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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Cleveland, OH, United States (AHN Sports) – Two nights after scoring the final 12 points to secure a one-point win against Boston, Cleveland cut a 21-point deficit to two Tuesday at Quickens Loan Arena before dropping a 93-90 decision to the bewildered Celtics.

Anderson Varajao had a Herculean effort with 20 points and 20 rebounds – 10 offensive – and rookie Kyrie Irving added 21 points for the Cavaliers (8-12), who beat Boston 88-87 Sunday at TD Garden on Irving’s twisting layup with just under three seconds left.

This one also almost got away from the veteran Celtics (10-10), who got 20 points and six assists from Paul Pierce and held on for their fifth win in six games.

Kevin Garnett added 13 points, including a clutch jumper after Cleveland had pulled within two with just over a minute remaining, and Brandon Bass tallied 13 points and six rebounds off the bench.

Boston entered the fourth quarter with a 76-58 lead but a 13-2 run to start the period got the Cavs closer. A driving layup down the lane by Irving with 1:17 left got Cleveland to within 89-87, but Cleveland couldn’t score again until Irving’s 3-pointer at the buzzer.

Antawn Jamison added 12 points and Ramon Sessions had 10 assists off the bench for Cleveland, which played without injured shooting guards Daniel Gibson and Anthony Parker.

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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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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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New York, NY, United States (AHN) – Rates for U.S. 30 year mortgages dropped to the lowest level on record as the number of homeowners seeking to reduce their monthly payments soared.

The average rate for a 30-year fixed loan for the week ending Jan. 19 fell to 3.88 percent, an all time record low, and down from 3.89 percent in the prior week, according to mortgage giant Freddie Mac.

The average rate on 15-year mortgage edged up slightly, ending the current week at 3.17 percent, a hair higher than last week’s 3.16 percent.

Refinancing applications soared 26 percent in the period ending Jan. 13, the highest level since August 2011, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported. The Washington based group noted that the measure of  purchase applications rose 10 percent.

The news is very welcome for the ailing U.S. housing market which has been weighed down by an 8.5 percent unemployment rate, tight credit and foreclosures that drag down prices.

Other bright spots include the rising confidence among U.S. home builders, which increased in January to the highest level in more than four years, and signs that buyer traffic has picked up, according a report released Wednesday by the National Association of Home Builders.

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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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Ramallah, Palestinian Territory (IRIN) – Izz Tawil draws a black circle on the flip-chart in his office in Ramallah, capital of the West Bank in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt).

“The Palestinian economy is a closed cash-circle,” the general manager of the Palestinian microfinance network Sharakeh explains.

He goes on to draw several small arrows on the line, meant to indicate different elements of an isolated system: At the bottom, there is the construction worker, who gets his salary from a company contracted by the Palestinian Authority (PA), while the PA itself is kept alive through foreign aid.

“And this aid is the only fuel that keeps the circle running,” Tawil says, with a serious mien.

Humanitarian aid to oPt increased dramatically from US$863 million in 2008 to $1.3 billion in 2009. After Sudan, oPt was the second largest recipient of aid in the world in 2010. Economists and businessmen warn that the PA’s dependency on aid and vulnerability to external shocks could lead the entire West Bank economy to collapse, provoking a humanitarian crisis. Among the most vulnerable are the owners of small businesses and all those who depend on foreign aid channeled through the PA.

Tawil is among a number of people in the West Bank with suggestions for a better way forward.

Coping with aid cuts

Shortly after the 2006 elections which brought militant group Hamas to power in oPt’s Gaza Strip, donors cut off more than $1 billion in aid to the PA as a means of boycotting Hamas. Since then, the West Bank economy has trembled over and over – despite a resumption of aid transfers to the PA in December 2007.

The year 2011 was an especially troublesome year for the PA’s budget, which was hit by delayed payments from Arab countries, temporary aid cuts of $200 million by the U.S. Congress, and a temporary freeze on Israel’s monthly transfer of $100 million in tax funds to the PA. Though both Israel and the US later resumed payments, Israeli officials made clear that they would freeze funds again should Fatah, the dominant political party in the West Bank, form a unity government with Hamas.

The threats raised fears of a crisis scenario similar to 2006, when the PA’s budget slid from $180 million to $55 million a month, amid running debts of $1.7 billion. The crisis left government employees, who have a relatively high spending power, without salaries. Banks imposed a more restrictive borrowing policy on businesses; and the unsafe environment made foreign investment appear risky and less attractive.

As withholding aid has become a way to punish the Palestinians for unwanted political maneuvering, the PA is now seeking more financial independence. 2013 is supposed to be the last year “in which the PA will need any external financing to help with recurrent expenditures,” Prime Minister Salam Fayyad announced in a 2011 interview with the Associated Press.

But it will not be easy, given such aid amounted to about $1.5 billion of the PA’s $3.7 billion budget in 2011. The remaining sources of income were about $105 million in monthly tax refunds from Israel, and much smaller domestic tax revenues.

The dangers of credit

At first glance, the Ramallah-centered West Bank economy seems solid. Many new neighborhoods are being built around the city and expensive cars are not uncommon. The West Bank economy grew by 7.6 percent (GDP) in 2010, according to the World Bank.

But much of what may have seemed like a boom in Ramallah is veneer.

The economy grew by only 4 percent in the first half of 2011, according to the Bank, and unemployment remained at about 16 percent. According to one employee at a Ramallah branch of the Arab Bank, everything is bought on credit – “even wedding dresses… $300 is enough for a loan of 10,000″.

