pappu
08-05 08:41 PM
Can someone note the
- Best funny post on this thread
- Best post of the thread
- Worse post of the thread
for the 3 awards and I will go through just those 3 posts and close the thread. :D
I will open the thread once Rollling_flood files the lawsuit:D.
What do you say?
- Best funny post on this thread
- Best post of the thread
- Worse post of the thread
for the 3 awards and I will go through just those 3 posts and close the thread. :D
I will open the thread once Rollling_flood files the lawsuit:D.
What do you say?
wallpaper Makeup Idea: Cat Eyes
unitednations
08-02 06:58 PM
this is interesting: If I invoke AC21, and get a letter from a new employer, they can still ask me for a letter from old employer saying they intended to hire me?? The fact that they submitted a future employment letter with my 485 and did not revoke the approved I-140 for 6 months not enough to prove that the intent remained at the end of 6 months?
Did the USCIS officer suspect fraud or something? Is there a specific legal basis for this denial? I thought past 6 months there is no dependency on that old employer (future-employment or otherwise) and all depends on your new employer and his employment letter.
People always read what they want to read.
Read the memo and they always mention "intent", "good faith".
USCIS always leaves significant wiggle room for themselves when they want to deny cases.
Did the USCIS officer suspect fraud or something? Is there a specific legal basis for this denial? I thought past 6 months there is no dependency on that old employer (future-employment or otherwise) and all depends on your new employer and his employment letter.
People always read what they want to read.
Read the memo and they always mention "intent", "good faith".
USCIS always leaves significant wiggle room for themselves when they want to deny cases.
gc_in_30_yrs
01-29 09:48 PM
Here is a link to a Video report from CNN's program Lou Dobbs tonight regarding USCIS incorrect approval of H1-B petitions beyond the 65,000 yearly limit.
(http://www.forthecause.us/ftc-video-CNN-VisaCapsIgnored_070126.wmv)
http://www.forthecause.us/ftc-video-CNN-VisaCapsIgnored_070126.wmv
i think these numbers include H1B transfers from one company to other, and H1B extensions beyond first 3 years term or the further extentions based on labor pending, I-140 cleared etc. etc.
This guy looks genuine in what he believes, but he is missing the important piece of information. American people are not dumb as they look, they have little brians to understand. USCIS obviously can not approve more than 85K of applications.
Ofcourse even though it is said Visas Issued (i.e., permanent residence) but in the video they were showing H1B applications :)
in any case, we should ignore this guy as a whole.
Next thing, we should never spend lots of time or create any further threads. It gives them courage if we spend time on their issues.
(http://www.forthecause.us/ftc-video-CNN-VisaCapsIgnored_070126.wmv)
http://www.forthecause.us/ftc-video-CNN-VisaCapsIgnored_070126.wmv
i think these numbers include H1B transfers from one company to other, and H1B extensions beyond first 3 years term or the further extentions based on labor pending, I-140 cleared etc. etc.
This guy looks genuine in what he believes, but he is missing the important piece of information. American people are not dumb as they look, they have little brians to understand. USCIS obviously can not approve more than 85K of applications.
Ofcourse even though it is said Visas Issued (i.e., permanent residence) but in the video they were showing H1B applications :)
in any case, we should ignore this guy as a whole.
Next thing, we should never spend lots of time or create any further threads. It gives them courage if we spend time on their issues.
2011 apply arabic eye makeup
sledge_hammer
06-23 12:38 PM
I don't believe the housing market slump will last more than 3 years!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Echo boomers a lifeline for embattled U.S. housing | Reuters (http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSTRE55L0AO20090622)
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The children of baby boomers will eventually resuscitate the pummeled U.S. housing market, Harvard University said on Monday, but in the meantime, limits on income and credit are sustaining the three-year bust.
The highest unemployment in almost 26 years, record foreclosures and rigid lending threaten to overcome emerging home sales progress despite unprecedented efforts by the Obama administration, Harvard's State of the Nation's Housing 2009 report said.
Echo boomers, the children of the post-World War Two baby boomer generation, offer a massive source of support for housing, the study said. The generation is entering the peak home buying and renting ages of 25 to 44 and numbers over five million people more than did their parents' record-sized group in the 1970s.
"Echo boomers are larger than the baby boomer population. Couple that with immigration and you have the seeds, the possibility of a housing recovery," Nicolas Retsinas, director of Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies, said in an interview.
The group will bolster demand for the next 10 years and beyond, supporting the sagging housing market even if immigration drops, the study said.
The challenges are myriad, however, said Retsinas, a widely followed housing industry expert and former senior official in the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
"We have to find a way to stabilize housing finance in this country," he said.
A healthy housing market is integral to a growing economy. In the current cycle, the housing crash has propelled the economy into its longest recession since the Great Depression. Jobs lost to the recession have derailed any housing recovery.
"Seedlings of the housing recovery have to come through this thicket of job losses and foreclosures," Retsinas said. "The housing market has not seen these challenges for over 60 years."
Mortgage rates have risen from all-time lows in the past two months despite massive government steps to keep them down.
Foreclosures escalate as federal efforts to keep borrowers in their houses cannot keep pace with loan failures caused by job losses or punishing home price erosion.
THIN SILVER LININGS
Home sales have started to pick up, thanks mostly to a first-time buyer tax credit this year of up to $8,000 and demand for foreclosure properties at bargain-basement prices.
"While we do see some signs of stabilization, you can barely see those silver linings," Retsinas said.
The lending pendulum swung vastly after the unsustainable five-year record home price surge early this decade. Lenders clamped down after lax conditions spawned record home sales and then fueled the torrent of foreclosures.
Now, more than 85 percent of mortgage loans are created through the government and its agencies. Private lending companies either shut down or slammed on the credit brakes to prevent a repeat of major losses on flawed loans.
What happens to mortgage availability currently rests in the hands of the federal government, the report said.
But Retsinas noted: "Eventually you want a sustainable credit system, and that has to include private capital."
The share of minority households, hurt most in the housing crisis, will rise to 35 percent in 2020 from 29 percent in 2005, the study projected. Those households typically have lower average incomes and wealth, and higher unemployment.
In Cleveland, Boston and Washington, DC, price declines at the low end of the market through December were more than twice those at the high end in percentage terms, while in San Francisco they were nearly three times greater.
Real median household incomes in all age groups under 55 have not risen since 2000, the Harvard study said. For the first time in at least 40 years, there is a chance that median household income will end the decade lower than where it started.
The severity of the recession could hold incomes down for years.
"The number of households that were severely cost-burdened -- people paying over 50 percent of their income for housing -- has grown dramatically," Retsinas said. The number spiked by 30 percent to 17.9 million between 2001 and 2007, the most recent data available.
"The reality is that it's not just the cost of a house, but it's how much you make," he said. "Of course as people struggle with their jobs, as they lose that second job, they lose that overtime, their income drops make it more difficult to pay."
Echo boomers will expand the number of needed housing units. But they also likely will enter the housing market with lower real incomes than people the same age did a decade ago, the study said.
"While fundamentally we see what could be the foundation for long-term recovery, we still have to get through today's challenges," said Retsinas.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Echo boomers a lifeline for embattled U.S. housing | Reuters (http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSTRE55L0AO20090622)
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The children of baby boomers will eventually resuscitate the pummeled U.S. housing market, Harvard University said on Monday, but in the meantime, limits on income and credit are sustaining the three-year bust.
The highest unemployment in almost 26 years, record foreclosures and rigid lending threaten to overcome emerging home sales progress despite unprecedented efforts by the Obama administration, Harvard's State of the Nation's Housing 2009 report said.
Echo boomers, the children of the post-World War Two baby boomer generation, offer a massive source of support for housing, the study said. The generation is entering the peak home buying and renting ages of 25 to 44 and numbers over five million people more than did their parents' record-sized group in the 1970s.
"Echo boomers are larger than the baby boomer population. Couple that with immigration and you have the seeds, the possibility of a housing recovery," Nicolas Retsinas, director of Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies, said in an interview.
The group will bolster demand for the next 10 years and beyond, supporting the sagging housing market even if immigration drops, the study said.
