai said, while blaming the Afghans for corruption.

Today corruption and lack of justice not only complicates the life of the Afghan citizens, it also prevents foreign investors from entering Afghan business. Ambassador Usackas appeased that the EU will not leave Afghanistan all alone against future threats and revealed that European Union is negotiating a long-term cooperation agreement with Kabul. The third round of talks on agreement covering next 10 years will be held in Brussels this week, he informed. Whatever the talks in Brussels will come to, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has been clearly given to understand that now it depends on Kabul’s efforts whether it will receive foreign assistance or not.

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Toshiba cuts forecast on global economy worries

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TOKYO, (Reuters) - Japan's Toshiba Corp cut its full-year operating profit forecast by 13 percent to 260 billion yen ($3.3 billion) on Wednesday, saying the uncertain global economy weighed on its prospects. The company said the continuing European debt crisis, slowdowns in China and India, and a strong yen were combining to "increase uncertainty about the future." For the July-September period, Toshiba posted an operating profit of 57.5 billion yen, slightly better than expected, but down 23 percent from a year ago due to revenue and profit declines in its semiconductor, television and home appliance segments.

That compared with an average operating profit forecast of 55.5 billion yen by four analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Toshiba, Japan's leading chipmaker, saw operating profit for its electronic device segment, which includes its NAND memory chip business, drop 28 percent to 27.6 billion yen in the six months to September.

Its NAND chip business returned to profit in the three months to September, though it lost money in the April-June quarter, said Executive Vice President Makoto Kubo. The performance of the sector was the biggest single swing factor in Toshiba's results. Toshiba's NAND chips are used in Apple Inc's iPhones and tablet devices. Toshiba, which cut NAND chip output at its main plant by 30 percent after seeing a supply glut its earlier this year, will continue production cuts in the October-March period, but by less, Kubo said.

"We were able to bring the memory chip business back into profit in the second quarter, though the profit level is still not sufficient," he told reporters at a briefing. NAND operating profit in the second quarter was between 10-99 billion yen, though much closer to 10 billion yen, he added. Toshiba's biggest rival, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd , forecast last week global shipments of NAND chips to grow in the mid-20 percent range in the current quarter, led by new mobile product launches. Toshiba booked a 3.6 billion yen loss in its digital products segment in April-September, largely due to a major drop in LCD television demand in Japan.

It also cut its television sales target by 19 percent to 13 million units and said the television business will probably be in the red for the financial year, although it may eek out a profit in the fourth quarter, Kubo told reporters. In May, Toshiba said it aimed to more than double its annual operating profit in three years by expanding its social infrastructure business, which makes products ranging from elevators to medical systems to nuclear power plants, and by boosting sales of electronic devices. The social infrastructure segment posted a record-high operating profit of 49.7 billion yen in the April-September quarter.

Shares of Toshiba, which competes with Hynix Semiconductor Inc in semiconductors and with General Electric Co and Areva SA in nuclear reactors, closed up 4.59 percent ahead of the results. Tokyo's benchmark Nikkei closed up 0.98 percent.

(Reuters)

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