Video of Reuters Journalist and Civilians killed in Baghdad

Wikileaks has obtained and decrypted this previously unreleased video footage from a US Apache helicopter in 2007. It shows Reuters journalist Namir Noor-Eldeen, driver Saeed Chmagh, and several others as the Apache shoots and kills them in a public square in Eastern Baghdad.

They are apparently assumed to be insurgents. After the initial shooting, an unarmed group of adults and children in a minivan arrives on the scene and attempts to transport the wounded. They are fired upon as well.

The official statement on this incident initially listed all adults as insurgents and claimed the US military did not know how the deaths ocurred. Wikileaks released this video with transcripts and a package of supporting documents on April 5th 2010 on http://collateralmurder.com/

Changes to federal foreclosure program

TAMARA LUSH
04/02/10
Yahoo News

The federal government announced Friday that it is relaxing some rules to make it easier for communities to spend funds on redeveloping abandoned and foreclosed properties.

The changes, effective immediately, will allow cities, counties and states to buy properties in mortgage default and uninhabitable homes with lingering code violations through the $4 billion Neighborhood Stabilization Program.

The program was started in the midst of the nation's foreclosure crisis, but a year later about a third of more than 300 local governments that got grants have barely made a dent in them, according to a recent report from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Some city, state and county officials say they have had trouble spending the grant money because federal rules are confusing and cash investors have often outbid them for residential properties.

"It became clear to us that the Neighborhood Stabilization Program as originally designed was too restrictive and limited the ability of our local partners to put this funding to work quickly, Mercedes Marquez, HUD's assistant secretary for community planning and development, said in a statement. "We need to be more flexible so our local partners can respond to market conditions and reverse the effects of foreclosure in these neighborhoods as quickly as possible."

James Miller, spokesman for the Florida Department of Community Affairs, which got $91 million to distribute to 24 cities and counties, called Friday's announcement wonderful news.

"It just broadens the pool of available properties that local governments can target," he said. "This opens up more possibilities for them."

Buying a foreclosed home can be complicated, and the new rules will make it easier for communities by giving them a broader pool to work from.

Now a community can buy a property that is at least 60 days delinquent on its mortgage if the owner has been notified, or if the property owner is 90 days or more delinquent on tax payments.

HUD also expanded the definition of an abandoned property to include homes where no mortgage or tax payments have been made for at least 90 days or a code enforcement inspection has determined that the property is not habitable and the owner has taken no corrective action.

Index shows house prices rising 0.3 percent

Laurent Belsie
March 30, 2010
The Cristian Science Monitor

After rising from last year's lows, prices look to be heading toward a second dip. Zillow, an online real estate company, reported last week that 12 metro areas have officially entered a double dip. Home prices for the US as a whole fell in January for the second month in a row, according to a Federal Housing Finance Agency report (.pdf).

So housing experts were expecting the closely watched S&P/Case-Shiller index to confirm the decline. But it didn't.

Although the 20-city composite index did fall on an unadjusted basis, the seasonally adjusted data showed a 0.3 percent increase between December and January.

That means the uptick in prices that began last year is fading but continues, said David Blitzer, chairman of the S&P index committee.

Why are so many experts glum? Because the market has been artificially propped up twice: first by a tax credit for first-time home buyers that ended in November and second by an expansion of that program, which included tax credits for existing home owners.

Prices could "drop another 3 to 5 percent from current levels, but it's an educated guess," says Patrick Newport, an economist at IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Mass. "They could drop another 10 percent."

The response to the second housing stimulus has been so tepid and it ends so soon (April 30) that it's possible that prices won't fall by much after that.

The real key will be employment. If the economy begins creating jobs, perhaps as early as this month, then the housing market – and prices – could begin rising again.

Mr. Newport, like many economists, isn't expecting much right away. "In the second half of this year, we are going to see the market start growing on a sustainable basis," he says.

GOV: New Plan to Cut Some Mortgage Balances

BY NICK TIMIRAOS AND JAMES R. HAGERTY
MARCH 25, 2010
The Wall Street Journal

The White House announced last Friday an expansion of its foreclosure-prevention efforts to include reducing mortgage loan balances for some borrowers, a controversial step that policy makers have long resisted, people familiar with the plans said.