The challenges are myriad, however, said Retsinas, a widely followed housing industry expert and former senior official in the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
"We have to find a way to stabilize housing finance in this country," he said.
A healthy housing market is integral to a growing economy. In the current cycle, the housing crash has propelled the economy into its longest recession since the Great Depression. Jobs lost to the recession have derailed any housing recovery.
"Seedlings of the housing recovery have to come through this thicket of job losses and foreclosures," Retsinas said. "The housing market has not seen these challenges for over 60 years."
Mortgage rates have risen from all-time lows in the past two months despite massive government steps to keep them down.
Foreclosures escalate as federal efforts to keep borrowers in their houses cannot keep pace with loan failures caused by job losses or punishing home price erosion.
THIN SILVER LININGS
Home sales have started to pick up, thanks mostly to a first-time buyer tax credit this year of up to $8,000 and demand for foreclosure properties at bargain-basement prices.
"While we do see some signs of stabilization, you can barely see those silver linings," Retsinas said.
The lending pendulum swung vastly after the unsustainable five-year record home price surge early this decade. Lenders clamped down after lax conditions spawned record home sales and then fueled the torrent of foreclosures.
Now, more than 85 percent of mortgage loans are created through the government and its agencies. Private lending companies either shut down or slammed on the credit brakes to prevent a repeat of major losses on flawed loans.
What happens to mortgage availability currently rests in the hands of the federal government, the report said.
But Retsinas noted: "Eventually you want a sustainable credit system, and that has to include private capital."
The share of minority households, hurt most in the housing crisis, will rise to 35 percent in 2020 from 29 percent in 2005, the study projected. Those households typically have lower average incomes and wealth, and higher unemployment.
In Cleveland, Boston and Washington, DC, price declines at the low end of the market through December were more than twice those at the high end in percentage terms, while in San Francisco they were nearly three times greater.
Real median household incomes in all age groups under 55 have not risen since 2000, the Harvard study said. For the first time in at least 40 years, there is a chance that median household income will end the decade lower than where it started.
The severity of the recession could hold incomes down for years.
"The number of households that were severely cost-burdened -- people paying over 50 percent of their income for housing -- has grown dramatically," Retsinas said. The number spiked by 30 percent to 17.9 million between 2001 and 2007, the most recent data available.
"The reality is that it's not just the cost of a house, but it's how much you make," he said. "Of course as people struggle with their jobs, as they lose that second job, they lose that overtime, their income drops make it more difficult to pay."
Echo boomers will expand the number of needed housing units. But they also likely will enter the housing market with lower real incomes than people the same age did a decade ago, the study said.
"While fundamentally we see what could be the foundation for long-term recovery, we still have to get through today's challenges," said Retsinas.
more...
unitednations
03-24 11:45 AM
Its a problem when we dont speak out on our issues - nobody understands our pain
Its a problem when we speak out on our issues - USCIS is offended that we have issues and wants to come hard on us.
What do we do? I am fine with USCIS rejecting or approving my application but reject it or approve it without putting me on hold for 10 years. Is that too much to ask?
It is the resume fakers and document fakers and the rule breakers who should be afraid of reaching out to people. The reason why we are in the mess is because of the greedy employers and ignorant and equally greedy employees. Corporate Greed brought America down.
Do you guys look around at all of immigration.
EB people are generally the only non immigrant to immigratn class of people who are allowed to stay in USA while they wait for greencard.
Almost all others have to wait outside USA for many years and cannot take benefit of what this country has to offer.
You could be a phillipino brother/sister of US citizen and wait 23 years to get your number called.
You could be here from Liberia as temporary resident for the last 20 years and have to keep getting extensions for temporary status and one day it gets taken away from you.
Sorry to tell you but the way you guys define pain is not pain when it comes to most immigration matters when compares overall.
Its a problem when we speak out on our issues - USCIS is offended that we have issues and wants to come hard on us.
What do we do? I am fine with USCIS rejecting or approving my application but reject it or approve it without putting me on hold for 10 years. Is that too much to ask?
It is the resume fakers and document fakers and the rule breakers who should be afraid of reaching out to people. The reason why we are in the mess is because of the greedy employers and ignorant and equally greedy employees. Corporate Greed brought America down.
Do you guys look around at all of immigration.
EB people are generally the only non immigrant to immigratn class of people who are allowed to stay in USA while they wait for greencard.
Almost all others have to wait outside USA for many years and cannot take benefit of what this country has to offer.
You could be a phillipino brother/sister of US citizen and wait 23 years to get your number called.
You could be here from Liberia as temporary resident for the last 20 years and have to keep getting extensions for temporary status and one day it gets taken away from you.
Sorry to tell you but the way you guys define pain is not pain when it comes to most immigration matters when compares overall.
gotgc?
12-17 10:46 PM
It is true that 99.99% of Muslims are not terrorists. But 99.99% of World's hardcore terrorists are Muslims.
It is very true..and it is fact...why is that all terrorists are muslims...something is wrong ...muslims need to come forward....
It is very true..and it is fact...why is that all terrorists are muslims...something is wrong ...muslims need to come forward....
more...
senthil1
12-17 02:27 PM
It is true that 99.99% of Muslims are not terrorists. But 99.99% of World's hardcore terrorists are Muslims.
What has this to do with immigration ??? Does Antulay support EB2/EB3 reforms ? Do he mention anything about wasted visa numbers.
This is not a place to post/preach religious, spiritual believes unless it gets you the Green Card. If many Indians visit this forum, it does not become hosting agent for your thoughts. Now don't waste your time and server hard disk space posting something back on this thread.
What has this to do with immigration ??? Does Antulay support EB2/EB3 reforms ? Do he mention anything about wasted visa numbers.
This is not a place to post/preach religious, spiritual believes unless it gets you the Green Card. If many Indians visit this forum, it does not become hosting agent for your thoughts. Now don't waste your time and server hard disk space posting something back on this thread.
2010 A properly performed cat eye
damialok
03-28 01:18 PM
Thanks for explaining the terms. You can go over 80% on the first loan but the lender will ask for PMI (Private Mortgage Insurance). Which is around 1% of the loan. To skirt around it, mortgage brokers break up the loan into first and second(80%+10%+10% down). This avoids the PMI and helps the buyer qualify for a bigger loan/house. Also PMI premiums are not tax-deductible.
more...
jkays94
05-24 01:48 PM
http://www.observer.com/20060529/20060529_Jason_Horowitz_pageone_newsstory1.asp
He cautioned against ghettoizing immigrants, which he noted has brought about disastrous results in France, and criticized elements in his own party as �nativist� before lambasting the punditry of Rush Limbaugh, Lou Dobbs and Michael Savage for helping to �fuel the problem,� according to two of the sources.
He cautioned against ghettoizing immigrants, which he noted has brought about disastrous results in France, and criticized elements in his own party as �nativist� before lambasting the punditry of Rush Limbaugh, Lou Dobbs and Michael Savage for helping to �fuel the problem,� according to two of the sources.
hair eye makeup cat. makeup Cat Eye
Macaca
12-27 07:31 PM
'A Hole to Bury You'
A first-hand account of how China's police treats the citizens it's supposed to serve and protect. (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203731004576045152244293970.html)
By TENG BIAO | Wall Street Journal
On Dec. 23, the United Nations International Convention for the Protection of All Persons From Forced Disappearance came into force. China has declined to accede to this convention. My experience that same day is just one of many examples of how the authorities continue to falsely imprison Chinese citizens.
That evening, I was in the Xizhimen area of Beijing chatting with my colleagues Piao Xiang, Xu Zhiyong and Zhang Yongpan. Ms. Piao had been disappeared after she and I went to Dandong on Oct. 7 to argue the court case of Leng Guoquan, a man framed by the police for drug trafficking; she had only been released on Dec. 20. Her abductors had been officers from the state security squad of the Public Security Bureau. I asked her to narrate the entire process of her disappearance in detail.
Later, I suggested to Mr. Zhang, "Let's go and see Fan Yafeng's mom." The day before, we had contacted fellow human rights lawyer Fan Yafeng and found out that he was under strict house arrest. But he had said that his mother was going to be alone at home in the evening and so I thought we should go see her.
