Free Republic

DHAKA, Bangladesh - The simple yet revolutionary idea of loaning tiny sums to poor people looking to escape poverty by starting businesses won Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank he founded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday. Yunus' notion - today, known as microcredit - has spread around the globe in the past three decades and is said to have helped more than 100 million people take their first steps to rise out of poverty. Some bought diary cows, others egg-laying hens. In recent years, money for a single cell phone has been enough to start thriving enterprises...

Immigrants are emerging as among the first victims of a growing wave of home foreclosures in the Washington area as mortgage lending problems multiply locally and across the country. Nationally, 375,000 high-interest-rate loans were made to Hispanics in 2005, and nearly 73,000 of them are likely to go into foreclosure, said Aracely Paname?o, director of Latino affairs for the Center for Responsible Lending. About 1.1 million homes in the United States are expected to go into foreclosure in the next six years, and many native-born Americans are likely to be stuck with burdensome loans. But immigrants are getting hit first...