Standard and Poor's is warning that the EU's stricter emissions rules will put its carmakers at serious competitive disadvantage, and could adversely affect their credit quality. This is just one of many such challenges that the EU will face as it tries to control emissions; it remains to be seen how much economic pressure the commission is prepared to withstand.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Britain Proposes Allowing Schools to Forbid Full-Face Muslim Veils
British authorities proposed new rules on Tuesday to allow schools to forbid Muslim students to wear full-face veils in class, reflecting a wider debate over Britain’s relationship with its Muslim minority.
The recommendation was the latest episode in a saga of rancorous discussion of the full-face veil, known as the niqab. Last October, Prime Minister Tony Blair described the niqab as a “mark of separation” that made “other people from outside the community feel uncomfortable.”
The Department of Education published the new guidelines after a court in Buckinghamshire rejected a 12-year-old Muslim girl’s demand to wear the niqab in class last month.
The proposed regulations, which have yet to be formally adopted, said the individual right to “manifest a religion or belief” did not bestow a right to demonstrate faith “at any time, in any place or in any particular manner.”
School principals should be allowed to order pupils to show their faces because otherwise “the teacher may not be able to judge their engagement in class,” the proposed regulations said. Moreover, they said, “schools need to be able to identify individual pupils in order to maintain good order and identify intruders easily.”
The issue of Islamic dress in schools has been contentious in many parts of Europe, sometimes pitting secularist ideologies against the religious beliefs of growing Islamic minorities.
But Islamic dress made headlines in Britain for another reason recently, when a trial of terrorism suspects included surveillance television footage of a male suspect at a bus station as he fled London in what appeared to be an all-covering burqa-style dress.
Jim Knight, the schools minister, said Tuesday that schools should consult with parents when setting their regulations on permissible uniforms. “While they should make every effort to accommodate social, religious or medical requirements of individual pupils, the needs of safety, security and effective learning in the school must always take precedence,” he said in a statement.
The government’s position drew angry responses from some Muslim groups, including the Islamic Human Rights Commission, whose chairman, Massoud Shadjareh, said it was “simply shocking” for the government to “issue guidance against Muslim communities.”
“Successive ministers dealing with education issues have failed to give proper guidance when requested by human rights campaigners about schools’ obligations regarding religious dress, including the head scarf,” he said.
Others sought to defuse the debate by insisting that disagreements over dress codes could be resolved within schools. “The vast majority of schools are able to solve these issues locally, and that should continue to be the case,” said Tahir Alam, a spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain.
The proposed dress regulations also included recommendations enjoining school principals not to discriminate indirectly against minorities by banning hair styles “more likely to be adopted by specific racial groups.”
The rules urged school authorities to outlaw forms of dress “associated with gangs,” but said students should not be expelled for refusing to wear standard school uniforms except in the event of “persistent and defiant” transgressions.
The recommendation was the latest episode in a saga of rancorous discussion of the full-face veil, known as the niqab. Last October, Prime Minister Tony Blair described the niqab as a “mark of separation” that made “other people from outside the community feel uncomfortable.”
The Department of Education published the new guidelines after a court in Buckinghamshire rejected a 12-year-old Muslim girl’s demand to wear the niqab in class last month.
The proposed regulations, which have yet to be formally adopted, said the individual right to “manifest a religion or belief” did not bestow a right to demonstrate faith “at any time, in any place or in any particular manner.”
School principals should be allowed to order pupils to show their faces because otherwise “the teacher may not be able to judge their engagement in class,” the proposed regulations said. Moreover, they said, “schools need to be able to identify individual pupils in order to maintain good order and identify intruders easily.”
The issue of Islamic dress in schools has been contentious in many parts of Europe, sometimes pitting secularist ideologies against the religious beliefs of growing Islamic minorities.
But Islamic dress made headlines in Britain for another reason recently, when a trial of terrorism suspects included surveillance television footage of a male suspect at a bus station as he fled London in what appeared to be an all-covering burqa-style dress.
Jim Knight, the schools minister, said Tuesday that schools should consult with parents when setting their regulations on permissible uniforms. “While they should make every effort to accommodate social, religious or medical requirements of individual pupils, the needs of safety, security and effective learning in the school must always take precedence,” he said in a statement.
The government’s position drew angry responses from some Muslim groups, including the Islamic Human Rights Commission, whose chairman, Massoud Shadjareh, said it was “simply shocking” for the government to “issue guidance against Muslim communities.”
“Successive ministers dealing with education issues have failed to give proper guidance when requested by human rights campaigners about schools’ obligations regarding religious dress, including the head scarf,” he said.
