Advocates Urge Easier Visa Policies To Boost Startups

by WENDY KAUFMAN

To LISTEN TO NPR STORY CLICK HERE

August 23, 2011

As the economy continues to sputter, many policymakers are looking to entrepreneurs to create new jobs. And many foreign-born, highly skilled entrepreneurs want to come to the United States and stay here, but immigration laws and policies haven't made that easy.

In an effort to change that, the White House recently announced more flexible policies for granting visas. But many innovation experts say the changes aren't enough.

Andrew Nicol is a young entrepreneur who was born in Australia and attended law school in the U.S. After graduation, he got an employer-sponsored visa that allowed him to work in New York. But when Nicol wanted to leave his day job and start a company, he was stymied. Leaving his job meant losing his visa.

So Nicol decided to go to Chile.

"I'm basically leaving New York to come to Santiago to start a business that targets New York consumers — just because it's so much easier to do it from here, and there is so much more support from the government here," he says.

'Taking Advantage Of America's Stupidity'

My advice to our elected officials would be: The country is in trouble. Let's not worry about the politics of the larger immigration debate, and let's at least bite off what we can chew now and get those jobs here.

- Robert Litan, vice president of research and policy at the Kauffman Center for Entrepreneurship

Nicol is participating in a program called Start-Up Chile, a government-sponsored effort that offers entrepreneurs visas and $40,000 to help start their businesses.

"Chile has been taking advantage of American stupidity," says Vivek Wadhwa, a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, where he studies the economic impact of immigrant entrepreneurs.

"The entire immigration system is a big mess," he says. "There are thousands of entrepreneurs who want to start companies in America but can't get visas."

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Concerning Legal Translation

September 5th, 2011 by Ileen Krumins

What do you exactly mean by Legal Translation?


When you say legal translation, it basically means any translation that falls under the purview of the judicial system.


You can find a lot of types of documents that are required by the civil and criminal justice systems. Moreover, you can also have those documents not legal in nature to be used as evidence. You have to treat them as legal translations although originally these documents are not at all legally translated.


Legal Translation Examples


If you look for examples of these types of documents that would normally not be a legal translation but under certain circumstances can become one by necessity, you can really find a lot.
Passports, immigration documents, marriage certificates, death certificates, birth certificates, last wills and testaments, powers of attorney, evidential recordings of phone calls, police interviews, court documents, contracts, complaints, judgments, summons, legal proceedings, trusts, partnership deeds, Real estate titles or leases papers, permits, insurance policies, affidavits, judgments, adoption papers, sales contracts, trademarks and copyrights, service agreements, escrow instructions, and distribution agreements or arbitration documents are just some of the very many examples of those commonly used documents that fall under legal translation.
You can still find a lot of these said documents.


When Do You Really Need Legal Translation?


For complete article, click here

Mandarin Chinese Most Useful Business Language After English

Mandarin, China’s official tongue, is also the top language worldwide for business other than English, according to Bloomberg Rankings.

Mandarin, spoken by 845 million people, scored highest in a ranking of languages, excluding English, based on business usefulness. The ranking scored languages according to the number of speakers, number of countries where the language is official, along with those nations’ populations, financial power, educational and literacy rates, and related measures.

French, spoken by 68 million people worldwide and the official language of 27 countries, was ranked second, followed by Arabic, which is spoken by 221 million people and is official in 23 nations. Mandarin is unlikely to supplant English soon as the primary language of business, said Leigh Hafrey, a senior lecturer in communications and ethics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management.

For complete article, click here

Meeting Chinese IP Law Demands with Agreement between Wolters Kluwer and Commercial Press

Tue Sep 6, 2011 5:01am EDT

Beijing, China (September 6, 2011) - Further to Wolters Kluwer's presence at the 2011 Beijing International Book Fair, Wolters Kluwer and Commercial Press, the renowned Chinese publisher dedicated to introducing foreign law and regulations in China, signed an agreement on the Mandarin version of a series of IP law titles from Wolters Kluwer Law & Business. The publishing agreement aims to support the rising intellectual property rights (IPR) demands by lawyers in China, and is the next step of Wolters Kluwer in serving the Chinese legal community to better respond to the impact of protecting IPR in the country.

China's understanding of the critical importance of IPR protection needs has soared. This is demonstrated by increased litigation and the volume of patent applications. The series of publications focuses on a range of global IP issues, such as software and internet law, IT law, and global copyright. This reflects China's dual interests in protecting its IP assets as well as complying with the global regulatory framework for protection of non-Chinese assets in the China territory.

The agreement was signed during the 2011 Beijing International Book Fair by Ms. Stacey Caywood, CEO of Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory and Mr. Yu Dianli, President of Commercial Press. It is a continuation of the collaboration started only a year ago, which has already resulted in the launches of a Chinese translation on European labor law and English-language offerings of influential Chinese legal titles to Chinese national and international customers.

"I am very pleased that we are able to extend our strategic partnership with Commercial Press to continue to provide high-quality, global legal content and international intellectual property information to our customers in China," said Stacey Caywood. "Our shared experience in providing expert solutions to legal academia and professionals, globally and locally, will be able to bring value to our customers by providing insight into how to navigate challenging aspects of dispute resolution in a global context."