Because I used to go there frequently I remembered clearly where she lived. As Mr. Zhang and I entered the block of flats and started walking up the staircase, I had a feeling that someone was following us. Observing that we went to the third floor, a young security guard asked us whom we were visiting. We said, "We're seeing a friend." Immediately, he called out for someone else to come up.
We knocked on the door and were greeted by Mr. Fan's mother. But as we entered the flat, the security guard came with us, and a person in plainclothes stormed in just behind him. The man in plainclothes demanded to check our IDs in a very coarse manner. I asked him in a loud voice, "What sort of people are you? How can you enter a private residence without permission?"
The plainclothes man said, "I am a police officer. We want to check your ID cards." "You're a police officer? I want to see your police ID." "If I am telling you I'm a police officer, then that's what I am. What are you doing here?" "Is that your business? How can you prove you're a police officer if you don't show your police ID card?"
The situation was escalating. I ducked my head and used my phone to send out a message on Twitter, and Mr. Zhang made a phone call to a friend. It was then about half past eight. The plainclothes guy made a phone call asking for reinforcement. Later I learned that at that moment our own reinforcements were mobilizing.
Two police officers showed up. One of them showed us his police ID. I asked Mr. Zhang to note down his police ID number and name, Shi Ligang, and pass it on to our Twitter friends. Then they wanted to check our IDs. I said, "According to Article 15 of the National Identity Card Law you have no right to check them in the present situation."
He said, "We are conducting an investigation in accordance with the People's Police Law." I said, "You can only question people who are suspected of having broken a law. We've just come to a friend's home for a visit, so you have no right to question us."
We quarreled for some time, and that state security squad officer in plainclothes kept making phone calls asking for more people to come over. The situation was getting worse, so I sent another Twitter message.
I talked to Mr. Fan's mother and the older state security squad officer told her not to speak to me. I got angry. "You're not even disclosing your identity, do you think you can enter other people's flat as you please and order the flat-owner about�not to mention that that's illegal, it lacks every human feeling!"
"You should think more clearly. Don't talk so much about the law with me. Do you know where we are? We are on Communist Party territory!"
The state security squad officer later tried to beat me. I warned him, "As you haven't shown me any documentation, you don't even have the right to seek a conversation with me. Don't push me." Then he said, "Don't you know what place you are in? This is China! Now you've come here, don't think you can leave again!"
After about 15 minutes, a large contingent of police officers arrived. I was in the washroom at the time. I could hear the police dragging Mr. Zhang forcefully downstairs. The plainclothes man banged madly at the door of the washroom, cracking a hole into the thin wooden panel of the door. I said, "I just want to use the washroom!" He said, "You're not allowed to," and kept banging against the door. He inserted his hand through the hole he had made, and undid the latch. Several police officers dragged me out. The state security squad officer took away my glasses. I am severely near-sighted, and as a result I was quite unable to see clearly. Later, I wasn't even able to read a police officer's ID number.
I protested loudly against this treatment. A whole group of police officers pushed, shoved, pulled and dragged me down the stairs and into a police van. Mr. Zhang's glasses and mobile phone had also been taken away. As we were dragged away we were also beaten. My hand had been grabbed so violently that it was injured in a few places. A police officer wanted to take away my mobile phone, I resisted with all my force and he eventually desisted.
When we arrived at the Shuangyushu police station, I said, "You have no right to take us into a police station. You can't be ignorant of the provision of Article 9 of the Police Law!"
"Want to tell us what it says?"
"'In the following four sets of circumstances, the police may take citizens to a public security bureau for questioning: (1) if the person has been accused of having committed a crime, (2) if a person has been discovered at the suspected scene of a crime, (3) if a person is suspected of a crime and if their identity is not clear, (4) if a person carries goods with them that may have been stolen." And if you want to check a person's ID card, you can only do that in the following cases: (1) suspicion of illegal behavior, (2) control of a site, (3) sudden incidents severely endangering the social order, or (4) other situations stipulated in the law - and such a law stipulating other situations must have been passed by the National People's Congress or its Standing Committee." I knew this stuff inside out.
"But you are a person 'whose identity is unclear.'"
"But according to the law, persons whose identity is unclear can only be checked if they are 'suspected of having committed a crime.' I don't belong in that category." Since there are more and more activists nowadays who are familiar with these two legal provisions and use them to challenge the police, I've been told by police officers that they hate the very bones of the legislators who created them.
Mr. Zhang and I were taken to two different rooms on the second floor of the police station. A gang of police officers again came to wrestle my mobile phone from me; and there was another scuffle. All the things inside my pocket were taken out. I protested. Seven or eight police officers loudly insulted me. Two or three were swearing especially viciously, using mafia slang words to curse me.
A police officer shouted at me to sit; I pushed the chair over with my foot. Several officers rushed forward and twisted my arms, punched my head and choked me, and pushed me to the ground. They took me to another room. In the corridor I cried out, "I am a law teacher, I know whether or not you are violating the law." I said this primarily to make them understand that they were dealing with someone who knew the law, to make them refrain from acting rashly and inflicting too much pain�and it was also meant for the ears of Mr. Zhang and the officers who were interrogating him.
Several police officers pushed me into a corner and one guy came up and fiercely dragged at my tie until he finally managed to pull it off, and threw it to the floor. The police officers pointed at my nose and coarsely swore at me again, and again they cried, "Do you know where you are? If we beat you, what can you do?"
After a while, a police officer came in and said that we had been detained because we had gone to Fan Yafeng's home. One officer, who I heard addressed as Xu Ping, went from merely loudly interrogating to roaring accusations at me: "O ho, that's how it is! In that case, you belong to the enemy! F- your mother, you went to see Fan Yafeng! That c-! In that case we don't have to talk about legal constraints at all! And you motherf- won't get out of here again! You traitors, you dogs! Counter-revolutionaries! The Communist Party feeds you and pays you and you still don't acknowledge how good it is! You keep insulting the Party!� We will treat you just like an enemy!"
I was very curious. "How do you treat your enemies?"
"Like Falun Gong!"
"And how do you treat Falun Gong?"
"You'll find out by and by."
I felt a pang of horror.
A first-hand account of how China's police treats the citizens it's supposed to serve and protect. (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203731004576045152244293970.html)
By TENG BIAO | Wall Street Journal
On Dec. 23, the United Nations International Convention for the Protection of All Persons From Forced Disappearance came into force. China has declined to accede to this convention. My experience that same day is just one of many examples of how the authorities continue to falsely imprison Chinese citizens.
That evening, I was in the Xizhimen area of Beijing chatting with my colleagues Piao Xiang, Xu Zhiyong and Zhang Yongpan. Ms. Piao had been disappeared after she and I went to Dandong on Oct. 7 to argue the court case of Leng Guoquan, a man framed by the police for drug trafficking; she had only been released on Dec. 20. Her abductors had been officers from the state security squad of the Public Security Bureau. I asked her to narrate the entire process of her disappearance in detail.
Later, I suggested to Mr. Zhang, "Let's go and see Fan Yafeng's mom." The day before, we had contacted fellow human rights lawyer Fan Yafeng and found out that he was under strict house arrest. But he had said that his mother was going to be alone at home in the evening and so I thought we should go see her.
Because I used to go there frequently I remembered clearly where she lived. As Mr. Zhang and I entered the block of flats and started walking up the staircase, I had a feeling that someone was following us. Observing that we went to the third floor, a young security guard asked us whom we were visiting. We said, "We're seeing a friend." Immediately, he called out for someone else to come up.
We knocked on the door and were greeted by Mr. Fan's mother. But as we entered the flat, the security guard came with us, and a person in plainclothes stormed in just behind him. The man in plainclothes demanded to check our IDs in a very coarse manner. I asked him in a loud voice, "What sort of people are you? How can you enter a private residence without permission?"
The plainclothes man said, "I am a police officer. We want to check your ID cards." "You're a police officer? I want to see your police ID." "If I am telling you I'm a police officer, then that's what I am. What are you doing here?" "Is that your business? How can you prove you're a police officer if you don't show your police ID card?"
