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Father provides clue to Yuvraj Singh’s mystery inspiration

Reuters, New Delhi, Mar 27: Yuvraj Singh has plunged an entire cricket-crazy nation into a stifling suspense with his reference to a mystery person he attributes his red hot form to.

His father reckons it could well be Sachin Tendulkar.

The southpaw collected his fourth man-of-the-match award in the World Cup after scripting India's quarter-final victory against four-time champions Australia on Thursday.

In the post-match press conference, Yuvraj said he was playing the tournament for a 'special person', whose identity he would only reveal if India reached next Saturday's final.

The speculation has not stopped since and his father Yograj, a former India player, hinted it could be Tendulkar.

'I would not be surprised if he meant Sachin,' Yograj told Reuters by phone from Chandigargh on Sunday as India counted down the hours for the highly-anticipated semi-final against Pakistan on Wednesday.

'Sachin has been a huge influence in his life over the last 11 years or so. He has always been there when Yuvraj was going through a difficult phase in his career.

'Sachin is not just a great cricketer but also a great human being. He has been Yuvraj's guiding angel. My son is very close to him and shares things he would not share with anyone else.'

Poor form and injuries blighted the career of one of India's most exciting cricket talents but Yuvraj, architect of India's 2007 Twenty20 World Cup victory, once again showed his impeccable sense of occasion in the tournament.

Yograj said his son owes the turnaround to Tendulkar.

'Sachin must have been my son in previous life or some other close relation. He has been the best thing to happen to Indian cricket and also to Yuvraj,' said Yograj, a former medium pacer who played his only test against New Zealand in 1981 at Wellington.

'He advised Yuvraj to keep working hard and maintain focus. There was lot of scepticism in the air but only his mother and Sachin had an unflinching trust in my son.

'Frankly speaking, any cricketer who has listened to Sachin has benefitted.

'When he eventually retires, the cricket board should appoint Sachin the mentor of the Indian cricket team. He can turn any ordinary player into a phenomenal cricketer.'

‘Brain waste’ thwarts immigrants’ career dreams

AP, New York, March 27: After finishing medical school in Bogota, Colombia, Maria Anjelica Montenegro did it all — obstetrics, pediatrics, emergency medicine, even surgery. By her estimate, she worked with thousands of patients.

None of that prepared her for the jobs she's had since she moved to the United States: Sales clerk. Babysitter. Medical assistant.

That last one definitely rubbed raw at times.

'I know I was working in my field,' the 34-year-old New York resident said. 'But that is medical assistant. I'm a doctor.'

Montenegro is hardly unique, given the high US unemployment rate these days. Her situation reflects a trend that some researchers call 'brain waste' — a term applied to immigrants who were skilled professionals in their home countries, yet are stymied in their efforts to find work in the US that makes full use of their education or training.

Most of these immigrants wind up underemployed because of barriers like language, lack of access to job networks, or credentialing requirements that are different from those in other countries. Some are held back even further because they're also in the US illegally.

An analysis by researchers at the Migration Policy Institute, an immigration think tank, estimated that 1.2 million college-educated immigrants in the United States were underemployed, out of a population of 6.7 million. About another 350,000 were unemployed. The analysis, based on data from the Census Bureau's 2009 American Community Survey, did not differentiate between legal and illegal immigrants.

Brain waste has consequences for immigrants as well as American employers and the larger economy, said Jeanne Batalova, policy analyst at the institute and co-author of a study on the issue.

For immigrants, it means bringing home less money than they have the potential to earn. For employers, it means fewer skilled applicants in their hiring pools. For the country overall, it means a missed opportunity to leverage already trained professionals in areas where there may be a desperate need for them.

There's a 'loss when human talent and potential is not maximized in the fullest,' Batalova said.

Mohan Singh, 55, thought moving to the United States would be a smooth transition. Born and raised in India, he left his home country for Kuwait, where he worked in air conditioning and elevator maintenance. He lived in Kuwait for 25 years, started his own company and was successful enough to send his daughter and son to college in the United States.

