Kathmandu, Nepal (AHN) – Nepali Diasporas living in New York face a language barrier, creating a major challenge that causes immigrants to miss out on jobs and other opportunities in the United States.

Most of the Nepalis who reached the U.S. in search of green pastures are at the receiving end of downward socio-economic mobility, forcing them to lower their living standards in order to survive and support family members back home, a study has revealed.

“While in Nepal, people have dreams of doing well in the U.S. However, there is a huge difference between what you think of America and when you actually come here,” says New York-based non-profit organisation Adhikaar. “People have to work really hard to survive here.”

“Even if you are educated, you won’t be able to find a job of your choice if you don’t have the [right] documents,” a Nepali worker told the group. “You can earn money here, but not respect.”

Much of the problems faced by the Nepali-speaking community in New York City are typical of those faced by emerging communities. The federal minimum wage of $7.25 is not enough to survive and support a family in New York City, the report adds. Making matters worse, migrant workers in the informal sector are often exploited by the employers and are paid below the legal minimum wage.

The report titled “Snapshots of the Nepali-speaking Community in New York City: Demographics and Challenges” reveals that language barrier has become a major challenge for most of the Nepali-speaking people in finding jobs and other services. For example, many Nepalis in the U.S. do not have health insurance, and almost three-fourths of them face challenges in obtaining healthcare.

Many Nepali migrants are unable to transfer their work experience, skills and education from Nepal. Over half of the Nepalis in New York were involved in business or a professional sector in Nepal. While most Nepali immigrants are able to find jobs in New York, they are often low-wage jobs consuming long hours and providing few benefits. While immigration status is a reason for Nepali immigrants doing low-wage jobs, it is not the only one, the report adds. “Nearly half of the respondents to survey have the legal right to work in the U.S., yet most of them faced challenges.”

The most common types of job for men are works in restaurant, gas station, taxi or limousine and moving industry, while women often work as domestic workers and at nail salons or beauty parlours. Report has it that those who intend to earn degrees find themselves unable to attain their goal due to the number of hours they must work to pay for their education and living expenses.

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Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – Senate Republicans signaled willingness on Sunday to a compromise with Democrats about extending unemployment insurance and Bush administration tax cuts. The GOP blocked Democratic attempts the previous day to keep tax breaks for the middle class, arguing that tax cuts for higher-income earners should also continue.

“We’re working on that package,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “We’ve had more conversations in the last two weeks than in the last two years, and I think we’re going to get there.”

Republicans during a special Saturday session in the Senate voted against floor debate on a bill extending tax cuts for workers receiving less than $200,000 annually, or $250,000 for families.

They similarly voted against discussing a compromise bill from Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), the fourth highest-ranking lawmaker in the chamber, that raised the income threshold from $250,000 to $1 million.

The first measure failed by a vote of 53-36, and the second bill by 53-37. In each vote, Democrats needed 60 votes to begin floor debate, but saw five different members vote with the GOP.

Tax cuts for both middle class and wealthy were implemented under the Bush administration in 2001 and 2003, and are due to expire on Jan. 1. Democrats want to extend tax breaks only for the middle class. Republicans want to extend them permanently for all, arguing that raising taxes on “job generators” during a recession would hurt the economy.

Extending tax cuts for all would cost $3.7 trillion, while continuing those for families earning less than $250,000 would cost $3 trillion.

“It is the height of irresponsibility that in a time of economic hardship Republicans would block tax cuts for middle class families and small businesses,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said after the votes on Saturday. “Even worse is that they would do so in order to secure huge tax breaks for millionaires…Those giveaways would not only add $700 billion to our deficit, but we’ve also seen that they do not create jobs.”

But McConnell dismissed criticisms about the effect of Bush tax cuts on unemployment, which increased slightly to 9.8 percent in November.

“Imagine how much worse it would been if we’d had the higher tax rate. Look, this argument’s over… You and I can continue to engage in it, but it’s over. The Senate voted yesterday,” the Republican leader told moderator David Gregory.

Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) likewise said on CBS’ “Face the Nation,”Those tax rates helped our economy and job production. They did not create the problem that we have today. That was a problem created, as you know, by the crash of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the housing market, the so-called bubble.”

The compromise being negotiated by the Democrats and the GOP is believed to include a temporary extension of tax cuts on higher-income earners, in exchange for support in passing a bill on jobless benefits.

“I think we will extend unemployment compensation,” McConnell said. “We’ve had some very vigorous debates… not about whether to do it, but whether to pay for it as opposed to adding it to the deficit. All those discussions are still under way.”

