| Occupy Movement Protests Home Foreclosures Posted: 06 Dec 2011 08:43 PM PST <!--AV--> The Occupy Wall Street movement in more than 20 cities across the United States held a national day of action Tuesday in New York city to focus attention on the plight of Americans who have lost their homes to foreclosures.
Hundreds of activists wound their way through the rainy streets of East Brooklyn for a tour of several foreclosed homes in the economically depressed neighborhood.
Standing on the steps of what was once her home, this woman thanked protesters for their support. Another man about to lose his home was distraught. And Kendall Jackmon told VOA she does not expect to get back the keys to her former home. "But I expect to be able to move into something soon, because as I said, there are more than enough vacant apartments in this city that none of us need to be in shelters, no one needs to be sleeping on the streets, no one needs to be sleeping doubled and tripled up in any apartment," he said.
Jackmon and others accuse banks of predatory lending, which is considered an unfair and deceptive practice that results in the eviction of victims from their homes. Pace University political science professor George Martinez says banks sold the bad loans, which Wall Street brokerage firms bundled into derivatives that quickly plummeted in value.
"It's about banks who were doing dirty things who got bailed out and who sold out people's homes. And this is an action about people who are going to reclaim their homes, their basic right to shelter and this is a very positive first step," he said.
Banking executives are accused of using government bailout money to give themselves multimillion dollar bonuses while people got foreclosure notices.
Protesters in more than 20 cities lent their support to individuals and families evicted by banks. A group in Atlanta Georgia occupied a county courthouse seeking to prevent this woman's home from being sold at a foreclosure auction. And the attorneys general of California and Nevada, the states hardest hit by foreclosures, announced a joint investigation of possible mortgage fraud by banks.
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| Scientists Dispute University Study on China’s Nuclear Arsenal Posted: 06 Dec 2011 07:08 PM PST <!--AV--> A Georgetown University professor and his students have stirred up a controversy within the U.S. scientific community with a study they say indicates China may be hiding between 2,000 and 4,000 nuclear weapons in underground tunnels.
Chinese military music plays in the background as four Georgetown University students study military manuals and Internet blogs. This has been their homework for the past three years. Twenty students translated one and a half million Chinese characters into English and filled these 10 notebooks about China's nuclear arsenal.
"All right, what did we find," asks their professor, Phillip Karber. He stepped into a firestorm when he announced that the Chinese could have more than 4,800 kilometers (3,000 miles) of tunnels that could be hiding thousands of nuclear warheads.
"You take the most conservative assumption and you can get close to 2,000 because they've been building them for 45 years," he said.
Scientists and nuclear arctivists are livid about the conclusions made here at Georgetown. They say Professor Karber's work lacks credibility and thorough research."
"This is just nuts," said Jeffrey Lewis, with the nonproliferation program at the Monterey Institute. "Sure, they can build tunnels, they built lots of tunnels, but how do you know what's in the tunnels? Where did all the plutonium, the stuff you make nuclear weapons out of come from? And the sourcing on this is like four Chinese blog posts by kids who really don't know what they are talking about."
The blogs quoted this 1995 article from Hong Kong that quotes China's defense ministry as stating it has 2,350 nuclear warheads. But the scientists call the article questionable and take issue with Professor Karber's students not tracing their information back to its original source. Gregory Kulaki is with the Union of Concerned Scientists and spoke to VOA via Skype.
"They made no effort whatsoever to evaluate the credibility of the information they collected. So, as the saying goes, 'Garbage in, garbage out," he said.
Student William Kim argues with that. "We have generals commenting on the secret tunnels, earthquakes showing along the fault lines that there are military bases there and satellite images of that. It's not like we are just going on twitter," he said.
"They did not see a single page of this," said Karber. "How can they criticize it? How can they comment on it?"
Lewis says politically, it doesn't add up. "This would be just a huge and provocative political step. There's a lot not to like about the communist Chinese government. But they are pretty risk adverse," he said.