At their urging, Singh came to the US in 2000. He said he thought 'that I'll be getting the same job, I'll be getting into a good field, make a good life.'

It took seven years to complete the paperwork that allowed Singh to work here legally. When he applied for jobs, would-be employers focused on the fact that Singh had not worked in his field in the United States.

'They cancel all my experience,' he said.

He now spends 12 hours a day, seven days a week, behind the wheel of a taxicab. It's a far cry from the work he's done for much of his life, Singh said, and the wages are much lower than those he once brought home. The whole experience has soured him on the idea of staying in America. He plans to move back to India in a couple of years, when his son is done with his post-graduate work.

'I used to have money, I used to have good life,' Singh said. 'Over here, I'm hand to mouth.'

Nikki Cicerani, executive director of Upwardly Global, a nonprofit organization that helps legal immigrants find work in their chosen professions, said typically, immigrants come from environments where job-seeking is done differently. They may not know how to navigate the system, whether it's building a network to learn about job openings or having a resume formatted in a way that is familiar to American employers.

Interviewing can be especially tricky. 'In many other countries, the resume and the educational experience is the clincher,' Cicerani said, 'whereas in the United States, the interview is make it or break it.'

American employers can also have difficulty figuring out if an immigrant would be the kind of employee they are seeking, absent a ready way of understanding how foreign educational or professional expertise translates in the US job market, Cicerani said.

'They're not really clear how to evaluate a foreign degree against a US-educated candidate,' she said.

Montenegro came to the United States in 2004 to care for her mother, who had been diagnosed with breast cancer. She stayed after marrying a man she met here, and became an American citizen. She now lives in the New York borough of Queens with her husband and two children.

Language was the first barrier that Montenegro encountered. She needed to improve her English, but she also needed to work. She took a job as a sales clerk in a local mall, and even though it felt strange to be a medical professional working in retail, she said, the position at least helped her polish her language skills.

Then came larger hurdles that no amount of perfect English could surmount. There's a series of exams, the first of which cost $1,000 alone, Montenegro said. She also has to complete a residency, a requirement for all graduates of American medical schools. There are a limited number of residency slots overall which makes it a very competitive process for everyone, but even more so for foreign medical school graduates.

Montenegro has one more exam to pass before she can apply for a residency, a process that will take at least a year or two. There's no guarantee that she'll be accepted for a residency; At times, she fears she may never work as a doctor here.

'So many times I want to get my things and my passport and go back to my country,' Montenegro said. Over the years, she heard stories about the lifestyles her doctor friends in Colombia were able to afford as she worked at various low-wage jobs.

While Montenegro agrees that her credentials and her ability to provide good health care should be vetted before she's allowed to work in this country, she thinks having to train as a general practitioner all over again when she already has experience is a waste — especially for the US, she said, because she speaks fluent Spanish and could be an asset in any Spanish-speaking community in need of a doctor.

'I'm ready to do that and help people,' she said.

ECB close to liquidity deal for troubled banks

Reuters, Frankfurt, March 27: The European Central Bank is putting the finishing touches on a new facility that will give troubled euro zone banks liquidity over a longer time frame, throwing a lifeline to Ireland's ailing banks.

A euro zone central banking source told Reuters on Saturday that the plan will initially be 'tailor made for Irish banks' and was likely to be announced next week to dovetail with the results of fresh stress tests on the country's lenders.

'This will replace the ELA (Emergency Liquidity Assistance) that is currently being provided by the Irish central bank,' the source said speaking on the condition of anonymity.

'It will probably be similar to the SMP (ECB bond buy programme) in the sense there will be no fixed time frame on it; if you had put a 5- or 10-year deadline on it these people may have been tempted to ignore the problem until the end date was approaching.'