Unemployment insurance expired on Nov. 30 after a bill extending it failed in the House before the Thanksgiving recess.

The measure seeks to extend benefits for 2 million unemployed workers this year and for another 2 million next spring. Republicans opposed it because they believe it would increase the deficit by $12 billion, and add to the $13.795 trillion national debt.

Democrats, however, have cited economists who say the spending generated by insurance dollars boost the economy.

“Unemployment insurance… returns $2 for every $1 that is put out,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said on Thursday just before she led her chamber in voting 234-188 to pass a bill extending middle class tax cuts. “Giving $700 billion to the wealthiest people in America does add $700 billion to the deficit. And the record and history show it does not create jobs.”

The Senate is working on approving extensions of the tax cuts and jobless benefits during a lame-duck session loaded with a backlog of legislation, and only weeks away from a new Congress that will have a Republican majority taking over the House.

A repeal of the law against gays serving openly in the military, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” is part of the agenda, as well as the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) with Moscow.

The treaty, which limits deployed warheads to 1,550 and launchers to 800, was signed by President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart early this year but requires ratification by Congress.

Top Republicans do not support the current treaty due to concerns about missile defense and the need to modernize the U.S. nuclear force. The president last week had former Secretary of State Colin Powell, a Republican and retired four-star general, joining him to urge lawmakers to ratify the agreement.

Kyl indicated on Sunday that passage of the treaty was unlikely. “No. The answer is there is not time to do it in the lame duck when you consider all of the other things that the Democratic leader wants to do,” he said.

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Gaza, Palestinian Territory (TML) – In the lobby, a pair of workers is hanging large portrait photographs of Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas, while outside a construction scaffolding sits close by the front entrance, but otherwise the West Bank’s first five-star hotel is open for business.

Banners advertising the Palestinian stock exchange’s annual conference in the grand ballroom adorn centerpieces, while smartly dressed women and men in dark business suits mingle over drinks. Indeed, the demand for conference space is so strong that the Ramallah-based Movenpick Hotel began hosting them before weeks before its first guests checked in.

The peace talks with Israel have stalled, and Hamas and Fatah remain at loggerheads over who is the legitimate ruler of the Palestinian areas. But, the economies of the West Bank and Gaza Strip are shrugging off their uncertain political future and booming. Yet, economists warn, the boom is a precarious one.

“When the political situation allows it, the economy recovers and people rush out and say that is economic development. That’s not what’s happening,” Nathan Brown, professor of political science and international affairs at the George Washington University, told The Media Line.

The International Monetary Fund estimates that their combined gross domestic product will grow 8% this year. In Gaza, whose economy is coming back to life as Israel has eased its three-year-old blockade, GDP is likely to grow 16% in the first half of 2010.

Indeed, Gaza is due to gets its first five-star hotel soon as well, the Palestinian Ma’an news agency reported this month. The hotel was ready to open in 2007 when Hamas seized control of the enclave and forced the developers to mothball it.

Ramallah, the West Bank’s commercial center and unofficial capital, is replete with construction sites, but the prosperity is relative. The West Bank and Gaza are still engaging in catch-up from the days before the Intifada exploded in 2000. The subsequent fours years of violence left 3,400 Palestinian dead ( as well as over 1,000 Israelis) and left the West Bank divided by Israeli army checkpoints’ that continue to choke commerce to this day.

In Gaza, GDP per capita is only 60% of its level in 1994, the year the Oslo peace process with Israel got underway, according to the IMF. More than a third of the working age population is unemployed. The West Bank has fared better, but its per capita GDP only clawed back to its pre-Oslo level last year. Its jobless rate was 16% in the fist half of the year.

Law and order in the cities, and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s campaign to clean up the Palestinian Authority’s finances and a crack down on corruption have all helped boost economic growth in the West Bank. Israel has eased the checkpoint regime. But the main driver for prosperity is huge levels of foreign aid that is used principally to fund the Palestinian Authority’s budget deficit.

The Palestinian Authority is slated to get $1.2 billion in outside assistance this year, a sum equal to about 15% of its GDP. Investment in infrastructure, whether it’s by foreigners or the private sector, is minimal. U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton pledged $150 million more last week. The latest infusion of money brings America’s total direct budget assistance to $225 million for this year alone and overall U.S. support and investment to almost $600 million for the year.

At the Swiss-owned Movenpick, the clientele is mainly business people, not tourists, said Communications Manager Katreena Khalil. The hotel boasts seven conference rooms and is hosting a business woman’s club, but business in Ramallah means mainly government, the United Nations and the non-government that distributes the aid largesse and run health and educational programs.

