New America in the News: 2007

The home foreclosure crisis slamming into the nation's neighborhoods is having the effect of about "one Hurricane Katrina per month," James K. Galbraith, an economist with the University of Texas at Austin, said Friday at a forum examining the credit crisis.

In the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in the fall of 2005, nearly 275,000 Gulf Coast residents were forced to move into group shelters, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Verizon Wireless officials announced Tuesday they would open up their network to any devices and software customers want to use by the second half of 2008. Any device that passes a minimal connectivity test will be allowed on the Verizon Wireless network, officials said.

That announcement drew applause from a wide variety of groups. Public Knowledge, a consumer rights group that has pushed for open network regulations from the U.S. Congress or the Federal Communications Commission, said it was "cautiously optimistic" about Verizon's decision. ...

Below is an excerpt from The Washington Post's Annapolis Conference story that quotes Daniel Levy:

Daniel Levy was quoted in The New York Times' coverage of the Annapolis Conference that gathered Israeli and Palestinian leaders, including Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president. Daniel Levy's quote is below:

The Israeli and Palestinian leaders committed themselves on Tuesday to negotiate a peace treaty by the end of 2008, setting a deadline for ending a conflict that has endured for six decades. ...

In a few days, hooded figures manipulating mysterious computer formulas will announce the final BCS standings and the lineup for college football's prestigious bowl games. Records, opponents, conference affiliations, polls and, it always seems, the phases of the moons of Saturn will be taken into account. But what if academics were factored in, too? What if there were an A/BCS -- an Academics-Included Bowl Championship Series?

President Bush will host Israeli and Palestinian leaders at the White House on Monday for separate meetings ahead of a conference in Annapolis, Maryland, that will formally launch Middle East peace talks.

Bush will open the Annapolis conference with a speech. He'll make clear that Mideast peace is a top priority for the rest of his time in office through January 2009, indicating a level of interest in the conflict never seen before in this administration. Analysts see the talks as an effort by the administration to build up a legacy other than the war in Iraq.

The Arab-Israeli conflict has not been high on President Bush's agenda until now. A conference in Annapolis, Md., is seen as a "relaunch" of a process meant to move the two sides toward peace. Ghaith Al-Omari and Daniel Levy of the New America Foundation discuss prospects for progress at the summit. ...

The United States hopes one byproduct of its Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking will be a moderate Arab alliance to counter Iran's influence in the region, but analysts are skeptical the strategy will work. ...

While welcoming greater U.S. involvement, many analysts are curious why the Bush administration is only now connecting the Israeli-Palestinian crisis with other regional problems.

"My first response is 'Good morning.' It took you seven years to recognize that," said Daniel Levy, a former Israeli negotiator now with the New America Foundation.

In the Democratic presidential scuffle over extricating the U.S. from Iraq, differences among the candidates have faded into the background recently. But the rivals are diverging on an equally incendiary foreign policy issue: the political instability in Pakistan.