He added that although it would initially be tailored for Irish banks, it would subsequently be available euro zone wide.

It would be under the control of the ECB's Governing Council which would set the conditions attached to the loans on a case by case basis.

An EU-IMF bailout last year has failed to resolve Ireland's banking crisis and after an outflow of deposits and with other banks unwilling to lend to them, Irish lenders remain dependent on the central bank for their day-to-day operations.

The six domestic banks are estimated to have outstanding loans of around 150 billion euros ($210 billion) from the ECB and Ireland's own central bank at the end of February. Around 70 billion euros was made available under the Irish central bank's ELA.

Ireland's new government, elected on a mandate to renegotiate the bailout, has been in talks with the ECB for weeks to try and secure medium-term funding for its banks and this facility should provide some comfort to the markets when the results of the stress tests are published on March 31.

The tests, agreed as part of the EU-IMF bailout, are expected to show that Bank of Ireland, Allied Irish Banks, Irish Life & Permanent and EBS Building Society will need around 25 billion euros, a Reuters survey of analysts showed.

The EU-IMF bailout set aside 35 billion euros for Ireland's banks.

The Irish Independent newspaper reported on Saturday that the stress tests would reveal a capital hole smaller than the 35 billion euros earmarked.

Without citing any sources, the newspaper said that Allied Irish Banks, which has been effectively nationalized by the state, may need more than 10 billion euros, Bank of Ireland would need under 5 billion euros while Irish Life & Permanent and EBS Building Society would need single billion sums.

Truckers scarce as India aims for top gear growth

AFP, Mumbai, March 27: After three years of driving on some of the world's most dangerous roads, 20-year-old Indian truck driver Moin Sheikh wants out of the gruelling job.

He complains he is underpaid, overworked, harassed by police and frightened by the reckless driving on India's traffic-choked roads, which have the world's highest rate of fatalities.

'I want to leave. The police treat us like dirt and driving at night is dangerous,' Moin, who gets just 3,000 rupees a month ($65) from his private trucking company employer, told AFP at a Mumbai suburban truck halt.

He is not alone in disliking the job: India faces the worst shortage of truckers in the industry's history as drivers are put off by demanding work hours, low pay, high risks and lengthy stretches away from home and families, companies say.

'We face a 40 per cent shortfall, which means we need three million more drivers,' said R.K. Gulati, spokesman for the All India Motor Transport Congress, a transporters' lobby group.

'This is the worst manpower crisis the industry has faced,' said Bal Malkit Singh, a city transporter and former head of the Bombay Goods Transport Association.

Singh, who operates over 300 trucks across the country, says the shortage of drivers is so acute that 10 per cent of his Bal Roadlines transport fleet stands idle at any point in time due to a lack of drivers.

Other transport operators report that as much as 15 per cent of their fleet is out of service for the same reason.

One of the main problems is that the government has raised the educational bar for truck drivers, requiring a minimum grade 10 education—or high school to the age of 15 -- to carry hazardous goods.

Even for regular freight, a driver needs to have completed middle school to age 13, and young people with these qualifications are more keen to work in offices than spend long hours behind the wheel.

Truck drivers in India are also reluctant to stay in the job long, as the lack of a co-ordinated patrol network means they face a high risk of being mugged on highways by gangs.

Moin says he has been robbed twice, losing his wallet and mobile phone.

All this comes as bad news for the Asian giant's rapidly expanding economy, which already faces transport bottlenecks because of dilapidated road networks and other hurdles.

India's two-million-mile (4.2 million kilometre) road network, the world's second largest after the United States, accounts for nearly 70 per cent of the country's freight movement. The remaining 30 per cent goes by rail.

'The driver shortage is having a wider impact on the economy' as goods pile up for transport, said Vishwas Udgirkar, senior India transport director at global consultancy Deloitte.

'It is making efficient logistics tough,' Udgirkar said.