The situation was escalating. I ducked my head and used my phone to send out a message on Twitter, and Mr. Zhang made a phone call to a friend. It was then about half past eight. The plainclothes guy made a phone call asking for reinforcement. Later I learned that at that moment our own reinforcements were mobilizing.
Two police officers showed up. One of them showed us his police ID. I asked Mr. Zhang to note down his police ID number and name, Shi Ligang, and pass it on to our Twitter friends. Then they wanted to check our IDs. I said, "According to Article 15 of the National Identity Card Law you have no right to check them in the present situation."
He said, "We are conducting an investigation in accordance with the People's Police Law." I said, "You can only question people who are suspected of having broken a law. We've just come to a friend's home for a visit, so you have no right to question us."
We quarreled for some time, and that state security squad officer in plainclothes kept making phone calls asking for more people to come over. The situation was getting worse, so I sent another Twitter message.
I talked to Mr. Fan's mother and the older state security squad officer told her not to speak to me. I got angry. "You're not even disclosing your identity, do you think you can enter other people's flat as you please and order the flat-owner about�not to mention that that's illegal, it lacks every human feeling!"
"You should think more clearly. Don't talk so much about the law with me. Do you know where we are? We are on Communist Party territory!"
The state security squad officer later tried to beat me. I warned him, "As you haven't shown me any documentation, you don't even have the right to seek a conversation with me. Don't push me." Then he said, "Don't you know what place you are in? This is China! Now you've come here, don't think you can leave again!"
After about 15 minutes, a large contingent of police officers arrived. I was in the washroom at the time. I could hear the police dragging Mr. Zhang forcefully downstairs. The plainclothes man banged madly at the door of the washroom, cracking a hole into the thin wooden panel of the door. I said, "I just want to use the washroom!" He said, "You're not allowed to," and kept banging against the door. He inserted his hand through the hole he had made, and undid the latch. Several police officers dragged me out. The state security squad officer took away my glasses. I am severely near-sighted, and as a result I was quite unable to see clearly. Later, I wasn't even able to read a police officer's ID number.
I protested loudly against this treatment. A whole group of police officers pushed, shoved, pulled and dragged me down the stairs and into a police van. Mr. Zhang's glasses and mobile phone had also been taken away. As we were dragged away we were also beaten. My hand had been grabbed so violently that it was injured in a few places. A police officer wanted to take away my mobile phone, I resisted with all my force and he eventually desisted.
When we arrived at the Shuangyushu police station, I said, "You have no right to take us into a police station. You can't be ignorant of the provision of Article 9 of the Police Law!"
"Want to tell us what it says?"
"'In the following four sets of circumstances, the police may take citizens to a public security bureau for questioning: (1) if the person has been accused of having committed a crime, (2) if a person has been discovered at the suspected scene of a crime, (3) if a person is suspected of a crime and if their identity is not clear, (4) if a person carries goods with them that may have been stolen." And if you want to check a person's ID card, you can only do that in the following cases: (1) suspicion of illegal behavior, (2) control of a site, (3) sudden incidents severely endangering the social order, or (4) other situations stipulated in the law - and such a law stipulating other situations must have been passed by the National People's Congress or its Standing Committee." I knew this stuff inside out.
"But you are a person 'whose identity is unclear.'"
"But according to the law, persons whose identity is unclear can only be checked if they are 'suspected of having committed a crime.' I don't belong in that category." Since there are more and more activists nowadays who are familiar with these two legal provisions and use them to challenge the police, I've been told by police officers that they hate the very bones of the legislators who created them.
Mr. Zhang and I were taken to two different rooms on the second floor of the police station. A gang of police officers again came to wrestle my mobile phone from me; and there was another scuffle. All the things inside my pocket were taken out. I protested. Seven or eight police officers loudly insulted me. Two or three were swearing especially viciously, using mafia slang words to curse me.
A police officer shouted at me to sit; I pushed the chair over with my foot. Several officers rushed forward and twisted my arms, punched my head and choked me, and pushed me to the ground. They took me to another room. In the corridor I cried out, "I am a law teacher, I know whether or not you are violating the law." I said this primarily to make them understand that they were dealing with someone who knew the law, to make them refrain from acting rashly and inflicting too much pain�and it was also meant for the ears of Mr. Zhang and the officers who were interrogating him.
Several police officers pushed me into a corner and one guy came up and fiercely dragged at my tie until he finally managed to pull it off, and threw it to the floor. The police officers pointed at my nose and coarsely swore at me again, and again they cried, "Do you know where you are? If we beat you, what can you do?"
After a while, a police officer came in and said that we had been detained because we had gone to Fan Yafeng's home. One officer, who I heard addressed as Xu Ping, went from merely loudly interrogating to roaring accusations at me: "O ho, that's how it is! In that case, you belong to the enemy! F- your mother, you went to see Fan Yafeng! That c-! In that case we don't have to talk about legal constraints at all! And you motherf- won't get out of here again! You traitors, you dogs! Counter-revolutionaries! The Communist Party feeds you and pays you and you still don't acknowledge how good it is! You keep insulting the Party!� We will treat you just like an enemy!"
I was very curious. "How do you treat your enemies?"
"Like Falun Gong!"
"And how do you treat Falun Gong?"
"You'll find out by and by."
I felt a pang of horror.
more...
boreal
09-27 12:31 PM
Obama might be the only person who is still sane and might want to end the war, save the country 10b per month. This might have its own positive effects as there would be more money to spend on economic development in the US, which in turn might mean slowly improving economy and better jobs. All of these might translate into optimism in the country and lesser opposition to EB immigrants in general. Agreed that Durbin might try to derail the EB process by the introduction of new skills based program and what not...but highly doubt that it would be applicable retro-actively and affect ppl already in the queue. And for new EB applicants, they would know what they are getting into, if such a points based system is introduced, and hell, might work for quite a few of the new EB applicants...
Mccain, on the other hand, seems to so over-confident and as arrogant as his predecessor that he he failed to mention, even once, that the war needs to end. (as evidenced by yday's debate at Ole Miss). He is still talking about 'strategies and tactics of war and differences between them' in the debate when the nation is reeling under the most severe economic crisis...the point is that this guy doesnt seem to be the person that will be of any help either to the country or the EB immigrants like us. He is nothing but an extension of the Bush Government and i hope that he doesnt become the President (not that he has great chances either)
Anyway, whoever becomes the President, as someone put it .."Its the Congress, stupid!!' The congress would still need to act on any legislation. And the way the things are working since 2005, election year or not, it seems to be a very uphill task to get anything passed, be it for illegal or legal immigrants. The anti-immigrants force seems to be so strong that it seems almost impossible for anything to be passed for any kind of immigration..so, i believe the status-quo would continue even after the new President takes over..
Well, that leaves us, poor EB immigrants, as usual at the mercy of USCIS...if we are lucky enough, we will still be emloyed when our visa number becomes available...(Remember that Seinfeld episode when the Seinfeld party finally gets the table at the Chinese Restaurant, but they are long gone..!!!)
Mccain, on the other hand, seems to so over-confident and as arrogant as his predecessor that he he failed to mention, even once, that the war needs to end. (as evidenced by yday's debate at Ole Miss). He is still talking about 'strategies and tactics of war and differences between them' in the debate when the nation is reeling under the most severe economic crisis...the point is that this guy doesnt seem to be the person that will be of any help either to the country or the EB immigrants like us. He is nothing but an extension of the Bush Government and i hope that he doesnt become the President (not that he has great chances either)
Anyway, whoever becomes the President, as someone put it .."Its the Congress, stupid!!' The congress would still need to act on any legislation. And the way the things are working since 2005, election year or not, it seems to be a very uphill task to get anything passed, be it for illegal or legal immigrants. The anti-immigrants force seems to be so strong that it seems almost impossible for anything to be passed for any kind of immigration..so, i believe the status-quo would continue even after the new President takes over..
Well, that leaves us, poor EB immigrants, as usual at the mercy of USCIS...if we are lucky enough, we will still be emloyed when our visa number becomes available...(Remember that Seinfeld episode when the Seinfeld party finally gets the table at the Chinese Restaurant, but they are long gone..!!!)
hot Dramatic Makeup (Cat-Eye
GCmuddu_H1BVaddu
01-09 10:21 PM
sunnysurya Hate Converting EB3 To EB2.