The revisions, which will also include temporary help for unemployed borrowers, serve as a recognition that the administration 's foreclosure rescue plan hasn't kept pace with the rising number of souring loans.

Under the plan, the Federal Housing Administration will take on a much bigger role in government efforts to avert foreclosures by allowing some homeowners who owe more than their homes are worth ...

Principal forgiveness program may offer relief for underwater homeowners

Kenneth R. Harney
Saturday, March 27, 2010
The Washington Post

For hundreds of thousands of homeowners who are underwater on their mortgages, it's been a tantalizing question: Is there any way that our lender might agree to lower the amount we owe -- not just the monthly payments but the principal debt itself?

Until now, the answer almost always has been a resounding no. Lenders and investors were willing to cut interest rates, reschedule payments, even write off some late fees, but they were dead-set against forgiving even a dollar of the principal balance owed. The Obama administration's loan-modification programs have carefully sidestepped the subject as well, focusing on lowering troubled borrowers' monthly payments to more affordable levels rather than actually wiping out debt.

But the outlook for principal reductions may be on the verge of significant change. Bank of America recently unveiled the mortgage industry's first large-scale principal forgiveness program, potentially involving up to 45,000 underwater borrowers and $3 billion in debt write-offs.

Meanwhile, Treasury Department officials confirmed that the administration is examining debt forgiveness options as potential add-on features to its existing mortgage-modification programs. The program changes could be announced within the next few weeks and, if adopted by the industry, could ultimately affect loan modifications offered by substantial numbers of banks and mortgage companies.

Bank of America's new program targets borrowers who are deeply underwater -- those with loan-to-value [LTV] ratios of 120 percent or more. This means they owe at least 20 percent more on their mortgage balances than the current market price of their homes. There is no limit on how far underwater borrowers can be, but the program has a 30 percent maximum reduction of any principal balance.

Barbara Desoer, president of Bank of America Home Loans, said the program attempts to address the problems of the most "severely underwater mortgages with some of the highest rates of delinquency," and it could "become an industry model for principal reductions" on a far broader scale.

The program targets three mortgage products that were wildly popular during the housing boom: subprime loans; payment-option mortgages with negative-amortization features; and "2-1" adjustables that offered teaser interest rates for the first two years, then converted into loans whose rates adjust annually.

As part of its ongoing loan-modification efforts, the bank will look to "earned" or phased-in principal forgiveness as the first step toward keeping an underwater borrower out of foreclosure. Previously the bank, along with the rest of the lending industry, looked first to lowering a homeowner's interest rate and monthly payments. Under the new program, severely underwater borrowers will be evaluated for principal reduction as the first step in a modification.

Here's how it will work, according to Bank of America officials: Say you're deeply underwater on a subprime mortgage you took out from Countrywide Home Loans, which was acquired by Bank of America in 2008. Your mortgage balance today is $250,000, but your house is worth only $200,000.

If you meet certain eligibility requirements, the new program could reduce your balance by $50,000, and your new payments would be based on the lowered principal debt and possibly a lower note rate. This would be accomplished by the creation of an interest-free forbearance account covering a five-year period. Assuming you made regular payments at the modified, lower amount during the first year, $10,000 would be forgiven by the bank.

The same would be true for the second and third years. By that point, $30,000 of your principal debt would have been extinguished. During the fourth and fifth years, the bank would appraise your property. If its value had appreciated in either year to the point where your LTV dropped below 100 percent -- you were no longer underwater but still benefiting from the lowered payments -- there would be no forgiveness for that year. On the other hand, if you remained underwater, you would receive the scheduled $10,000 per year principal reductions, extinguishing the full $50,000 during a five-year span.

For certain payment-option loan borrowers who are underwater in part because of the negative-amortization features of the mortgage itself, the bank will forgive the negative-amortization amount down to a 95 percent LTV level.

Without fanfare, Wells Fargo, the country's largest lender in terms of volume, has also moved to selectively offer principal reductions for certain underwater payment-option loans. If the Obama administration moves ahead with some version of the concept, principal forgiveness might well become a lifeline for a much wider group of homeowners who are now drowning in mortgage debt.