Others sought to defuse the debate by insisting that disagreements over dress codes could be resolved within schools. “The vast majority of schools are able to solve these issues locally, and that should continue to be the case,” said Tahir Alam, a spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain.
The proposed dress regulations also included recommendations enjoining school principals not to discriminate indirectly against minorities by banning hair styles “more likely to be adopted by specific racial groups.”
The rules urged school authorities to outlaw forms of dress “associated with gangs,” but said students should not be expelled for refusing to wear standard school uniforms except in the event of “persistent and defiant” transgressions.
LOGICAL ENDINGS
Computers may soon be better than kin at predicting the wishes of the dying
When machines trespass into the area of medical ethics, though, hackles rise. Here it is not the doctor that is being second-guessed, but the patient's relatives. The question is, if you were in a coma, whom would you more trust to come to the conclusion that you would want: your spouse or a machine?
David Wendler, of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, and his colleagues have looked into this question. Their answer, just published in the Public Library of Science Medicine, is surprising. At the moment, both are equally reliable—but only the machines are likely to get better at it.
Dr Wendler's study began last year, when his team reviewed all the experiments they could find that had attempted to test how well people predict the wishes of patients with life-threatening conditions. Some of these studies used real patients whose conditions might have led them to fall into a coma—when, obviously, they could not make the decision for themselves. Others employed surrogates who were asked to make “living wills” outlining their preferences for treatment (or the lack of it) in various hypothetical circumstances. The desires expressed by these patients, whether real or surrogate, were then compared with what those patients' kin predicted the patients would want, and also with the predictions of unrelated people (doctors, for example) who might be called on to make the decision if kin could not be found.
Dr Wendler found 16 published reports containing almost 20,000 pairs of decisions. His analysis showed that kin and patient agreed only 68% of the time. When they did not agree, kin were more likely to recommend treatment when the patient wanted treatment withdrawn rather than mistakenly to recommend withdrawal. Surprisingly, the bias towards treatment was equally strong when the decision was made by an unrelated person such as a doctor.
Other research has suggested that the variable most reliably governing whether a patient would want the machine turned off is the “1% rule”. This is that people seem to want life-saving interventions if there is at least a 1% chance they will recover the ability to reason, remember and communicate. Less than 1%, and it is time to pull the plug.
Calculating will
Using that rule of thumb, Dr Wendler and his colleagues wrote a computer program that assesses the prognosis for a patient, based on the sort of clinical criteria that the studies had described to both patients and predictors. Only 12 of the 16 original studies contained sufficient detail to be used, but the result was remarkable. In these 12 studies, human predictors guessed the patient's wishes rather more accurately than was true when all 16 were lumped together—getting them right 78.4% of the time. Dr Wendler's program achieved an almost identical result—78.5%.
At the moment, such data do not exist. No one has yet had a reason to collect them. But they do have a reason now. The decision about when to pull the plug on a patient who is not expected to recover is unlikely ever to be handed over completely to a machine. But when no kin can be found, the program's opinion might help. And even when a dying patient is surrounded by people who care about him, those people may welcome some guidance about what his wishes were likely to have been. Individuals are, indeed, individual. But that does not mean their dying wishes are all that different.
When machines trespass into the area of medical ethics, though, hackles rise. Here it is not the doctor that is being second-guessed, but the patient's relatives. The question is, if you were in a coma, whom would you more trust to come to the conclusion that you would want: your spouse or a machine?
David Wendler, of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, and his colleagues have looked into this question. Their answer, just published in the Public Library of Science Medicine, is surprising. At the moment, both are equally reliable—but only the machines are likely to get better at it.
Dr Wendler's study began last year, when his team reviewed all the experiments they could find that had attempted to test how well people predict the wishes of patients with life-threatening conditions. Some of these studies used real patients whose conditions might have led them to fall into a coma—when, obviously, they could not make the decision for themselves. Others employed surrogates who were asked to make “living wills” outlining their preferences for treatment (or the lack of it) in various hypothetical circumstances. The desires expressed by these patients, whether real or surrogate, were then compared with what those patients' kin predicted the patients would want, and also with the predictions of unrelated people (doctors, for example) who might be called on to make the decision if kin could not be found.
Dr Wendler found 16 published reports containing almost 20,000 pairs of decisions. His analysis showed that kin and patient agreed only 68% of the time. When they did not agree, kin were more likely to recommend treatment when the patient wanted treatment withdrawn rather than mistakenly to recommend withdrawal. Surprisingly, the bias towards treatment was equally strong when the decision was made by an unrelated person such as a doctor.