A supporter of terrorism left a red dot with this message:
"if u r so concerned about india and attacks on india,,,what are u doing in US? U should be in politics in india if u think so bad about the indian politicians,,,go get ur hand dirty in it first then blaim the politicians"
My very simple reply to that person.
---
I am in every right to express the concerns for my country of origin. Of course not blindly. It takes for ever to hang Afzal Guru and almost no concrete repsonse to the bombings in Delhi, Gujrat, Karnataka, Hyedrabad etc etc, which directly affect my freinds and family over there. If it is not politics then what it is.
Finally, if Jews can express their concerns for Israel (which I also support full heartedly and unconditionally) so can we, with the same passion.
A supporter of terrorism left a red dot with this message:
"if u r so concerned about india and attacks on india,,,what are u doing in US? U should be in politics in india if u think so bad about the indian politicians,,,go get ur hand dirty in it first then blaim the politicians"
My very simple reply to that person.
---
I am in every right to express the concerns for my country of origin. Of course not blindly. It takes for ever to hang Afzal Guru and almost no concrete repsonse to the bombings in Delhi, Gujrat, Karnataka, Hyedrabad etc etc, which directly affect my freinds and family over there. If it is not politics then what it is.
Finally, if Jews can express their concerns for Israel (which I also support full heartedly and unconditionally) so can we, with the same passion.
more...
house make a subtle cat eye – I
pappu
07-14 09:27 PM
Guys,
Draft of this letter itself is an invitation for the investigation into Labor certification process for the individual who are suggesting they were qualified as EB-2, but their attorneys or HR reps told them to file under EB-3.
Entire LC process is certified under the assumption that the employer in good faith has tried to hire US citizen and since he couldnt find a qualified US citizen for a that Job position, the employer is hiring an alien ( foreign national).
I am not supporting this petition, even though i am a victim of the backlog centres and my labor took 4+ years for approval.
We should all support IV's initiative for recapturing of wasted VISA numbers from the past years.
Fighting among indian EB-2 and EB-3 is useless and it defeats the purpose of IV unity.
IV seniours should immediately intervene in this matter and stop further discussions on this useless petition which doesnt have any legal standings and in itself is an invitation from DoL and USCIS to investigate the individuals who signed the petition and messed up their immigration process.
------------------------
PD: India EB-3 June 03.
I-485 filed in Aug 2007 at NSC.
awaiting I-485 approval...which will be 2-3 yrs down the road, if no relief from US congress.
Right now enjoying the freedom using EAD.
I have my disagreements with the letter content and have let it known in my posts on the thread.
Pani you are an old IV member with IV experience and I trust that you would give second thoughts based on my comments.
Draft of this letter itself is an invitation for the investigation into Labor certification process for the individual who are suggesting they were qualified as EB-2, but their attorneys or HR reps told them to file under EB-3.
Entire LC process is certified under the assumption that the employer in good faith has tried to hire US citizen and since he couldnt find a qualified US citizen for a that Job position, the employer is hiring an alien ( foreign national).
I am not supporting this petition, even though i am a victim of the backlog centres and my labor took 4+ years for approval.
We should all support IV's initiative for recapturing of wasted VISA numbers from the past years.
Fighting among indian EB-2 and EB-3 is useless and it defeats the purpose of IV unity.
IV seniours should immediately intervene in this matter and stop further discussions on this useless petition which doesnt have any legal standings and in itself is an invitation from DoL and USCIS to investigate the individuals who signed the petition and messed up their immigration process.
------------------------
PD: India EB-3 June 03.
I-485 filed in Aug 2007 at NSC.
awaiting I-485 approval...which will be 2-3 yrs down the road, if no relief from US congress.
Right now enjoying the freedom using EAD.
I have my disagreements with the letter content and have let it known in my posts on the thread.
Pani you are an old IV member with IV experience and I trust that you would give second thoughts based on my comments.
tattoo Sexy cat eyes in no time!
ssa
06-23 05:16 PM
in agreement.....there is definately pleasure in living in your own house....
Ask current underwater home owners how much pleasure are they deriving from their owned home. Day to day pleasure of living may come from the size and the quality/amenities of the house you stay in, whether you own it or rent it is immaterial. If you can rent the same house for 50% of your monthly mortgage and on top of it never have to worry about declining home prices why would you be more happy owning it? Plus "owned" house is a little bit of misnomer here. Unless you have paid it off 100% it's not really your own. Rental property is owned by landlords and your "owned" home is in reality owned by your bank. Miss couple of payments and net results are very similar.
Don't get me wrong. In rational market owning home is the easiest way to build up wealth but I can't stress the "rational" part of it enough. Although in most areas the excesses of housing bubble are washed away by now in some areas (like good school districts in Bay Area) the prices are still not aligned with the fundamentals like rents for similar properties and average annual incomes. Also renting has one huge advantage right now in this era of rapidly rising unemployment. You are mobile. You can easily move wherever you can find your next job.
In long run it is always better (IMHO) to own than to rent. But in the short term - for next 1-2 years - I see no compelling argument to buy home unless you land a steal somehow. Sentimental red herrings like "pride and joy" of ownership is definitely not a way to go about making the biggest financial decision of your life. The fact that realtors use this exact phase so often should give you a clue!
Ask current underwater home owners how much pleasure are they deriving from their owned home. Day to day pleasure of living may come from the size and the quality/amenities of the house you stay in, whether you own it or rent it is immaterial. If you can rent the same house for 50% of your monthly mortgage and on top of it never have to worry about declining home prices why would you be more happy owning it? Plus "owned" house is a little bit of misnomer here. Unless you have paid it off 100% it's not really your own. Rental property is owned by landlords and your "owned" home is in reality owned by your bank. Miss couple of payments and net results are very similar.
Don't get me wrong. In rational market owning home is the easiest way to build up wealth but I can't stress the "rational" part of it enough. Although in most areas the excesses of housing bubble are washed away by now in some areas (like good school districts in Bay Area) the prices are still not aligned with the fundamentals like rents for similar properties and average annual incomes. Also renting has one huge advantage right now in this era of rapidly rising unemployment. You are mobile. You can easily move wherever you can find your next job.
In long run it is always better (IMHO) to own than to rent. But in the short term - for next 1-2 years - I see no compelling argument to buy home unless you land a steal somehow. Sentimental red herrings like "pride and joy" of ownership is definitely not a way to go about making the biggest financial decision of your life. The fact that realtors use this exact phase so often should give you a clue!
more...
pictures 2009 Makeup Trends
puddonhead
06-26 01:48 PM
If you spend the rest of your life renting, the risk is 100%�you end up with nothing. I will take my chances investing my money in buying a home because its certainly better than losing 100%.
If you buy - and take a mortgate - you end up losing (the same way you "lose" your rent)
1. Interest you pay
2. Property taxes you will pay forever.
3. Maintenance you will pay forever.
On the other hand - if you rent and,
A. IF you pay less in rent than #1 + #2 + #3,
B. IF you invest the remainder plus your mortgage principal amount in some other investment vehicle with superior investment returns than real estate.
.... Then you will come out ahead renting.
The tipping point is whether your rent equals interest + property taxes + maintenance. Based on which side is higher - either renting or buying could be good for you. I don't think there is a clear cut answer. This does not take into account the flexibility associated with renting - which is important for non-GC holders. If you assign a non-zero dollar value of $X with that flexibility, then your rent needs to be interest + tax + maintanance + $X to get to the tipping point. On the other hand, if you are not forced to save (in the form of mortgage principal payment every month) - you may just spend that money instead of investing that. If you assign a dollar value of $Y with that (probability multiplied by actual dollar value) - then the tipping point is at
$rent = $interest + $tax + $maintenance + $X(dollar value for flexibility) - $Y(dollar value for probability of spending money instead of saving).
Now as soon as you plug in the numbers in this equation - it will give you your tipping point and will tell you whether it is right for you to rent or to buy.
Think about it. It is not as clear cut as you think it is. :-) Based on your earlier posts - you got an absolutely faboulous deal on your house (maybe because of your timing) and the tipping point equation would probably highly favor buying in your case. For many other (specially for those without a GC) - it may not be so clear cut.