The trucker shortage is so bad that many fleet owners break the law requiring commercial vehicles to operate with two drivers so that one can take rest breaks from driving.

One solution for the company bosses would be to raise wages, but they say they are unable to because of cost pressures amid rising fuel and other commodity prices.

Charanjeet Singh, 22, another driver, earns just $60 a month for travelling between commercial capital Mumbai in the west and Jammu in the north, transporting apples and spices.

'I'm worried about my future on such low wages,' Charanjeet says.

Home lures Taiwan businesses as China costs soar

AFP, Taipei, March 27: Taiwan enterprises have struggled for years to enter China, but now, just when access to the mainland market is becoming easier than ever, many are paradoxically heading back to their home island.

One of them is Taipei-based restaurant giant Namchow Group, which was a relative late-comer in China but is an early bird in the reverse drive back across the Taiwan Straits, which separates the island from the mainland.

'Taiwan people's income is higher,' said Alfred Chen, chairman of the group, which derived about half of last year's Tw$9.6 billion ($325 million) in revenues from the island.

'Besides, local consumers provide us with valuable experience regarding emerging consumption habits,' added Chen, whose company is maintaining its mainland operations while boosting those at home.

Chen is building a culinary empire on Taiwan centred around a German and a Chinese restaurant chain, plus he is planning to modernise his edible oil and fats plants on the island at a cost of Tw$500 million.

Cheng Shin Rubber Industries, a tyre maker with plants in China, Vietnam and Thailand, invested Tw$10 billion at home last year to boost its local capacity and plans to spend another Tw$20 billion over the next two years.

'The investments are aimed to boost the manufacturing capacity of our high-price items,' company spokesman Wu Hsuan-miao said.

This appears to be the beginning of a broader trend. Taiwanese companies with a majority of their business on the Chinese mainland invested Tw$40.9 billion at home last year, a tripling of the figure since 2007.

'There are signs that such investments are on the rise,' said Tristan Lu of the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research, a private think-tank based in Taipei.

It is somewhat ironic that this should happen now, at a juncture in history when China and Taiwan are getting friendlier than ever and have started removing many of the remaining obstacles to business.

When Taiwanese companies started funneling funds out of the island in the 1980s, they were attracted by the mainland's cheap labour and land prices, but they acted without government permission.

Since then, however, they have got the official stamp of approval, and a China-friendly administration that took over in Taipei in 2008 is promoting economic exchanges more actively than ever.

Last year China and Taiwan signed the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, the most sweeping cross-strait pact in six decades, and an investment protection agreement is likely to follow soon.

China does still attract large Taiwanese funds, with enterprises from the island investing $6.7 billion on the mainland last year, according to the Chinese Ministry of Commerce.

But at the same time, China's investment climate has changed dramatically, investors say, as skyrocketing labour costs, a new business income tax and a more cumbersome labor contract law combine to sour the outlook.

'Lots of Taiwan-invested companies have been forced to close their plants there,' said Ling Chia-yu, the head of the Taiwanese economic ministry's Department of Investment.

But Taiwan-invested companies which are getting less enthusiastic about China may find that returning home is not a solution to their woes, analysts said.

'Those companies, mostly small ones without competitiveness, won't be able to survive in Taiwan even if they come back,' said Tung Chen-yuan, an expert on China-Taiwan economic ties at Taipei's National Chengchi University.

'Their only chance is if they can upgrade their industrial technologies, but that might be very hard considering their modest scale,' he said.

So most of them have either moved to Southeast Asia or provinces in western China where labour cost is cheaper, he said.

Other investment barriers are the decades-old restrictions that have barred Taiwan from further liberalisation and internationalisation, Tung said.

'Poor,' Namchow's Chen quipped when asked to comment on the island's investment environment. 'There is much the government needs to do.'

This was disputed by government officials, who argued the government has provided a full range of benefits to potential investors coming back from the mainland. They include tax reductions, loans, and assistance in the acquisition of land, the officials said.