Other research has suggested that the variable most reliably governing whether a patient would want the machine turned off is the “1% rule”. This is that people seem to want life-saving interventions if there is at least a 1% chance they will recover the ability to reason, remember and communicate. Less than 1%, and it is time to pull the plug.
Calculating will
Using that rule of thumb, Dr Wendler and his colleagues wrote a computer program that assesses the prognosis for a patient, based on the sort of clinical criteria that the studies had described to both patients and predictors. Only 12 of the 16 original studies contained sufficient detail to be used, but the result was remarkable. In these 12 studies, human predictors guessed the patient's wishes rather more accurately than was true when all 16 were lumped together—getting them right 78.4% of the time. Dr Wendler's program achieved an almost identical result—78.5%.
At the moment, such data do not exist. No one has yet had a reason to collect them. But they do have a reason now. The decision about when to pull the plug on a patient who is not expected to recover is unlikely ever to be handed over completely to a machine. But when no kin can be found, the program's opinion might help. And even when a dying patient is surrounded by people who care about him, those people may welcome some guidance about what his wishes were likely to have been. Individuals are, indeed, individual. But that does not mean their dying wishes are all that different.
THE GLOBAL GLASS CEILING
The highest percentage of women in senior management can be found in the Philippines, according to a report by Grant Thornton International, a consultancy. This reflects a tradition of wide participation in society there. Similarly, the egalitarian legacy of communism could explain the high proportion of women near the top of companies in China and Russia.
Sub-prime lending
Subprime lending (also: B-Paper, B-tier, non-prime, near-prime, special finance, second chance lending) describes a specific lending market sector. Typically, subprime customers are those who do not qualify for prime market rates because of a blemished or limited credit history. Subprime customers are therefore charged a higher interest rate, to compensate for the increased future probability of default.
The general lending philosophy can be described as "priced to risk," where the interest rate the borrower pays increases as their risk level to the lender increases. In the United States, subprime borrowers are generally defined as individuals with limited income or a FICO credit score below 620 (on a scale between 300 and 850).
Origins and Motivations
Subprime lending evolved the same way as other businesses, with a realization of the demand in the marketplace and then providing a supply to meet it. With divorce being common in society, bankruptcies and consumer proposals being widely accessible, a constantly fluctuating economic environment, and consumer debt load on the rise, traditional lenders are more cautious and have been turning away a record amount of potential customers.[citation needed] Statistically, approximately 25% of the population falls into this category (credit score < 620).[citation needed]
Motivation for the Lender
To access this increasing market, lenders take on the risks associated with lending to people with poor credit ratings. Subprime loans are considered to be risky for the lender due to borrower's weaker or limited credit history. A weak credit history may include a history of late credit card payments, one or more 30 day mortgage lates, and notices of default. Lenders subsquently adjust their underwriting criteria to reflect the increased payment risk. This payment risk is reflected by charging a higher interest rate over the life of the loan.
Motivation for the Borrower
Subprime lending offers the opportunity for borrowers with less then ideal credit to gain access to credit. Borrowers subsequently use this credit to purchase homes, or in the case of a cash out refinance, finance other forms of spending such as purchasing a car, paying for living expenses, or even paying down a high interest credit card. However due to the risk profile of the subprime borrower, this access to credit comes at the price of higher interest rates.
Subprime Lending and Re-establishing Personal Credit
Some subprime finance companies offer customers with poor credit a chance to re-establish their credit and eventually become a prime customer. Consumers with poor credit can borrow at higher-interest rates from subprime lenders. Once the borrower has shown responsibility in paying off debts and re-established a positive payment history, credit rating can increase. While an overwhelming majority of mortgage loans, subprime or otherwise, are reported to credit bureaus, not all are.[citation needed] Customers wishing to re-establishing their credit should check that their payment history is reported.
Recent Problems with Sub-Prime Lenders
Recently many subprime lenders have gone bankrupt or stop making loans. The prevailing cause for their insolvency or exit from the subprime market is increased defaults from the loans these lenders have originated. The increase in defaults can be artibuted to the type of loans being made by subprime lenders. A common subprime loan product is the "2-28" loan. A "2-28" loan is a loan with a low initial interest rate that is fixed for two years. After two years the interest rate resets to a higher adjustable rate for the remaining life of the loan, in this case 28 years. Other varients of the "2-28" loan product are the "3-27" and the "4-26". One of the concerns with such loan products is that the borrower qualifies for the initial start rate which may be as low 1-2% APR. After say 2 years, when interest rate resets, the borrower may suddenly find themselves unable to make their payments. The new interest is typically some margin over an adjustable index. For example 5% over 12 month LIBOR which would be 10.203% as of 3-19-07. Many of the loans made to subprime borrowers in the recent real estate boom have been of the "2-28" variety. The "2-28" product is designed to have the borrower refinance after 2 years, when the fixed portion of the loan is over. For the borrower refinancing is not problematic provided that their homes have held or increased in value. If the borrower has some equity in their home then depreciating home values are not so troubling. However what happens when the borrower has borrowed 100% of the value of their home and the value of their home decreases? In such a situation the borrower is said to be "underwater": owing more then the home is worth. Borrowers finding themselves unable to refinance out of crushing monthly payments are faced with two options: keep making payments or stop making payments. In the latter case the borrower defaults on their loan resulting in a loss of revenue for the lender.
