Kathmandu, Nepal (AHN) – Six years after the end of a decade-long armed conflict, Nepal’s ex-Maoist fighters who have been languishing in various satellite camps have begun leaving their cantonments.

The process started Friday in the three major camps–Sindhuli, Chitwan and Nawalparasi–and was scheduled to begin in the other four main camps from Saturday. The entire process is expected to be over in two weeks.

The lengthy conflict ended in 2006 after killing nearly 14, 000 people and replacing a century-long Hindu monarchy with a secular republic country.

This is an important part of Nepal’s ongoing peace process.

The Maoist combatants have been monitored since 2007 by the United Nation’s political mission that oversaw the storage of weapons and the soldiers’ registration, verification and housing. After the UN left Nepal in 2011, Nepal’s political party agreed to set up Special Secretariat to look after them.

After completion of this process, integration of the Maoist combatants in the national army and the social life of the nation will begin.

Out of the 19,000 UN-verified combatants, 7,365 combatants who chose voluntary retirement will head to their homes after the Maoist party hosts a formal farewell ceremony on Feb. 11. Another 9,000 opted for integration into security agencies.

Those who opted for retirement will receive around $ 6,300 to $10,200 from the government in installments.

The Maoist guerillas, under the aegis of the UCPN (Maoist) party, which is now largest political party in Nepal’s Constituent Assembly, fought to set up a hardcore communist regime in Nepal.

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New York, NY, United States (AHN) – Gold prices rallied for a third straight day, spurred higher by a weak U.S. dollar and the Fed’s comments on interest rates made earlier in the week.

In mid-afternoon trading on Friday, the most actively traded gold contract, for February delivery, gained $10.50 to $1734.40 a troy ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Giving gold prices a boost were comments from Fed officials on Wednesday in which they said in a statement they expected short-term interest rates to remain near zero until late 2014, citing a slow recovery in the labor market, high unemployment, the ailing housing market and moderating inflation.

Over the past three days, gold futures have gained more than $70 a troy ounce. Gold bugs have embraced, and taken comfort in, the forecast from the Federal Reserve.

The record low, near zero rate outlook for U.S. interest rates cut the so-called “opportunity cost” of holding gold. Over the past several days, market participants have opted to hold gold over low-yielding U.S. Treasuries. The worry of missing out on paltry interest payments has been replaced by the anticipated gains in value from the yellow metal.

A weaker dollar also stoked demand for the precious metal among buyers who purchase gold in foreign currencies. Gold, priced in U.S. dollars, appears cheaper to foreign buyers who purchase the metal in their own home currency.

Silver, poor man’s gold, has been rising in concert. The gray metal was up 17 cents in afternoon trading Friday, last quoted at $33.82.

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DC, Washington, United States (AHN) – The U.S. Conference of Mayors wrapped up its winter meeting Friday in Washington, D.C., with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel stepping into controversies on same sex marriage and education.

Emanuel joined about 80 other mayors from across the nation in endorsing laws to give legal recognition to same sex marriage, along with the tax breaks and other benefits spouses can share.

The mayors signed on to a statement that said, “Our cities derive great strength from their diversity and gay and lesbian families are a crucial part. Studies have shown what we know through our hands-on experience that cities that celebrate and cultivate diversity are the places where creativity and ideas thrive.”

Emanuel supported the Illinois Legislature’s effort last year to legalize civil unions for same-sex couples.

He said New York did “a good thing” last June when state lawmakers legalized gay marriage.

In separate comments Friday, Emanuel discussed his plan to turn Chicago’s community colleges into training institutions for the city’s employers.

Currently, Chicago’s City Colleges have a graduation rate of about 7 percent and job prospects for graduates that are “not as high,” Emanuel said.

His plan calls for each of the city’s seven community colleges to operate with specialties, such as health care, transportation, hospitality and manufacturing.

In addition, employers would be brought in to develop curricula that would train the students to become their employees.

“I want it to have economic value” to attend college, Emanuel said at the downtown Washington hotel where about 250 mayors were meeting.

Turning colleges into job training institutions is controversial among some academics, who say a well-rounded education requires liberal arts courses that include literature, history and the arts.

