BRINGING HARMONY TO ALL THE COMMUNITIES
BC Canada
Volume 12 Issue 327 Safar 29, 1434 AH / January 11, 2013 - $1
Bi-Weekly & Bilingual
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UN unable to feed 1 million hungry Syrians
Bitter Accusations traded by India and Pakistan According to the Pakistani military, Indian troops crossed the Line of Control and attacked a military post on Jan 6. Pakistani army troops repulsed the attack, but one Pakistani soldier was killed and another critically injured. On Jan 8, New Delhi said Pakistani troops had killed two of its soldiers in the disputed territory of Kashmir. Read more on Page 5.
Vancouver house prices to decline further, real estate panel predicts
Vancouver’s house prices could fall a further five per cent before 2013 is over, according to a BMO economist. Sal Guatieri, BMO Capital Markets senior economist, made the prediction during a Tuesday conference call, while Royal LePage called for average prices to fall three per cent as fewer luxury homes
sell. Guatieri said tougher mortgage rules and the suspension of the federal immigrant investor program in July could be factors in Vancouver’s real estate slowdown. “Nowhere is the housing market weaker than in British Columbia, where resales are down 17 per cent in the year to November and are well below the past decade norm,” Guatieri said. “Vancouver’s resales have plunged 31 per cent in the year to December and benchmark prices are down just over three per cent since the spring.” He said the mortgage changes, limiting the life of a mortgage to 25 years from 30 and prohibiting mortgage insurance on homes more expensive than $1 million, will hit pricier markets the hardest. Housing prices are about 10 times average family incomes, Guatieri said, putting “Vancouver in the upper echelon
of overvalued housing markets, not just in Canada, but across the world.” He said many would-be house buyers are opting to buy condos, rent instead of buy, or move to other cities because of the high prices. Vancouver condos remain affordable, he said, but detached homes are out of reach for first-time buyers. He expects further declines in home prices during 2013. “That would not be surprising nor exceptional as the city has faced four double-digit price corrections in the past three decades,” Guatieri said. The federal immigrant investor program allows people to immigrate to Canada if they can show they have business experience, a net worth of at least $1.6 million obtained legally and can invest $800,000 in an interest-free loan to Canada for five years to create jobs. There was a backlog of more than 23,000 applications to the program last April. In July, applications were suspended so the federal government could process existing applications and review the program. “There is some speculation that wealthier foreign buyers are waiting to see if the government will restart that program before they purchase a house in Vancouver,” Guatieri said. “What has supported Vancouver’s housing market, at least in the past five years, is not income, it’s wealth. A lot of that is foreign wealth, although we can’t quantify that.” He said many of these buyers don’t need a mortgage because they have the cash and can buy a house outright. “But that supply of people is diminishing, especially as prices have continued to go up,” he said. “Unless people continue to flood into Vancouver — foreign residents with a lot of money — that market looks very ripe for a meaningful correction — not a material one — of at least five per cent or so for the next year.” The Royal LePage Price Survey and Market Survey Forecast found that the average price of a detached bungalow in
About one million people inside Syria are going hungry due to the difficulty of getting supplies into conflict zones, the UN has said. The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) is handing out rations to about 1.5 million people in Syria each month, still short of the 2.5 million deemed to be in need, Elisabeth Byrs, WFP spokeswoman, said on Wednesday. Bread and fuel particularly are in short supply as the few governmentapproved aid agencies are stretched to the limit. “Our main partner, the (Syrian Arab) Red Crescent, is overstretched and has no more capacity to expand further,” Byrs told a news briefing in Geneva. Long queues for bread are now normal in many parts of Syria and there are shortages of wheat flour in most parts of the country due to damage to mills, most of which are located in the embattled Aleppo area, she said. Only a handful of aid agencies are authorized to distribute relief goods, some of which lack staff, fuel or other material. Deteriorating security conditions forced the WFP to withdraw its staff from the towns of Homs, Aleppo, Tartous and Qamisly, Byrs said. The UN last month appealed for $1.5bn to help the millions of Syrians suffering from what it called a dramatically deteriorating humanitarian situation. Four million people in the country need urgent humanitarian aid, including an estimated two million displaced from their homes mainly by government bombardments of opposition-held areas. According to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights about 60,000 people have been killed during 21 months of conflict between the forces of President Bashar al-Assad and rebels trying to topple him. Meanwhile, Syrian refugees frustrated over poor living conditions at a camp in neighbouring Jordan have
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BCMA Surrey/Delta Women’s Branch Serves Hot Meals to the homeless
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