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French novelist Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio has been awarded this year's Nobel Prize for Literature. The 68-year-old has been honoured with the 10m kronor (£820,810) award for his distinguished life's work. The Swedish Academy describes him as "an author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy." It goes on to call him "an explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilisation." British author Doris Lessing won last year's prize. Le Clezio's breakthrough as a novelist came in 1980 with Desert, a work the Swedish academy praised for its "magnificent images of a lost culture in the North African desert." Philosopher His most recent works include 2007's Ballaciner, a work the academy called a "deeply personal essay about the history of the art of film". The author has also included several books for children, among them Lullaby in 1980 and Balaabilou in 1985. He has won a number of literary honours in his native France, among them the Prix Larbaud in 1972 and the Grand Prix Jean Giono in 1997. Born in Nice in 1940, Le Clezio spent two years as a child in Nigeria and has taught in universities in Bangkok, Boston and Mexico City. He will receive his prize medal alongside this year's other Nobel Laureates at a ceremony in Stockholm on 10 December. Winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature traditionally deliver a lecture in the Swedish city before accepting their award. The first Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded in 1901 to the French poet and philosopher Sully Prudhomme. Writers recognised in recent years include V S Naipaul in 2001, J M Coetzee in 2003 and Harold Pinter in 2005. » HBOS Implodes The symbols of a community always have intrinsic value to the people in it even though they benefit directly in no meaningful way. Even though the residents of Brooklyn New York gained no benefit, they in fact had taxes raised to keep their baseball theirs, yet there was outrage when the Dodgers abandoned them for Los Angles. And so it is with HBOS whose symbols HBOS strung together have no official meaning, but to the people of Scotland the meaning is deep and intrinsic, it is widely recognized as an abbreviation for their bank, Halifax Bank of Scotland, them! So it was with the same shock and finality as a loss in sudden death overtime that Scotland met the word of the end of it's oldest bank, but the credit crunch is no gentlemans game and unlike a sports team, for HBOS there will never again be a next year. The credit crisis claimed another casualty Thursday when Lloyds TSB PLC announced a 12 billion pound (US$22 billion) deal to take over struggling HBOS PLC, Britain's biggest mortgage lender and owner of major British banks including Halifax and the Bank of Scotland. The Bank of Scotland is the UK's oldest commercial bank, was formed by an Act of the Parliament of Scotland in 1695 and Halifax was founded in 1853 as the Halifax Permanent Benefit Building and Investment Society, in the town bearing the same name. The bank which many considered to be the true bank of Scotland, HBOS was formed when the two merged in 2001. The bank is Scotlands oldest and has with stood revolutions, the great depression, two world wars, the cold war and too many social and economic calamities to list. It has become a social financial pillar of the rock upon which sits Scotland. But in the roil and rumble of the credit crunch once immovable financial pillars are knocked over with the ease and capriciousness with which a child throws his toys to the floor. And so Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers AIG and now HBOS know the sudden death swiftness with which the credit crunch can seize and strip a bank to its penniless bone. But unlike the others who succumbed to the greatest convulsion in financial markets this penniless bank still has an intrinsic equity which yields to the people of Scotland only a pain and confusion. The suddenness of its crash stunned them, the secrecy and lack of leadership of management betrayed them, and the resulting hyper drive of short-selling frenzy that descended on HBOS shares before the merger combined financially broke them, and now they watch as thier national pride is sold off part and parcel to England. » Sheriff: I will stop enforcing evictions As the nationwide mortgage crisis puts the squeeze on homeowners, the Cook County sheriff's office is on pace to evict more people than ever from foreclosed homes. At least it was until Wednesday, when Sheriff Tom Dart announced he wouldn't do it anymore. Dart cited the growing number of evictions that involve rent-paying tenants who suddenly learn their building is in foreclosure because the landlord neglected to pay the mortgage. By refusing to do any foreclosure-related evictions, the hope is that banks will change their policies. As it happens, the decision also will spare from eviction those legitimately in foreclosure. It is the latest, and perhaps most curious, government response to the soaring number of foreclosures. Even as federal bailouts and rescues are under way, the local action provoked a mixture of respect and confusion from housing advocates and banks. Indeed, some mortgage experts suggested Dart's vow could compound problems by making lenders reluctant to extend credit at a time when loans are already hard to get. In Cook County, foreclosures are expected to reach a record high of 43,000 this year, compared with 18,916 in 2006. The sheriff's office is on pace to conduct 4,500 foreclosure-related evictions, compared with less than half that number in 2006. About one-third of those are rent-paying individuals. Katrina McMullin, 34, was paying her rent on time, but that didn't stop a deputy from coming to her Northwest Side door with a notice of eviction. She had received no notice from her landlord. "How dare they take my rent and still evict me?" said McMullin, who is staying in the apartment after hiring a lawyer. "It wasn't fair." Then there are the homeowners on the brink, including Rossana Trujillo. She has been in negotiations with the bank to come up with a means to pay down her $340,000 debt without losing her home, the first for her husband and three children. She's not hopeful. "Our home, we are going to lose it," she said. "Paying the mortgage, there was not enough money for gas or for food." And although the sheriff's move may spare her in the near term, ultimately it will not keep her from facing foreclosure. Dart acknowledged he is at risk of violating court orders to evict and could be found in contempt. But he says he also is responsible for making sure justice is being done. "We will no longer be a party to something that's so unjust," he said. Cook County Circuit Chief Judge Timothy Evans could not be reached for comment. Dart planned to meet with judges Thursday. The move relates to evictions based on mortgage foreclosures, not those involving violations of rental agreements. Still, most officials in surrounding counties, also struggling with unprecedented lev |
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