Karber says he's not proposing a buildup of nuclear weapons, just negotiations." We have to stop pretending the Chinese aren't doing stuff and making excuses for them. That doesn't mean we have to attack or demonize them," he said. "We have to sit down and say, 'Guys, is it really in your interest to start an arms race in Asia?' "
Karber estimates it will be about five years before the world must confront what he believes are in the tunnels.
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| Quilters Form Bonds As They Stitch Their Stories Posted: 06 Dec 2011 07:08 PM PST <!--AV--> Now that winter has arrived in most parts of the United States, many beds are covered with quilts that help to keep people warm at night. Many quilts feature decorative stitching and some are so elaborately decorated that they are never used on beds, but are hung like paintings. Last month, quilts like these drew thousands of fans from around the world.
Maria Teresa and Rocio came from Costa Rica especially for this show. "We have a quilt shop in Costa Rica, the very first, and we came here to buy fabrics," she said.
The quilts here were as varied as life itself, from traditional American quilts, to depictions of common items, like playing cards, to political statements, like this quilt supporting the cause of dissident Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei.
Many quilts fetch prices in the thousands of dollars, just like works of art.
Vicki Mangum, from Katy Texas, is an award-winning quilter. She helped to organize this event. "This is the quilt festival, this is the top of the heap. You cannot get any better than the International Quilt Festival," she said.
Mangum sometimes works with friends on a major project, but this quilt was all hers. "This particular quilt took me approximately two years to make from start to finish," she said.
Quilts like this one are made of panels and smaller sections, including some that are three dimensional. "The bird is stuff work, which means each section is stitched and then stuffed from behind with cotton," said Mangum.
Mangum and other master quilters show off their work at this festival.
But most of the time, Mangum is back home working with a group of friends in what's called a quilting bee.
The women often meet at a public library and the quilting bee provides friendship and more.
Joy Denk says it's a source of support. "Reinforcement. It is always nice to hear that other people think that what you did is a good idea. A little bit of gossip, yes, a little bit of that... and another person's input," she said.
Quilters also donate their pieces, like this so-called valor quilt that Denk assembled. "This will be sent to and given to a soldier who has returned from overseas with war injuries," she said.
Various parts of this quilt were donated by others. "There are ladies who assemble these stars and then they take them to quilt shows and let people sign them, so there are different names," she said.
Whether their work is displayed at a show or draped across a bed, quilters say the greatest satisfaction comes from making the quilts and sharing these moments. 
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| NHTSA Opens Probe into Chevrolet Volt Fire Posted: 06 Dec 2011 05:55 PM PST <!--AV--> Federal safety officials are looking into battery-related fires in General Motors' new electric-powered Chevrolet Volt automobile. The fires occurred after the officials crash-tested the vehicle.
One of the first owners of the Chevrolet Volt in the Midwest state of Illinois was Cars.com, which purchased the new, $40,000 electric car to test its performance.
"We were among the first buyers in the country even though Chicago is not a launch market, and we drove them through the winter, tested them out, and actually had them through the summer as well, and gotten a pretty good feel for them," he said.
Cars.com executive editor Joe Wiesenfelder says the company also has the distinction of being one of the first owners to crash the Volt. "There was a lot of interest around that. It was one of the first airbag deployments in a Volt out on the road, so we are pioneers in that regard," he said.
Fully repaired, the car was back on the road several weeks later. Wiesenfelder says there have not been any problems since.
But that is not the case with a Chevrolet Volt crash-tested by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. "The Volt that was crashed by NHSTA led to a five-star crash rating. It was three weeks later that the battery caught fire," he said.
Wiesenfelder says GM believes the solution to the problem is to discharge the lithium-ion battery after a collision. But he says it's been hard to learn more about the extent of the problem. "NHTSA also is not discussing it. We asked today, "Are they also testing batteries from other cars like the [Nissan] Leaf," they will not say, they will not say," he said.
The lack of information is fueling speculation about the safety of battery-powered vehicles. Wiesenfelder says that uncertainty could hurt the already underperforming sales of the Chevrolet Volt.
