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The nominee to be U.S. ambassador to, say, Hungary should be able to explain what the U.S. strategic interests are in that country — right?

But Colleen Bell, a soap opera producer and President Obama's appointee to be U.S. envoy to that European country, struggled to answer that simple question during her recent confirmation hearing.

"Well, we have our strategic interests, in terms of what are our key priorities in Hungary, I think our key priorities are to improve upon, as I mentioned, the security relationship and also the law enforcement and to promote business opportunities, increase trade ..." she responded, grasping for words, to a question by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) on Jan. 16. (You can see the full hearing here.)

As McCain tweeted later about the confirmation hearings that day: "You can't make this up."

President Obama used to say that he wanted to rely more on career diplomats to serve as U.S. ambassadors. But the State Department's professional association, the American Foreign Service Association or AFSA, says that he has named a higher percentage of political appointees than his predecessors. He's given plum assignments to political donors such as Bell, who have made headlines recently with embarrassing gaffes at their confirmation hearings.

The AFSA has been so worried about how ambassadors are chosen that it's drawing up a list of basic qualifications for the job: knowing, for example, what U.S. interests are in the country where they are going to work.

The report, to be released later this month, comes at a time when there's been increased scrutiny of Obama's picks.

The AFSA, which keeps track of appointments, says in his second term so far, Obama has named a record number of political appointees, more than half, as compared to other recent presidents, who tend to name donors and friends to about one-third of the ambassadorial posts.

Ronald Neumann, president of the American Academy of Diplomacy, doesn't have anything against political appointees: His father was one.

However, unlike some of the campaign "bundlers" — wealthy fund-raisers who bundle contributions from a variety of donors — getting nominations in the Obama administration, Neumann's father was a professor of international relations, who had traveled and written extensively about the Middle East before serving as ambassador to Afghanistan, Morocco and Saudi Arabia.

"He was an enormously competent appointee who served four presidents, three embassies and two parties, which is kind of unusual," Neumann says of his father. The two men used to joke that they "came into the foreign service together" — his father at the top and Neumann at the bottom.

So Neumann, who like his father served as ambassador to Afghanistan, tries to take an even-handed approach, saying all ambassadors, whether political appointees or career diplomats, need to be vetted properly.

"There is a law, which both parties ignore, about ambassadors needing to be qualified: the Foreign Service Act of 1980," Neumann points out. "People still get through even if they are manifestly not qualified."

There have been some particularly tough confirmation hearings lately, though. The same day McCain quizzed Bell, the Arizona senator was also perplexed when the nominee to become ambassador to Norway, hotel executive George Tsunis, described a party in that country's ruling coalition as "a fringe element." And then there was the recent grilling of Obama's pick for ambassador to Argentina.

At times it's a good idea to have someone with the president's ear out in key countries around the world. But Robert Silverman, president of the AFSA, says most other major powers don't do things this way.

"They send us career professional diplomats as ambassadors," he says, suggesting that "those countries know that career professionals are the people most likely to further their country's interests in the United States. It is a simple matter of sending the right people to the right jobs."

That's why he asked a group of former ambassadors — five political appointees and five career diplomats — to draw up the soon-to-be published list of the basic qualifications for U.S. ambassadors.

Last year, Muslim militias helped overthrow the country's Christian president of the Central African Republic and marauded through Christian areas. Today, the circumstances are reversed, with Christian militias terrorizing Muslim communities and prompting a mass exodus.

French and African peacekeepers have mostly failed to stop the violence as the isolated country of 4 million continues to unravel.

Wazili Yaya, a Muslim, has witnesses the recent violence.

He has been custodian of the Ali Babalo Mosque in the capital Bangui since a wealthy merchant built it 19 years ago. Its painted arches are a testament to a Muslim community that makes up a minority of the population in this mainly Christian country — yet account for the vast majority of its traders and merchant class.

An unlocked door opens on a low white basin. This is where we prepare the corpses, he says. There were 40 this week. He pulls out his cell phone to show photos.

All the bodies show signs of violence far beyond what was needed to kill: castrations, decapitations, machete wounds to the head.

Each time he gets a body, he takes a photo of it.

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One of the biggest problems facing low-income families in the U.S. today is a lack of affordable housing.

According to a recent report by the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard, more than 7 million low-income households now spend more than half of their income for rent, which leaves little money for anything else. And the situation is expected to get worse.

Now, a coalition of nonprofit groups is trying to turn things around with a new, more business-like approach to buying real estate. They hope to preserve housing units that low- and moderate-income families can afford.

Christopher LoPiano is senior vice president for real estate at Community Preservation and Development Corp., a nonprofit that develops, owns and operates affordable housing in the Washington, D.C., area and Virginia.

LoPiano says it was frustrating when his group made offers to buy eight properties in Virginia over the past few years and got the same answer every time.

" 'No, thank you.' That's what kept happening to us," he says. " 'No thank you.' "

It wasn't the price. LoPiano says his group was competitive with other buyers when it came to price.

"What we're not competitive on is closing quickly," he says, "because we're dependent upon public financing, and public financing just takes longer."

LoPiano says such real estate deals often involve government bond issues and housing tax breaks, which can take months, even a year, to be approved.

"And sellers in today's market are not willing to wait that," he says.

So LoPiano's group and a coalition of other housing nonprofits, called the Housing Partnership Network, decided it was time to get creative — to do what private investors have done for decades. They became the first nonprofits to form what's called a real estate investment trust, or REIT. It allows investors to pool their funds to buy property and collect dividends — and involves no public financing.

The nonprofit groups figured they could offer potential investors a modest return on their money — about 5 to 7 percent. It's less than what they'd get from a private-sector REIT, but the groups also appealed to investors' desire to preserve affordable housing. And they got several big ones — Prudential, Morgan Stanley, Citibank and the Ford and MacArthur foundations — to chip in an initial $100 million.

LoPiano says the nonprofits' new REIT has been a "game changer."

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Here's a conundrum.

The Golden State ranks as the second best place for a woman to achieve economic security, according to 14 key measures. That's according to a study from the Center for American Progress.

Paid family leave? Check!
Great early childhood education? Check!
Paid sick leave? Check!

However Hispanic women in the state only make 44 cents to every dollar a white man makes. That makes the 6.6 million women, or 17 percent of the entire state of California, the lowest paid population, of any race, in any state.

Let me say that again.

Hispanic women, in a state where the number of Latinos is poised to surpass non-Hispanic whites this March, are on average earning the lowest amount of any women, anywhere, in the United States.

The pay disparity is especially ironic in California, where women as a whole make amongst the highest wage nationwide at 84 cents to every white man's dollar. The national average for women is 77 cents.

So what's going on?

Anna Chu, the researcher who conducted the study, says part of it has to do with the types of jobs they are working. "A lot of times we find that many women of color are not working in high paying industries."

In fact, two of the top three industries women in California work in are social services and retail, areas not exactly known for their lucrative earnings potential.

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