New Century Financial, previously the second largest sub-prime mortgage lender in the U.S., in March 2007 stopped accepting loan applications was delisted from the NYSE as a result of difficulties with its subprime loans.
The general lending philosophy can be described as "priced to risk," where the interest rate the borrower pays increases as their risk level to the lender increases. In the United States, subprime borrowers are generally defined as individuals with limited income or a FICO credit score below 620 (on a scale between 300 and 850).
Origins and Motivations
Subprime lending evolved the same way as other businesses, with a realization of the demand in the marketplace and then providing a supply to meet it. With divorce being common in society, bankruptcies and consumer proposals being widely accessible, a constantly fluctuating economic environment, and consumer debt load on the rise, traditional lenders are more cautious and have been turning away a record amount of potential customers.[citation needed] Statistically, approximately 25% of the population falls into this category (credit score < 620).[citation needed]
Motivation for the Lender
To access this increasing market, lenders take on the risks associated with lending to people with poor credit ratings. Subprime loans are considered to be risky for the lender due to borrower's weaker or limited credit history. A weak credit history may include a history of late credit card payments, one or more 30 day mortgage lates, and notices of default. Lenders subsquently adjust their underwriting criteria to reflect the increased payment risk. This payment risk is reflected by charging a higher interest rate over the life of the loan.
Motivation for the Borrower
Subprime lending offers the opportunity for borrowers with less then ideal credit to gain access to credit. Borrowers subsequently use this credit to purchase homes, or in the case of a cash out refinance, finance other forms of spending such as purchasing a car, paying for living expenses, or even paying down a high interest credit card. However due to the risk profile of the subprime borrower, this access to credit comes at the price of higher interest rates.
Subprime Lending and Re-establishing Personal Credit
Some subprime finance companies offer customers with poor credit a chance to re-establish their credit and eventually become a prime customer. Consumers with poor credit can borrow at higher-interest rates from subprime lenders. Once the borrower has shown responsibility in paying off debts and re-established a positive payment history, credit rating can increase. While an overwhelming majority of mortgage loans, subprime or otherwise, are reported to credit bureaus, not all are.[citation needed] Customers wishing to re-establishing their credit should check that their payment history is reported.
Recent Problems with Sub-Prime Lenders
Recently many subprime lenders have gone bankrupt or stop making loans. The prevailing cause for their insolvency or exit from the subprime market is increased defaults from the loans these lenders have originated. The increase in defaults can be artibuted to the type of loans being made by subprime lenders. A common subprime loan product is the "2-28" loan. A "2-28" loan is a loan with a low initial interest rate that is fixed for two years. After two years the interest rate resets to a higher adjustable rate for the remaining life of the loan, in this case 28 years. Other varients of the "2-28" loan product are the "3-27" and the "4-26". One of the concerns with such loan products is that the borrower qualifies for the initial start rate which may be as low 1-2% APR. After say 2 years, when interest rate resets, the borrower may suddenly find themselves unable to make their payments. The new interest is typically some margin over an adjustable index. For example 5% over 12 month LIBOR which would be 10.203% as of 3-19-07. Many of the loans made to subprime borrowers in the recent real estate boom have been of the "2-28" variety. The "2-28" product is designed to have the borrower refinance after 2 years, when the fixed portion of the loan is over. For the borrower refinancing is not problematic provided that their homes have held or increased in value. If the borrower has some equity in their home then depreciating home values are not so troubling. However what happens when the borrower has borrowed 100% of the value of their home and the value of their home decreases? In such a situation the borrower is said to be "underwater": owing more then the home is worth. Borrowers finding themselves unable to refinance out of crushing monthly payments are faced with two options: keep making payments or stop making payments. In the latter case the borrower defaults on their loan resulting in a loss of revenue for the lender.
New Century Financial, previously the second largest sub-prime mortgage lender in the U.S., in March 2007 stopped accepting loan applications was delisted from the NYSE as a result of difficulties with its subprime loans.
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