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14 Apr 2011 10:44

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World: Stillborn babies: Very high rates worldwide, and even in the U.S.

  • 2.6M number of stillborn babies worldwide in 2009, according to reports published by The Lancet
  • 98% of the babies stillborn each day — roughly 7,200 — die in developing countries, some at alarming rates
  • six number of stillborn babies per 1,000 born in the United States — very high for a developed country source
  • » Controversial numbers: The numbers in the developing world are questionable simply because, being the developing world, they’re much harder to quantify. But that doesn’t make the numbers any less shocking. According to the World Health Organization’s estimates, these countries have two-thirds of the stillborn deaths worldwide: India, Pakistan, Nigeria, China, Bangladesh, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Afghanistan and the United Republic of Tanzania. Yeah, that’s right. That’s only ten countries.

14 Apr 2011 10:26

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Politics: Carl Levin rips “financial snake pit” Goldman Sachs into shreds

  • Our investigation found a financial snake pit rife with greed, conflicts of interest, and wrongdoing.
  • Sen. Carl Levin • Offering an assessment of a report that his subcommittee, which is searching for the causes of the financial crisis, released about the crisis. The report singles out Goldman Sachs, calling it a “case study” for the conflicts of interest that abound around Wall Street — specifically for betting against the very subprime mortgage packages it was selling. Levin also wants to bring perjury charges against Goldman’s CEO, Lloyd Blankfein, for his testimony in Congress last year. In other words, someone has watched “Inside Job.” The stock market is down on the news of the 600-page report. source