Nevertheless, job creation and recovery from the economic disaster of the Great Recession were dominant themes throughout the meeting this week.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors released a report that said the nation’s metropolitan areas will struggle for five more years to regain jobs lost during the recession that started in September 2008.

“The recovery is very uneven across U.S. regions, with the southeastern and southwestern metro [areas that] were the most affected by the housing bubble looking ahead to years of recovery,” the report says.

U.S. nonfarm payrolls will grow about 1.3 percent this year, which is unlikely to reduce the unemployment rate below 8 percent, according to a report by IHS Global Insight.

The report predicts the nation will regain nearly half the jobs lost during the Great Recession by the end of 2012.

The mayors used the economic report to try to prod Congress to approve legislation that would create more jobs.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, president of the Conference of Mayors, said “Congress has jumped ship” in its obligation to stimulate the economy and employment.

However, Villaraigosa acknowledged cities will have a hard time squeezing money out of Congress at a time the federal government is trying to reduce its deficit by cutting spending.

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New York, NY, United States (AHN) – If it sounds like you have heard this before you are right. Mortgage rates have fallen once again to a record low.

On Thursday, mortgage giant Freddie Mac reported the average rate on 30-year fixed mortgages fell to 3.89 percent in the current week. That is below the previous record low set three weeks ago of 3.91 percent.

The average on 15-year fixed mortgages inched down to an average 3.16 percent from a record low of 3.21 percent, also set three weeks ago.

Average fixed mortgage rates remained around 4 percent for most of 2011, but the record low rates did little to help the ailing housing market. Banks have been extremely tight with credit, few qualify for the record low rates and other don’t have the money to refinance.

And while foreclosure filings fell in 2011, the declines were attributed to procedural delays.

On a bright note, most experts agree that the worst of the housing market crisis is over.

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Plano, TX, United States (KaiserHealth) – A national hospice company improperly cycled patients through nursing homes and hospice with a goal of making as much profit as possible from Medicare, according to a whistleblower lawsuit announced this week.

Federal attorneys also sued the hospice company, AseraCare, alleging it milked Medicare’s hospice benefit by pressuring its employees to enroll people into hospice who weren’t dying and resisted discharging them despite evidence they weren’t deteriorating. One hospice patient who should have been immobile from end-stage heart disease was healthy enough to go to his granddaughter’s graduation and a berry-picking excursion with a friend, the government charges.

For years, some critics of Medicare’s hospice benefit have said that the way the government pays providers gives them financial incentives to abuse the system. The suits against AseraCare, a Fort Smith, Ark.-based hospice company operating in’ states, follow several other suits against big hospice companies but go further in their allegations that the company coordinated its use of nursing care and hospice care to maximize Medicare reimbursements.

The company is owned by Golden Living, a national company that provides skilled nursing services and other services as well as hospice. The whistleblowers contend that AseraCare first recruited patients eligible for skilled nursing care -also provided by Golden Living— for 20 days, for which Medicare pays the entire bill. After 20 days, when Medicare requires patients pick up a part of the tab, AseraCare had the nursing homes send the patients to hospice, according to the lawsuit. In hospice, AseraCare would collect a flat payment from Medicare for each day they are enrolled.

“Typically, a patient admitted into Defendant’s web of operations will be referred and re-referred until that patient has received—and Medicare has been billed for—the maximum number of days of skilled nursing care, including rehabilitative therapy … home health care, and hospice care,” says the lawsuit, brought by Dawn Richardson, an AseraCare nurse manager, and Marsha Brown, who ran several AseraCare offices in Alabama.

In written statements, AseraCare disputed the allegations and said it adhered to all Medicare rules for admitting hospice patients. “Consistent with hospice providers nationwide, AseraCare Hospice has evolved in recent years to treat more terminally ill patients with unpredictable disease progressions,” AseraCare’s president, Dr. David Friend, said in the statement. “It is simply not possible to precisely predict how patients will respond to challenging illnesses such as end-stage heart, lung and kidney disease, AIDS, and Alzheimer’s.”