“What you see is that anything related government expenditure is doing very, very well. But no external investors are rushing to get in,” said Brown.

Moreover, economic growth is focused on residential building, Paul Rivlin, a senior research fellow at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle East and African Studies at Tel Aviv University, told The Media Line.

“The problem is that in an economy that is filled political uncertainty and numerous restrictions,” said Rivlin, author of the book Arab Economies in the 21st Century. “One of the things you can make quick and easy money and meet needs is construction. Building factories has a payoff only when you start production.”

Rivlin said he doubted that the West Bank is threatened with the kind of property bust the U.S. and Dubai have suffered because it isn’t based on speculative investments or poor lending practices. But, he said, poor unless the fundamental situation changes, the long-term prognosis for the Palestinian economy remains poor.

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Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – The decision by the United States Federal Reserve to pump $600 billion into the nation’s economy by buying U.S. Treasury Bonds has sparked international criticism led by Germany and China.

China and Germany represent the world’s second- and fourth-largest economies respectively. In addition, they were joined by Brazil and South Africa in criticizing the “quantitative easing.” Quantitative easing is the economic term for buying assets to attempt to boost the economy and lower unemployment.

However, Germany, China, Brazil and South Africa allege that the scheme will not help the U.S. economy and will instead create more problems in the rest of the world. Quantitative easing is expected to lower the value of the dollar, which will make U.S. exports cheaper in world markets.

That means that U.S. exports would be more competitive against German and Chinese exports.

Indeed, the dollar did plunge in value against several of the world’s currencies on Thursday.

Germany’s Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble on Friday said the U.S. Federal Reserve’s move would undermine efforts to create a level playing field in the currency markets.

China Central Bank chief Zhou Xiaochuan said the U.S. should focus on reforming the international currency system. He argued that if the U.S. central banking policy is good for the U.S., but not good for the rest of the world that it might have a negative impact on the rest of the world.

The U.S. has criticized China for artificially keeping its currency devalued for many years to make its exports cheaper. But China made that move when its country had full employment and a budget surplus. The U.S. central bank is not buying U.S. Treasury bonds to deflate the value of the dollar abroad but rather to try to pour money into the American economy – which currently has a budget deficit – and to stimulate the weak economy to encourage American businesses to hire unemployed American workers at a time of continued high unemployment.

Germany also criticized the move because they said it would add to America’s deficit.

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Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – The brand that began America’s love with muscle cars has officially gone out of business, a year after parent company General Motors was forced to phase out some of its cars due to bankruptcy.

Contracts between GM and Pontiac dealers nationwide expired Sunday, ending an iconic brand that was the nation’s third best-seller, behind Chevrolet and Ford, during its heyday in the 1960s.

Pontiac tried to revive its image in the past three decades, but the brand never achieved the same popularity with its cars as it did with its GTO and Firebird Trans Am. First produced by GM in 1926, Pontiac launched one of its last models, the Solstice Coupe, in 2008.

GM, the nation’s largest automaker, announced the end of production of Pontiac last year in its agreement with Congress for federal bailout funds. The restructuring also involved phasing out Hummer, Saab and Saturn, and focusing on Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick and GMC as core brands.

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New York, NY, United States (AHN) – Republican gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino defended himself on Monday from critics of his comments about homosexuality over the weekend to Brooklyn Jews.

“I’ve always stood behind everything that I’ve said,” Paladino said on NBC’s “Today” when asked about a speech the previous day in which he said that he didn’t want children “brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality is an equally valid or successful option.”

“My feelings on homosexuality are unequivocal; I have absolutely no problem with it whatsoever. My only reservation is marriage,” the Buffalo real estate developer explained.

On ABC’s “Good Morning America,” Paladino added, “My comments were directed at just the confusion that people have had over this issue. I wanted to clearly distinguish that my feelings about homosexuality were no different than those of the Catholic Church. I’m a Catholic.”

In his remarks before an orthodox Jewish group, the candidate also slammed his opponent, Democratic state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, for bringing his children to New York’s annual gay pride parade.

The nation’s largest advocacy group for gay equality, the Human Rights Campaign, condemned the comments on Monday.

“By his own words, Carl Paladino has made himself the poster boy for the kind of divisive leadership that makes young LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender] people question their self-worth and gives license to those who use violence to advance their hate,” HRC President Joe Solmonese said in a statement.

The controversy follows a public shouting match between Paladino and a New York Post reporter, who was asking him about his allegation that Cuomo had paramours. The campaign manager for Paladino has said the altercation happened because the GOP candidate was trying to protect his daughter from a photographer from the Post who attempted to take photos of the young woman at their home.