If you buy - and take a mortgate - you end up losing (the same way you "lose" your rent)
1. Interest you pay
2. Property taxes you will pay forever.
3. Maintenance you will pay forever.
On the other hand - if you rent and,
A. IF you pay less in rent than #1 + #2 + #3,
B. IF you invest the remainder plus your mortgage principal amount in some other investment vehicle with superior investment returns than real estate.
.... Then you will come out ahead renting.
The tipping point is whether your rent equals interest + property taxes + maintenance. Based on which side is higher - either renting or buying could be good for you. I don't think there is a clear cut answer. This does not take into account the flexibility associated with renting - which is important for non-GC holders. If you assign a non-zero dollar value of $X with that flexibility, then your rent needs to be interest + tax + maintanance + $X to get to the tipping point. On the other hand, if you are not forced to save (in the form of mortgage principal payment every month) - you may just spend that money instead of investing that. If you assign a dollar value of $Y with that (probability multiplied by actual dollar value) - then the tipping point is at
$rent = $interest + $tax + $maintenance + $X(dollar value for flexibility) - $Y(dollar value for probability of spending money instead of saving).
Now as soon as you plug in the numbers in this equation - it will give you your tipping point and will tell you whether it is right for you to rent or to buy.
Think about it. It is not as clear cut as you think it is. :-) Based on your earlier posts - you got an absolutely faboulous deal on your house (maybe because of your timing) and the tipping point equation would probably highly favor buying in your case. For many other (specially for those without a GC) - it may not be so clear cut.
dresses runway eye makeup. cat eyes
Macaca
12-29 08:19 PM
Troubling China-India ties (http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/eo20101229bc.html) By Brahma Chellaney | Japan Times
The already fraught China-India relationship appears headed for more turbulent times as a result of the two giants' failure to make progress on resolving any of the issues that divide them. Earlier this month, during the first visit in more than four years of a Chinese leader to India, the two sides decided to kick all contentious issues down the road. Instead, Premier Wen Jiabao and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh agreed to expand bilateral trade by two-thirds over the next five years.
But the trade relationship is anything but flattering for India, which is largely exporting primary commodities to China and importing finished products, as if it were the raw-material appendage of a neocolonial Chinese economy. To make matters worse, India confronts a ballooning trade deficit with China and the dumping of Chinese goods that is systematically killing local manufacturing.
The focus on trade even as political disputes fester only plays into the Chinese agenda to gain bigger commercial benefits in India while being free to inflict greater strategic wounds on that country.
India-China relations have entered a particularly frosty spell, with New Delhi's warming relationship with Washington emboldening Beijing to up the ante through border provocations, resurrection of its long-dormant claim to the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, and diplomatic needling. After initially seeking greater cooperation to help dissuade New Delhi from moving closer to the U.S., Beijing shifted to a more-coercive approach following the mid-2005 U.S.-India defense framework agreement and nuclear deal.
Last year relations sank to their lowest political point in more than two decades when Beijing unleashed a psychological war, employing its state-run media and nationalistic Web sites to warn of another armed conflict. The coarse rhetoric of the period leading up to the 1962 Chinese military attack also returned, with the Chinese Communist Party's broadsheet, People's Daily, for example, berating India for "recklessness and arrogance" and asking it to weigh "the consequences of a potential confrontation with China."
Since then, Beijing has picked territorial fights with other neighbors as well, kindling fears of an expansionist China across Asia.
The only area where India-China relations have thrived is commerce. But the rapidly growing trade, far from helping to turn the page on old rifts, has been accompanied by greater Sino-Indian geopolitical rivalry and military tensions, resulting in India beefing up defenses. Tibet remains at the core of the Sino-Indian divide. While Chinese damming of international rivers has helped link water with land disputes, the 30-year-long negotiations to settle territorial feuds have hit a wall and gone off on a tangent.
Little surprise a 20-fold increase in trade in the past decade to $60 billion has yielded a more muscular Chinese policy. In fact, the more China's trade surplus with India has swelled � jumping from $2 billion in 2002 to almost $20 billion this year � the greater has been its condescension toward India.
Trade in today's market-driven world is not constrained by political disputes or even strained ties, unless artificial political barriers have been erected, such as through sanctions. The China-India relations actually demonstrate that booming trade is no guarantee of moderation or restraint between states. Unless estranged neighbors fix their political relations, economics alone will not be enough to create good will or stabilize their relationship.
Yet ignoring that lesson, China and India have left their political rows to future diplomacy to clear up, with Wen bluntly stating that sorting out the border disputes "will take a fairly long period of time." On the eve of his visit, Zhang Yan, the Chinese ambassador to India, publicly acknowledged that, "China-India relations are very fragile and very easy to be damaged and very difficult to repair."
Even as old rifts remain, new issues are roiling relations, including Chinese strategic projects and military presence in Pakistani-held Kashmir and a new policy by China (which occupies one-fifth of the original princely state of Jammu and Kashmir) to depict the Indian-administered portion of that state as de facto independent. It thus has been issuing visas to residents there on a separate leaf, not on their Indian passport. It also has stopped counting its 1,600-km border with Indian Kashmir as part of the frontier it shares with India.
In less than five years, China has gone from reviving the Arunachal Pradesh card to honing the Kashmir card against India. Thanks to China's growing strategic footprint in Pakistani-held Kashmir, India now faces Chinese troops on both flanks of its portion of Kashmir. Indeed, the deepening China-Pakistan nexus presents India with a two-front theater in the event of a war with either country.
China is unwilling to accept the territorial status quo, or enter into a river waters-sharing treaty as India has done with downriver Bangladesh and Pakistan. Yet it wants to focus relations increasingly on commerce, even pushing for a free-trade agreement. With the Western and Japanese markets racked by economic troubles, the Chinese export juggernaut needs a larger market share in India, the world's second fastest-growing economy.
But the current lopsided trade pattern � presenting a rising India as an African-style raw material source � is just not sustainable. China's proven iron-ore deposits, according to various international estimates, are more than 2 1/2 times that of India. Yet China is conserving its own reserves and importing iron ore in a major way from India, to which, in return, it exports value-added steel products. As India ramps up its own steel-producing capacity over the next five years, China will have dwindling access to Indian iron ore.
At present, China maintains nontrade barriers and other mechanisms that keep out higher-value Indian exports, such as information technology and pharmaceutical products; it exports to India double of what it imports in value; it continues to blithely undercut Indian manufacturing despite a record number of antidumping cases against it by India in the World Trade Organization; and its foreign direct investment in India is so minuscule ($52 million in the past decade) as to be undetectable. Such ties amount to lose-lose for India and win-win for China.
As if to underline that such unequal commerce cannot override political concerns, India has refused to reaffirm its support for Beijing's sovereignty over Tibet and Taiwan. India had been periodically renewing its commitment to a "one China" policy, even as Beijing not only declined to make a reciprocal one-India pledge. But in a sign of the growing strains in ties, Wen left for his country's "all-weather" ally, Pakistan, with a joint communique in which India's one-China commitment was conspicuously missing.
Growing Chinese provocations have left New Delhi with little choice but to play hardball with Beijing.
Brahma Chellaney is the author of "Asian Juggernaut" (HarperCollins USA, 2010).
The already fraught China-India relationship appears headed for more turbulent times as a result of the two giants' failure to make progress on resolving any of the issues that divide them. Earlier this month, during the first visit in more than four years of a Chinese leader to India, the two sides decided to kick all contentious issues down the road. Instead, Premier Wen Jiabao and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh agreed to expand bilateral trade by two-thirds over the next five years.
But the trade relationship is anything but flattering for India, which is largely exporting primary commodities to China and importing finished products, as if it were the raw-material appendage of a neocolonial Chinese economy. To make matters worse, India confronts a ballooning trade deficit with China and the dumping of Chinese goods that is systematically killing local manufacturing.
The focus on trade even as political disputes fester only plays into the Chinese agenda to gain bigger commercial benefits in India while being free to inflict greater strategic wounds on that country.