AseraCare said it would “vigorously” defend itself against the whistleblower allegations. Under the False Claims Act, whistleblowers are entitled to a portion of the money the government recovers when it joins their lawsuit.

The cases were filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.

The government is joining the whistleblowers’ complaint, though its complaint didn’t include the nursing home allegations. It’s not known if that’s because prosecutors felt that part of the lawsuit wasn’t as strong as the hospice portion, or because they wanted to tailor a narrower case. However, auditors at the federal Department of Health and Human Services have been probing the business relationship of hospice and nursing homes.

“Congress intended that the hospice care benefit be used during the last several months of an individual’s life,” Daniel Levinson, inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services, said in a statement announcing the lawsuit against AseraCare. “We will continue to recover misspent Medicare funds from companies that abuse the hospice benefit.”

The government complaint accuses AseraCare of intensely pressuring employees to enroll as many hospice patients as possible, setting high targets. A regional sales director in 2007 was placed on a correction action plan in part because his region failed to admit at least 33 people each week for hospice care. In June 2006, the company offered a massage chair as a prize to the employee who “wins the game” by meeting its admission goal and being the first to admit a patient in July, according to the complaint.

An outside auditor hired by AseraCare in 2007 suggested in a report that the company’s personnel policies were affecting clinical decisions, according to the federal complaint. He said that since the company laid employees off when the number of hospice patients dwindled, workers were “resistant to patient discharge” even if the patients no longer were eligible for Medicare hospice benefits. Under Medicare rules, hospices are supposed to discharge patients if their prognosis no longer indicates that they are terminal and expected to die within six months.

The government’s complaint outlined several cases in which AseraCare allegedly kept elderly people despite evidence they weren’t dying. The patient admitted for end-stage heart disease, which usually renders people unable to walk, was able to go to the graduation and field trip even as he was kept on hospice for more than a year. When he was finally discharged, it was because he needed treatment for other medical conditions, the government alleged.

Medicare has tried to discourage hospices from enrolling long-stay patients by placing a cap on how much they can collect on average for a patient. Hospices that exceed the cap have to repay the money. The whistleblowers contend AseraCare avoided exceeding the cap — $22,386 in 2008 — by recruiting “last breath” referrals, or patients expected to die within a few days, so that the average would stay low. In its quest for new patients, AseraCare sent employees to “patrol hospitals,” ride along with “Meals-on-Wheels” and go “door-to-door” in housing run by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, according to the lawsuit brought by the whistleblowers, who are represented by Birmingham attorney, Jim Barger. In a separate suit settled in 2009, Barger won the largest settlement in a hospice care case against SouthernCare, and is also representing whistleblowers suing Vitas HealthCare.

The whistleblowers contend that large numbers of AseraCare hospice patients are discharged while alive: 48 percent of those cared for by the Monroeville, Ala., branch and 79 percent of patients enrolled in the Mobile, Ala., branch. “It is hardly plausible that such a high percentage of Defendants’ hospice enrollees would be discharged alive unless such patients were nonterminal and fraudulently enrolled from the outset,” the lawsuit charges.

jrau@kff.org

– Provided by Kaiser Health News.

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Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – U.S. residential house prices dropped by 1.2 percent in October compared with September, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller 20-city index.

In addition, S&P/Case-Shiller issued a negative outlook for housing prices.

“There was weakness in the monthly statistics, as 19 of the cities posted price declines in October over September,” said David M. Blitzer, chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Indices. “Nationally, home prices are still below where they were a year ago.”

It was the sixth consecutive month of decline. Prices were down by 3.4 percent compared to October 2010.

The only exception to price drops was in Phoenix where prices were actually up by 0.3 percent. However, the other 19 cities saw declines, with the Midwest markets and the Atlanta metro area losing the most value. There was some good news in the report for Detroit when viewed on an annual basis.

Housing values in the Atlanta metro area plunged by 5 percent in October after diving 5.9 percent in September.