With a total of $1.09 million in debts, the PA – including its public institutions and employees – is the biggest of all Palestinian debtors, representing 40 percent of what is owed to Palestinian banks, according to Shirin al-Ahmad, a division chief at the Palestinian Monetary Authority (PMA).

“A political shock like that of 2006,” al-Ahmad added, “would mean that these 40 percent become a risk factor for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, because no money from the PA means no salaries, and no salaries means that people can’t pay back their loans, or need to take out new ones.”

Even more vulnerable than PA-employees are those with no regular income at all. Without steady work, they are not eligible for loans from any of the 18 banks that operate in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. This is why 43,100 Palestinians need to borrow from one of Sharakeh’s 11 microfinance institutions, with a total credit portfolio of $74.6 million, of which $54.7 million can be attributed to clients in the West Bank.

Building an independent economy

“Most of our clients want to run a small business. They are the backbone of the West Bank economy,” said Tawil, the general manager of Sharakeh. “If the cash injections from foreign aid delay PA employees’ salaries, small businesses like groceries are the first that feel the results.”

Mazen Khayyat, owner of a clothing shop in the center of Ramallah, told IRIN his business was hard hit by the cuts in aid in 2006.

“My debts rose in 2006 from almost nothing to 27,000 New Israeli Shekel [NIS - $7,013]. At the end of 2011, my debts reached 39,500 NIS [$10,260]. In 2006 alone, my profit decreased by 17 percent compared to the year before. All this was because people generally look for cheaper products when the economy is weak. And because most of my clients are government employees or their families, the problem was especially severe in 2006. When their salary comes late, they buy only the most necessary.”

Tawil hopes that by lending to people with no steady income, micro-credit institutions can help build a more independent economy from the bottom up. He suggested the PA support these businesses by giving them tax exemptions. He also recommended university graduates be given more incentives to open a business.

“No one takes the risk involved in business in this unsafe environment,” he said, “because a regular income, financial safety and a loan have become core values for young people.”

His call for less aid is shared by leading Palestinian entrepreneurs, such as Bashar Masri, who is leading the construction of the new West Bank city of Rawabi for 40,000 future residents between Ramallah and Nablus.

Some foreign companies have refrained from investment in the West Bank because of the recurrent danger of violent conflict, the political unpredictability and the many restrictions on trade, mobility and access, imposed by Israel.

The World Bank has identified these restrictions as the main obstacle to private sector growth in oPt. So-called Investment Guarantee Funds had provided insurance for some investors against risks resulting from war and conflict in the past, but their reach is limited. Businessmen argue independence from aid would make the arena more attractive.

“Although cutting aid might hurt in the beginning, more businesses also bring more tax revenues for the PA,” Masri said, adding that “sometimes it has to get worse, before it can get better.”

Despite the many obstacles, some private equity funds recently started investing in the West Bank, Masri explained, adding that one of them, a British fund called Blakeney, invested around $100 million in local projects. “Foreign funds [are showing] more and more interest,” he said.

“Private sector could collapse”

Rawabi’s budget of $800 million is entirely financed by a fund from Qatar, providing independence from the PA and from foreign aid – something most private sector projects in the West Bank lack.

Take for instance the 750 local construction companies represented by the Palestinian Contractors Union (PCU).

“Many projects contracted by the PA got their money far too late and had to take out expensive loans,” PCU-chairman Adel Odah explained. “This way at least 30 companies went bankrupt in the last two years. Much profit is lost by paying interest rates to banks. If the PA goes bankrupt, the entire private sector could collapse,” he warned.

Replacing aid

The PA is well aware of the risks: “The PA is teetering at the edge of collapse at any point of time,” Prime Minister Fayyad said at the beginning of December, and began curbing its dependency on aid three years ago, according to Ghassan Khatib, a senior PA official.

Between 2008 and 2011, the PA brought down the deficit covered by donors from $1.8 billion to about 1 billion, he said, adding that this trend would continue, “hopefully until the PA needs no more aid”.

Fayyad said the PA’s operational costs should become independent of aid by 2013.

The question is how.

“On the one hand, we will replace aid by raising taxes and collecting them more effectively. On the other, we will reduce expenditures,” Khatib explained. Some saving measures, such as restricting PA employees’ use of their government sponsored cars outside working hours, have already been taken.

Khatib said the need for external support would decrease this year, but noted the PA had no control over Israel’s behavior.

“But their withholding of our tax money will not keep us from pursuing national unity with Hamas,” he added.

ah/ha/cb

– Provided by Integrated Regional Information Networks.

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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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London, England, United Kingdom (AHN Sports) – Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger is excited over Thierry Henry’s return on a two-month loan from the New York Red Bulls.

“I have done this for footballing reasons because I need a striker for two months and I don’t have one at the moment,” Wenger said, according to The Guardian. “Thierry’s value is on the pitch. I felt that at the World Cup [last year], when he came on for France against South Africa, he gave something to the team. He has something. He knows where to be. He knows how to give a problem to the opponent. You never lose that.”

Arsenal’s Marouane Chamakh and Gervinho are headed to the Africa Cup of Nations to compete, part of the reason for his interest in Henry.

“He has the quality and capacity to help us out. You do not find players on the planet of this quality who are available for two months. Was there a moment in training when I realised he could still do it? Yes, the first day. There are no risks.,” he said according to The Guardian.

“I met Thierry when he was 17 years old [at Monaco] and I had him here at 22 so I know every movement that he can make. He is a super-intelligent guy and he is a special talent.”

Wenger likes that Henry plays several positions, providing a spark in the lineup even if he has lost a step at 34-years-old.

Henry could play at Fulham on Monday and may start against Leeds United in an upcoming tilt at Emirates Stadium.

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