"You hear "fire" and "car" of course, that is bad, but this testing could prove anything. We are not going to jump to conclusions on safety or lack of safety. But on the other hand, GM is trying to do everything right, trying to look good, saying they are a different company than they used to be, but by doing that, offering loaner cars and offering to buy the cars back, they actually I think make it seem like a larger problem than it might be," he said.
Wiesenfelder points out there is no evidence to suggest the Volt, or any current electric powered vehicle, is any less safe than one powered by a combustion engine. Argonne National Laboratory's Transportation Research Director Don Hillebrand agrees. "Electrics in general tend to be [safer], have fewer failure modes than combustion [engine] or other vehicles," he said.
Some of the chemistry in the battery the Volt uses was invented at Argonne, and Hillebrand's team is currently testing the vehicle's fuel efficiency. He would not comment directly about the NHTSA investigation, but says the end result could ultimately help make the Volt a better vehicle.
"I do not test safety of vehicles, but we test other aspects of vehicles and we test them to find out, what are they going to do when you push them to the edge, and we need to know that, that is how you make them better," he said.
General Motors has sold about 6,000 Chevrolet Volts this year.
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| Obama Elevates Gay Rights as a Foreign Policy Priority Posted: 06 Dec 2011 05:01 PM PST President Barack Obama on Tuesday issued a directive elevating the the rights and treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people abroad as a priority in U.S. foreign policy.
A memorandum Mr. Obama sent to government agencies directs them to ensure that U.S. diplomacy and foreign assistance promote and protect the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, or LGBT persons.
He said he has been "deeply concerned" by violence and discrimination targeting LGBT persons. He cited foreign laws criminalizing LGBT status, the beating of LGBT citizens for joining peaceful celebrations, and the killing of men, women and children for their perceived sexual orientation.
Mr. Obama said America's commitment to advancing human rights for all people is strengthened when it vigorously advances the goal of promoting LGBT rights. Mr. Obama raised the issue at the United Nations General Assembly in September. "No country should deny people their rights to freedom of speech and freedom of religion, but also no country should deny people their rights because of who they love, which is why we must stand up for the rights of gays and lesbians everywhere," he said.
Treatment of LGBT people in other countries is already mentioned in annual State Department country human rights assessments. Mr. Obama's directive elevates the issue's importance as a foreign policy priority.
In an address in Geneva on Tuesday, where the U.N. Human Rights Council is based, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke about the importance of defending gay rights. And she criticized nations that criminalize homosexuality or tolerate abuse of LGBT people. "No practice or tradition trumps the human rights that belong to all of us. And this holds true for inflicting violence on LGBT people, criminalizing their status or behavior, expelling them from their families and communities, or tacitly or explicitly accepting their killing," he said.
Mr. Obama has directed the State Department and other agencies to fight the criminalization of LGBT status or conduct abroad, protect vulnerable LGBT refugees and asylum seekers, and ensure "swift and meaningful" U.S. responses to "serious incidents" that threaten the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people abroad.
The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force called the administration's decision "the first-ever U.S. government strategy dedicated to combating the abuse of LGBT people abroad."
Darlene Nipper, the organization's Deputy Executive Director, said "I think it is a fantastic culmination of what is clearly a progressive position on the White House's part to make a clear stance, and to take a leadership role on these issues internationally and worldwide."
But Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council criticized Mr. Obama's decision, saying it "throws the full weight and reputation of the U.S. behind the promotion overseas of the radical ideology of the sexual revolution." "President Obama is acting as if homosexual conduct has been universally-accepted as a human right, and that is simply not the case. There is no treaty; there is no universally-accepted international statement, which declares homosexual conduct to be a human right. So he is really acting on a fiction here," he said.
Texas Governor and Republican presidential contender Rick Perry called the announcement part of the Obama administration's "war on traditional American values," saying that Mr. Obama had "mistaken America's tolerance for different lifestyles with an endorsement of those lifestyles."
Mr. Obama's directive on protecting LGBT rights globally will likely bolster the strong support he already enjoys from the LGBT community. 
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