“Atlanta and the Midwest are regions that really stand out in terms of recent relative weakness. Atlanta was down 5.0 percent over the month, after having fallen by 5.9 percent in September. It also has the weakest annual return, down 11.7 percent. Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit and Minneapolis all posted monthly declines of 1.0 percent or more in October. These markets were some of the strongest during the spring/summer buying season,” Blitzer said. “However, Detroit is the healthiest when viewed on an annual basis. It is up 2.5 percent versus October 2010. Atlanta, Cleveland, Detroit and Las Vegas are four markets where average prices are below their January 2000 levels; and Atlanta and Las Vegas posted new lows in October.”

Some analysts were disappointed because several other reports had indicated that housing prices might be stabilizing. That included increases in existing home sales, home building starts and record-low interest rates.

However, much of the increase in existing home sales came from lower-priced short sales or foreclosures.

Although house prices have dropped 33 percent in value since the housing bubble burst, analysts point out that demand is still weak and that housing prices have still not fully dropped from the inflated bubble-high values that caused the housing market to crash.

In addition, there are fewer buyers. Only 64 percent of working age Americans have jobs and nearly 8 million of those are involuntarily working part-time. Before the recession, 89 percent of working age Americans had a job.

Other factors prevent people from buying homes. Among them is inadequate income, damaged credit that means they cannot qualify for a mortgage, or the inability to sell an existing home.

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Vancouver, BC, Canada (AHN) – Canada will not allow Iran to establish a diplomatic consulate in Vancouver as tensions rise over Tehran’s continued push for nuclear power. Current Canadian sanctions against Iran ban direct air travel and only allows for an official embassy in Ottawa. Canada only holds official talks with Iran on a small range of topics, including human rights and nuclear proliferation.

However, Iranian-Canadians say the current policy forces them to mail vital documents to the capital in order to receive consular support. Iran does not allow for dual-citizenship and the burdeon of having to obtain travel documents and other support from Ottawa is puting pressure on businessmen and families.

“In our view, the productive and exemplary Iranian community in Canada has every right to enjoy easy and accessible consular services where they live and Canadian government is definitely in a position to show this courtesy to Iranian-Canadians,” Charge d’Affairs of Iran’s Ottawa embassy Kambiz Sheikh-Hassani told the Vancouver Sun newspaper.

Meanwhile, Iran has asked the United Nations to probe Canada’s response to an Aboriginal housing crisis, further cooling diplomatic ties. On Friday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast is pushing the U.N. to send a special rapporteur “to probe into violation of the rights of Canadian aboriginal people.”

Iran has “condemned human catastrophe in Attawapiskat” and is calling for an investigation into violations of the World Declaration of the Aboriginals’ rights.

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New York, NY, United States (AHN) – The average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage stayed near its record low for the sixth consecutive week. But, the historically low rates have done little to goose the ailing housing market.

On Thursday, mortgage giant Freddie Mac said the rate on the 30-year home loan edged down to 3.99 percent from 4 percent the previous week. It dropped to a record low of 3.94 nine weeks ago, according to data from the National Bureau of Economic Research.

The average rate on the 15-year fixed mortgage ticked down to 3.27 percent from 3.30 percent. It also hit a record low nine weeks earlier when it fell to 3.26 percent.

For all of but two weeks in 2011, rates have been below 5 percent. Yet this year may turn out to be the worst for home sales in 14 years.

The record low rates have not helped homes sales. Sales of previously owned homes are just a hair ahead on last year’s figures, which were the worst in 13 years. In addition, new homes sales appear to be headed for their worst year on records dating back 50 years.

High unemployment and tight bank lending standards have made it much harder for potential home owners to qualify for loans. Also, many Americans are reluctant to pour money into homes that could lose value over the next several years.

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Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – Some struggling homeowners who are in foreclosure proceedings are getting a gift from an unlikely source: no eviction over the holidays.

Fannie Mae (FNMA, Fortune 500), Freddie Mac (FMCC, Fortune 500) say they will not evict anyone from Dec. 19 through Jan. 2. Joining in the moratorium are Chase (JPM, Fortune 500) Mortgage and Wells Fargo (WFC, Fortune 500), which will suspend evictions from Dec. 22 to Jan. 2.

Wells Fargo says that while it will suspend evictions on properties for which it wrote mortgages, it might not do so on mortgages from other banks that it services.

Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500) did not give specific dates but said that it would avoid foreclosure sales, as well as evictions of homeowners or tenants, around the holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Terry Edwards, executive vice president of credit portfolio management for Fannie Mae, explained the rational for the moratorium in a statement.

“The holidays are meant for families to spend time together, especially if they’ve gone through the stress of financial challenges and foreclosure,” said Edwards. “No family should have to give up their home during this holiday season. Fannie Mae is committed to helping borrowers avoid foreclosure whenever possible and we encourage any homeowner who is having difficulty making their payment to reach out for help.”

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Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – A federal judge’s decision this week to block part of a tough Alabama law against illegal immigration is casting doubt on whether the law will survive a court challenge.

A judge issued a temporary restraining order against part of the law that would prevent illegal aliens from obtaining home registrations on their mobile homes.

Thousands of Hispanic people were threatening to leave the state as soon as this weekend if the judge had ruled in favor of the state law.

The law that created the uproar is Alabama’s HB 56, which prohibits “business transactions” between the state and anyone unable to provide documentation of their citizenship or legal immigration status. It also allows police to check the immigration status of anyone stopped for a traffic violation.

Section 30 of the law requires mobile home owners to prove their lawful citizenship or residency status before they can renew their mobile home tags.

“This application of Alabama’s draconian anti-immigrant law threatens to throw families into the street,” said Mary Bauer, legal director of the Southern Poverty Law Center. “It’s a flagrant violation of the Fair Housing Act and the United States Constitution.”

The temporary restraining order gives mobile home owners time to register their manufactured housing before the state’s Nov. 30 deadline.

U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson based the order on his finding that the entire HB 56 law is likely to be overturned in a lawsuit filed against it by civil rights groups.

The ruling represented the second setback in less than a week for state efforts to keep out illegal immigrants.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Justice Department filed a lawsuit to block enforcement of Utah’s tough anti-immigrant law that authorizes local police to check the immigration status of anyone stopped for traffic offenses or as suspects in crimes. The police can arrest illegal immigrants.

The Utah law is modeled on an Arizona law that the Justice Department also is trying to overturn in federal court.

“A patchwork of immigration laws is not the answer and will only create further problems in our immigration system,” U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement. “The federal government is the chief enforcer of immigration laws … it is clearly unconstitutional for a state to set its own immigration policy.”

Alabama Sen. Scott Beason and Rep. Micky Hammon, Republican co-sponsors of HB 56, said they were trying to drive illegal immigrants out of the state with HB 56. They denied it was a racist law targeted at Hispanics.

A provision in the law intended to avoid any image of racism forbids racial profiling when state officials refuse service to illegal immigrants.

“I would not have supported the bill if that language had not been there,” Hammon testified during the hearing this week on the temporary restraining order.

Other state lawmakers are having second thoughts about HB 56, even some who voted for it when it was approved in June. All but one of the state legislature’s Republicans voted for the law.

If Hispanic residents had fulfilled their threat to leave the state this weekend, they would have joined thousands of others who already left soon after the statute took effect in September.

Their exodus has caused a shortage of low-income workers for agricultural, cleaning and other jobs.

Some employers with state contracts have expressed concern they could be convicted of felonies if they inadvertently hire an illegal immigrant.

Six Alabama Republicans have suggested in the past week that the legislature revise HB 56. Even Gov. Robert Bentley, who was one of the law’s strongest supporters, told a group of business leaders this month that HB 56 is “very complicated” and needs to be simplified.

The law’s supporters suffered an embarrassment recently after an executive from German auto manufacturer Mercedes Benz was stopped for a routine traffic violation. He was visiting the company’s large plant, which has helped support the statewide economy and attracted other automakers to build in Alabama.

Because he was unable to prove his citizenship or legal residency, he was arrested until confusion over his right to be in the United States could be cleared up.

The incident helped to fuel rhetoric of civil rights groups trying to overturn HB 56 in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.

“Once again, Alabama’s anti-immigrant, anti-Latino law requires us to resort to the courts to force the state to respect the most basic of civil rights” said Justin Cox, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union Immigrants’ Rights Project. “Alabama should cut its losses now and repeal this hateful law.”

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