A former Democrat who has the backing of the Tea Party, Paladino currently trails Cuomo in polls, by as much as 23 points in the latest, conducted by SurveyUSA. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates the race as solid Democratic.

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Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – Congress came under attack for not loosening purse strings for development work on Tuesday as top Obama administration officials discussed U.S. global development policy.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told an audience at a U.S. Global Leadership Coalition event that Congress refused to release money for peace time efforts in Iraq.

Clinton noted as the U.S. is withdrawing bulk of its forces from Iraq, “the military saves $15 billion. We ask for, you know, about one-tenth of that, and that’s considered too much, even though there’s savings accruing to our transitioning to the civilian side.”


Her railings against Congress came as the State Department takes over Iraqi police training from the military, and opens new consulates outside Baghdad to fill in for reconstruction teams.

“The Congress took a huge whack at the budget the State Department submitted for this process of transition. And it is one of these cases where, having invested an enormous amount of money (in the war), we are now arguing about a tiny amount of money, in terms of bringing this to a successful conclusion,” echoed Secretary of Defense Robert Gates about the cuts.

Gates compared the stripping of the money to the scene in the movie “Charlie Wilson’s War” when Congress, after spending billions to help the Afghan mujaheddin toss the Soviets out of Afghanistan, wouldn’t spend a million dollars for schools.

“Development is a lot cheaper than sending soldiers,” Gates said at the discussion where Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Rajiv Shah, director of the U.S. Agency for International Development, also participated.

On the short term perspective for ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Gates said, “In the fights that we’re in, the civilian component is absolutely critical to success,” adding, “What we’ve discovered as we went along and I think we came to it way late was that the civilian side of the government in the arena of development was significantly under-resourced.”

For the longer term, Gates said. “The way you do that is through development. Development creates stability, it contributes to better governance.”

“If you are able to do those things, if you are able to do it in a focused and sustainable way, then it may be unnecessary to send soldiers,” Gates argued.

Stressing the link between development and security, Gates said, “But development and security are inextricably linked. You can’t have development without security and you can’t have security without development.”

“We are making sure that development is an integral part of America’s national security policy and is part of an integrated approach that includes development, diplomacy and defense,” Clinton noted, referring to the new goals set by President Barack Obama.

On Sept. 22, President Obama signed a Presidential Policy Directive on Global Development, the first of its kind by a U.S. administration.

The directive calls for the elevation of development as a core pillar of American power and charts a course for development, diplomacy and defense to reinforce and complement one another in an integrated, comprehensive approach to national security.


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This reality is brought about by the fact that home based business owners enjoy more freedom, flexibility, and control when it comes to their business dealings. While being a home-based business owner takes the ability to handle many responsibilities, it comes with so many advantages.

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Chicago, IL, United States (AHN) – Stockholders of United Airlines and Continental Airlines both approved Friday the merger of two leading carriers which is expected to be finalized on Oct. 1.

UAL Corp., the parent company whose primary subsidiary is United Airlines, said that more than 98 percent of votes cast and 84 percent of shares outstanding were voted by stockholders in favor of the transaction.

More than 98 percent of votes cast and 75 percent of shares outstanding were also voted by Continental stockholders in favor of the same.

“This vote is a significant step toward closing our merger with Continental, creating the world’s leading airline and the industry’s best network for our customers,” Glenn Tilton, United chairman and CEO said in a statement.

He added the merger will also create “a strong company that provides career opportunity for our people and an airline that can deliver return for our shareholders.”

“There is much work ahead as we bring these two companies together, pulling the best from both of our companies and building on the work we have each done to strengthen our airlines,” Tilton said.

Jeff Smisek, Continental’s chairman, president and CEO said that “in approving the transaction, our stockholders recognized the value of bringing together (the two companies) to create a platform for increased profitability and sustainable long-term value.”

United and Continental announced an all-stock merger of equals on May 3. The companies have received clearance on proposed merger from the United States Department of Justice and European Commission.

United hires 46,000 employees and operates some 3,300 flights a day to more than 230 U.S. domestic and international destinations from its hubs in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Denver, Chicago and Washington, D.C. It has key global air rights in the Asia-Pacific region, Europe and Latin America.

United ranked first in on-time performance for domestic scheduled flights for 2009 among America’s five largest global carriers as measured by Department of Transportation and published in Air Travel Consumer Report for 2009.

Continental has 40,000 employees and operations of more than 2,700 daily departures throughout Americas, Europe and Asia, serving 132 domestic and 137 international destinations. It has hubs serving New York, Houston, Cleveland and Guam, and together with its regional partners, carries some 63 million passengers annually.

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