India-China relations have entered a particularly frosty spell, with New Delhi's warming relationship with Washington emboldening Beijing to up the ante through border provocations, resurrection of its long-dormant claim to the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, and diplomatic needling. After initially seeking greater cooperation to help dissuade New Delhi from moving closer to the U.S., Beijing shifted to a more-coercive approach following the mid-2005 U.S.-India defense framework agreement and nuclear deal.
Last year relations sank to their lowest political point in more than two decades when Beijing unleashed a psychological war, employing its state-run media and nationalistic Web sites to warn of another armed conflict. The coarse rhetoric of the period leading up to the 1962 Chinese military attack also returned, with the Chinese Communist Party's broadsheet, People's Daily, for example, berating India for "recklessness and arrogance" and asking it to weigh "the consequences of a potential confrontation with China."
Since then, Beijing has picked territorial fights with other neighbors as well, kindling fears of an expansionist China across Asia.
The only area where India-China relations have thrived is commerce. But the rapidly growing trade, far from helping to turn the page on old rifts, has been accompanied by greater Sino-Indian geopolitical rivalry and military tensions, resulting in India beefing up defenses. Tibet remains at the core of the Sino-Indian divide. While Chinese damming of international rivers has helped link water with land disputes, the 30-year-long negotiations to settle territorial feuds have hit a wall and gone off on a tangent.
Little surprise a 20-fold increase in trade in the past decade to $60 billion has yielded a more muscular Chinese policy. In fact, the more China's trade surplus with India has swelled � jumping from $2 billion in 2002 to almost $20 billion this year � the greater has been its condescension toward India.
Trade in today's market-driven world is not constrained by political disputes or even strained ties, unless artificial political barriers have been erected, such as through sanctions. The China-India relations actually demonstrate that booming trade is no guarantee of moderation or restraint between states. Unless estranged neighbors fix their political relations, economics alone will not be enough to create good will or stabilize their relationship.
Yet ignoring that lesson, China and India have left their political rows to future diplomacy to clear up, with Wen bluntly stating that sorting out the border disputes "will take a fairly long period of time." On the eve of his visit, Zhang Yan, the Chinese ambassador to India, publicly acknowledged that, "China-India relations are very fragile and very easy to be damaged and very difficult to repair."
Even as old rifts remain, new issues are roiling relations, including Chinese strategic projects and military presence in Pakistani-held Kashmir and a new policy by China (which occupies one-fifth of the original princely state of Jammu and Kashmir) to depict the Indian-administered portion of that state as de facto independent. It thus has been issuing visas to residents there on a separate leaf, not on their Indian passport. It also has stopped counting its 1,600-km border with Indian Kashmir as part of the frontier it shares with India.
In less than five years, China has gone from reviving the Arunachal Pradesh card to honing the Kashmir card against India. Thanks to China's growing strategic footprint in Pakistani-held Kashmir, India now faces Chinese troops on both flanks of its portion of Kashmir. Indeed, the deepening China-Pakistan nexus presents India with a two-front theater in the event of a war with either country.
China is unwilling to accept the territorial status quo, or enter into a river waters-sharing treaty as India has done with downriver Bangladesh and Pakistan. Yet it wants to focus relations increasingly on commerce, even pushing for a free-trade agreement. With the Western and Japanese markets racked by economic troubles, the Chinese export juggernaut needs a larger market share in India, the world's second fastest-growing economy.
But the current lopsided trade pattern � presenting a rising India as an African-style raw material source � is just not sustainable. China's proven iron-ore deposits, according to various international estimates, are more than 2 1/2 times that of India. Yet China is conserving its own reserves and importing iron ore in a major way from India, to which, in return, it exports value-added steel products. As India ramps up its own steel-producing capacity over the next five years, China will have dwindling access to Indian iron ore.
At present, China maintains nontrade barriers and other mechanisms that keep out higher-value Indian exports, such as information technology and pharmaceutical products; it exports to India double of what it imports in value; it continues to blithely undercut Indian manufacturing despite a record number of antidumping cases against it by India in the World Trade Organization; and its foreign direct investment in India is so minuscule ($52 million in the past decade) as to be undetectable. Such ties amount to lose-lose for India and win-win for China.
As if to underline that such unequal commerce cannot override political concerns, India has refused to reaffirm its support for Beijing's sovereignty over Tibet and Taiwan. India had been periodically renewing its commitment to a "one China" policy, even as Beijing not only declined to make a reciprocal one-India pledge. But in a sign of the growing strains in ties, Wen left for his country's "all-weather" ally, Pakistan, with a joint communique in which India's one-China commitment was conspicuously missing.
Growing Chinese provocations have left New Delhi with little choice but to play hardball with Beijing.
Brahma Chellaney is the author of "Asian Juggernaut" (HarperCollins USA, 2010).
more...
makeup with cat eyes make-up in
hpandey
06-26 03:33 PM
Would you share what calculator are you using.
I used one here:
Mortgage Calculator - Bankrate.com (http://www.bankrate.com/calculators/mortgages/mortgage-calculator.aspx)
Loan Amount: 600K (Note much less than million dollars)
Period: 30 years fixed
Interest Rate: 5% (On the lower side using historical averages)
Monthly Payment: 3220.93
Total Interest Paid across 30 years: 559,534.71
In general the thumb rule is across 30 years you will always pay interest which is approx equal to the principal you signed up for.
Am i missing something here ?
Good figure to make 600K loan .. that must mean people are buying at least a 650,000 house across the whole of US . You are talking about prices going down across economy you should take the average home value also across US which is definately not 600K or else most of people will never be able to buy a house.
I am taking about a home of an average 450K ( even that is more than the US average ) and at least 10 % down.
I don't think even anyone here would buy a 600K house in this economy to say the least !
Lets stick to real world calculations.
I used one here:
Mortgage Calculator - Bankrate.com (http://www.bankrate.com/calculators/mortgages/mortgage-calculator.aspx)
Loan Amount: 600K (Note much less than million dollars)
Period: 30 years fixed
Interest Rate: 5% (On the lower side using historical averages)
Monthly Payment: 3220.93
Total Interest Paid across 30 years: 559,534.71
In general the thumb rule is across 30 years you will always pay interest which is approx equal to the principal you signed up for.
Am i missing something here ?
Good figure to make 600K loan .. that must mean people are buying at least a 650,000 house across the whole of US . You are talking about prices going down across economy you should take the average home value also across US which is definately not 600K or else most of people will never be able to buy a house.
I am taking about a home of an average 450K ( even that is more than the US average ) and at least 10 % down.
I don't think even anyone here would buy a 600K house in this economy to say the least !
Lets stick to real world calculations.
girlfriend with cat eyes make-up in
pitha
10-03 03:55 PM
To all those people who want Obama to win and are "hoping" that he would do something good for EB folks, I have one question
Can anyone show one positive deed or statement by Obama regarding EB problems. Note legal immigartns does not mean EB it only means family based according to Obama,Durbin, Kennedy and the democratic clan.
I am asking this question because I am puzzled at the number of people who want Obama to win in the face his and Durbins hostility towars us. So I am thinking maybe there is a something postive obama did for US (Eb) which I might have missed, so to educate myself can somebody please tell me what Obama did for us.
The choice between Obama and Mccain is not good and better but between worse and worst, or lesser of the two evils. Mccain might not do anything for us but he might not do anything bad either, with Obama\Dirbin CIR there is only bad and nothing good for EB. I have an open mind can somebody please tell me something good obama said regarding solving EB problems. Everybody knows the venom spewed by Durbin on EB so no need to discuss that part.
Can anyone show one positive deed or statement by Obama regarding EB problems. Note legal immigartns does not mean EB it only means family based according to Obama,Durbin, Kennedy and the democratic clan.
I am asking this question because I am puzzled at the number of people who want Obama to win in the face his and Durbins hostility towars us. So I am thinking maybe there is a something postive obama did for US (Eb) which I might have missed, so to educate myself can somebody please tell me what Obama did for us.
