Word: states
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Former Fannie Mae executive Ed Pinto, who has testified before Congress on the state of the FHA, is not so certain. He holds that there are a number of other variables that could materially change the amount that the FHA will need to pay out in claims. For instance: how much money the agency can recoup from foreclosed properties, the growing social acceptability of borrowers' walking away from their houses and the chances that the riskiest loans in the market are finding their way to the FHA since it requires only a 3.5% down payment. Comparing FHA loans with...
...after a strategic review conducted over several months, the U.S. State Department announced in September that it would pursue a policy of cautious engagement with Burma, in part because isolation had not worked in blunting the regime's brutal behavior. Administration officials cautioned that sanctions would remain in place for the time being and would only be lifted if the Burmese government showed tangible human-rights progress. But dialogue with dictators, goes the new U.S. thinking that is being applied from Iran to North Korea, is now seen as preferable to not talking and cutting off any chance at reconciliation...
...part of the policy shift, Kurt Campbell, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, visited Burma earlier this month - the first such high-level tour in nearly 15 years. In a significant concession, Campbell was allowed to meet for two hours with the opposition leader and Nobel Peace prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. Her party won by a landslide in 1990 elections that the junta then ignored; and her continued detention has angered the West. But not everyone was available to meet Campbell: junta supremo General Than Shwe stayed holed up in his army...
Besides a possible winding down of sanctions, what does Burma get out of a rapprochement with the United States? Despite its reputation as a self-isolating regime, Burma's army just may be looking for a little international affirmation. Next year, the generals will orchestrate a national election - the first since the 1990 polls that they ignored because their party lost so badly. This time around, the military has done its best to ensure its ruling clique will stay in power. The new constitution reserves top government positions for members of the military, and an esoteric set of rules seems...
...Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is on Obama's trip and can rightly claim that her department is a key player on policy in this part of the world. That policy weight comes from Steinberg, a China expert and former Deputy National Security Adviser who is staying in Washington during the trip. He has been largely responsible for designing the Administration's approach to Asia, which is to focus on reassuring both long-term allies and China that the U.S. seeks increased cooperation in areas of shared interest. Kurt Campbell, a centrist Clinton White House and Pentagon official, will have...