The choice between Obama and Mccain is not good and better but between worse and worst, or lesser of the two evils. Mccain might not do anything for us but he might not do anything bad either, with Obama\Dirbin CIR there is only bad and nothing good for EB. I have an open mind can somebody please tell me something good obama said regarding solving EB problems. Everybody knows the venom spewed by Durbin on EB so no need to discuss that part.
hairstyles She created a navy cat eye by
Macaca
07-08 09:04 AM
I have a .pdf file as to how the 485 files are processed right from the time we mail the packets until they r adjucticated..it is from ilw.com.
Please post URL of this file. Thanks!
Please post URL of this file. Thanks!
pointlesswait
08-06 10:37 AM
too bad this discussion is still on!
its all about which side of the fence you are on!
i dont think anyone is cutting the line...there were already there..well before you ..they just rejoined with the right set of documents..
if you are willing to stick around for 10 years in the same job.. doing the same thing...hoping for ur GC to come thru...so that u can switch..then good luck to you..
i am sure WHEN USCIS formulated the law..they would have had this discussion...of how to accomodate "high skilled" workers..who climb the ladder ..and who aquire better qualification...and who have the b***s to change jobs and not be slaves to GC process.. this law is them..
Go ahead and file the case rolling stone...i will be the first to oppose it...c u in the battelground..;-)
in this context...i am a Pandu..u are a gandu..(pun intended)
I agree with "singhsa".
I was reading through this thread and couldn't help replying.
Before i voice my opinion, i would like to mention that I have a Ph.D in Aerospace Engineering (2002-2006 from a very reputed univ. in the US). My husband's employer (non-IT) had applied for his GC in EB3 - in 2005 which makes sense since the job required a B.S (Even though he was MS and was working for this company since 2002). We have our 485s filed and are using our APs/EADs. Now, i haven't applied for GC through my employer yet, but if i apply, it would most likely be EB1 or 2, and would love to port my PD of 2005. The reason i haven't done that is because i personally do not think that getting a GC couple of years earlier is going to make my life any different than it currently is.
Having said that, I completely understand what "rolling flood" is trying to say. And I also agree to what his point of view is. When a person who initially agreed to apply with EB3, changes his mind/company/ or whatever and wants to apply in EB2, he should theoretically start over. Why is it reasonable that he/she cuts in line ahead of a person who was already there. There is a reason why these categories are formed.
Shady means or non-shady means, EB2 means that u have superior qualifications and you are more desirable in the US.
EB3 means there are a lot like u, so u gotta wait more. Period.
its all about which side of the fence you are on!
i dont think anyone is cutting the line...there were already there..well before you ..they just rejoined with the right set of documents..
if you are willing to stick around for 10 years in the same job.. doing the same thing...hoping for ur GC to come thru...so that u can switch..then good luck to you..
i am sure WHEN USCIS formulated the law..they would have had this discussion...of how to accomodate "high skilled" workers..who climb the ladder ..and who aquire better qualification...and who have the b***s to change jobs and not be slaves to GC process.. this law is them..
Go ahead and file the case rolling stone...i will be the first to oppose it...c u in the battelground..;-)
in this context...i am a Pandu..u are a gandu..(pun intended)
I agree with "singhsa".
I was reading through this thread and couldn't help replying.
Before i voice my opinion, i would like to mention that I have a Ph.D in Aerospace Engineering (2002-2006 from a very reputed univ. in the US). My husband's employer (non-IT) had applied for his GC in EB3 - in 2005 which makes sense since the job required a B.S (Even though he was MS and was working for this company since 2002). We have our 485s filed and are using our APs/EADs. Now, i haven't applied for GC through my employer yet, but if i apply, it would most likely be EB1 or 2, and would love to port my PD of 2005. The reason i haven't done that is because i personally do not think that getting a GC couple of years earlier is going to make my life any different than it currently is.
Having said that, I completely understand what "rolling flood" is trying to say. And I also agree to what his point of view is. When a person who initially agreed to apply with EB3, changes his mind/company/ or whatever and wants to apply in EB2, he should theoretically start over. Why is it reasonable that he/she cuts in line ahead of a person who was already there. There is a reason why these categories are formed.
Shady means or non-shady means, EB2 means that u have superior qualifications and you are more desirable in the US.
EB3 means there are a lot like u, so u gotta wait more. Period.
sledge_hammer
03-24 02:42 PM
ganguteli:
Don't get me wrong, I feel you!
But, simply saying that the law took a long time to catch up hence we should be let to continue exploiting the loopholes will not get us too far. And I think this is what you are asking for.
We are here because USCIS allowed us to come here. We (employees, employers, immigration lawyers) should have done our due diligence in doing everything possible to protect ourselves against possible/potential audits and queries. Someone should have warned us that there is actually a difference between "temp job" and "full-time job" (EDITED: for GC requirements) like 20 years ago when this consulting business started. The very same people who did not warn us should actually have told us that LCA location is not to be taken lightly, that benching is not okay. All of these did not even occur to us when we enjoyed our lives in this nation.
Yes, USCIS is awake all of a sudden. They are enforcing rules all of a sudden. They are scrutinizing our application all of a sudden. Is that illegal for them to do it? NO. Can something be done to stop them? Certainly NOT. What could we have done to avoid getting into the soup? Should have seen this coming!!!!!!!!
Unitednations,
I read your replies and it seems you are ignoring some facts and are forming a one sided opinion.
- Why did USCIS allow labor substitutions? Why did it take them so long to stop it? Why did they wait until after July 07 to stop it. Were they not allowing people to use this back door and lawyers to make money?
- If consulting is a problem, what were they doing in the past few years? What are they doing now? Do you think just a few raids once is enough to stop the problem? Why can't they enforce their own laws so that they punish the companies and not the immigrants.
- Why is USCIS making paperwork difficult. Why can't the system be simple like Canada or Australia so that we can do our own paperwork? Why are lawyers in the picture?
- If they find problem in consulting, why are they not going after Tata, Wipro etc. Don't tell me these companies are clean?
- Why is USCIS so disorganized without good IT. Do you think other agencies are also same? Do you think USCIS does not have enough money?
- Why can't they ban DV lottery? But go after H1Bs.
- Why can't ICE do their job of enforcement and round up illegals. If they were strict we will not have so many illegals or the problem of illegals.
The questions will go on. But you need to step back and think more from the perspective of a applicant waiting for his GC or H1B .
Don't get me wrong, I feel you!
But, simply saying that the law took a long time to catch up hence we should be let to continue exploiting the loopholes will not get us too far. And I think this is what you are asking for.
We are here because USCIS allowed us to come here. We (employees, employers, immigration lawyers) should have done our due diligence in doing everything possible to protect ourselves against possible/potential audits and queries. Someone should have warned us that there is actually a difference between "temp job" and "full-time job" (EDITED: for GC requirements) like 20 years ago when this consulting business started. The very same people who did not warn us should actually have told us that LCA location is not to be taken lightly, that benching is not okay. All of these did not even occur to us when we enjoyed our lives in this nation.
Yes, USCIS is awake all of a sudden. They are enforcing rules all of a sudden. They are scrutinizing our application all of a sudden. Is that illegal for them to do it? NO. Can something be done to stop them? Certainly NOT. What could we have done to avoid getting into the soup? Should have seen this coming!!!!!!!!
Unitednations,
I read your replies and it seems you are ignoring some facts and are forming a one sided opinion.
- Why did USCIS allow labor substitutions? Why did it take them so long to stop it? Why did they wait until after July 07 to stop it. Were they not allowing people to use this back door and lawyers to make money?
- If consulting is a problem, what were they doing in the past few years? What are they doing now? Do you think just a few raids once is enough to stop the problem? Why can't they enforce their own laws so that they punish the companies and not the immigrants.
- Why is USCIS making paperwork difficult. Why can't the system be simple like Canada or Australia so that we can do our own paperwork? Why are lawyers in the picture?
- If they find problem in consulting, why are they not going after Tata, Wipro etc. Don't tell me these companies are clean?
- Why is USCIS so disorganized without good IT. Do you think other agencies are also same? Do you think USCIS does not have enough money?
- Why can't they ban DV lottery? But go after H1Bs.
- Why can't ICE do their job of enforcement and round up illegals. If they were strict we will not have so many illegals or the problem of illegals.
The questions will go on. But you need to step back and think more from the perspective of a applicant waiting for his GC or H1B .