"This cooperation demonstrates our long-term commitment to China to bring our publications forward at a global level, and is also a significant step and a key action that we are undertaking with Wolters Kluwer to draw a wealth of global legal and regulatory content translated into Chinese," said Yu Dianli, President of Commercial Press.

Furthermore, the two partners also agreed upon a publishing cooperation that is aimed to develop more titles for law practitioners in China and the broader non-Chinese markets. The close partnership is evidence of the shared efforts to leverage experiences and resources to expand translations of international publications in Mandarin as well as develop future opportunities to bring translated Chinese legal and regulatory content into the international legal community to meet the needs of law practitioners best.

About Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory
Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory, a global division of Wolters Kluwer, a market-leading global information services company with annual revenues (2010) of €3.6 billion and approximately 19,000 people, serves professionals in the areas of law, business compliance, and other regulatory specialty practice areas. These professionals rely on Wolters Kluwer's leading information tools, software solutions, and services to manage their business efficiently, deliver results to their clients, and succeed in an ever more dynamic world.

Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory had 2010 annual revenues of €1.5 billion, has approximately 8,000 employees worldwide, and serving customers globally from operations across Europe, North America, and Asia Pacific.

Part of the offering of the Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory division in China are strongly represented byCCH China that since 1985 has been the first and largest provider of bilingual regulatory information of China serving the Chinese professionals in the public and private practices, businesses, government and universities, with headquarters in Beijing.

About Commercial Press
Established in 1897, Commercial Press is China's first print publisher dedicated to the translation and introduction of foreign laws and regulations since the commercialization of the publishing industry. Their development over a century has made Commercial Press a long-standing, renowned print publisher in the area of humanities and social sciences. Commercial Press is also a highly-recognized imprint among legal academia and professionals.

Found in translation

David Mattin

Sep 27, 2011 

The Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2006, believes the English-speaking world must change its attitude to literature in translation.

"Most of the writers here write in English," said Pamuk. "Maybe that's because the official language here is English. But for those working in other languages, their work is rarely translated and never read. So, much of human experience is marginalised."

This complaint, voiced during a speech at the Jaipur Literature Festival in India earlier this year, might seem a surprising one coming from Pamuk. Although he writes in his native Turkish, his books have gone on to widespread readership in the English-speaking world. But that kind of attention is guaranteed by a Nobel, and Pamuk believes even while he is read in the Anglo-Saxon world, English-speaking critics often judge his work on terms different from those they use for literature in English.

"When I write about love, critics in the US and Britain say 'this Turkish writer writes very interesting things about Turkish love'. Why can't love be general?"

Pamuk's complaint is not a new one: the idea that the Anglo-Saxon world should open its eyes to foreign literature - especially fiction - has been around for decades. Most believe that the unchecked rise of English as a global language - which has found most recent expression, of course, online - hasn't helped. At Jaipur, festival organiser William Dalrymple, a historian and travel writer, echoed that argument, but also pointed to a broader problem in the Anglo-Saxon publishing culture.

For complete article, click here

Films in India shoot in more than one language

With subjects having universal themes, films are being shot in more than one language simultaneously...

Almost half-a-dozen films that are currently in production in Kollywood are being simultaneously shot in more than one language. And what's more, it isn't just biggies that are doing so, but smaller films as well. The films that are currently being shot in more than one language include Muppozhudhum Un Karpanaigal (MUK), Selvaraghavan's untitled movie with Arya and Anushka, Viswaroopam and Neethane En Ponvasantham (NEP).

But film historian, Film News Anandan, reveals that this trend has existed in the industry since 1951. There was even a Tamil-Hindi bilingual, Nandakumar, released in 1938! "In those days, it was Telugu artists who used to act in bilinguals. It was only after Missamma (Missiamma in Tamil) that filmmakers started using different artists for different versions," he says.

Gautham Menon's Vinnaithaandi Varuvaayaa (VTV) is perhaps the film that has revived this trend of late. Explains Gautam, "I don't believe in the concept of dubbing as those films rarely work. As a filmmaker, I cringe when I watch a dubbed version of work and I was disappointed with the dubbed versions of Vettaiyadu Vilayadu and Vaaranam Aayiram. Now that I'm producing my films and because my scripts have a universal theme, I decided with VTV to shoot the Telugu version simultaneously."

For complete article, click here

Translation app makes menus multi-lingual

It also offers ingredient lists, pictures and instructions about food allergies

Foodie culture has sent America's culinary adventurers into the deepest regions of their local ethnic neighborhoods in search of new delicacies. Unfortunately for more open-minded eaters, they often find themselves confronted with unintelligible menus written in an intimidating foreign language.

A new app from Purdue University helps intrepid restaurant goers overcome that language barrier by not only translating the menu, but providing instructions about food allergies in a number of different dialects.

The user types the name of a desired dish into a prompt field in the graphical user interface. The text is translated, and the best possible translations are then listed, along with other information, including pictures and ingredients. The user can then browse the multimedia database to obtain more information about the dish or the ingredients. When appropriate, information and questions for the waiter are suggested.

For complete article, click here

Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal released from Iran

By Michelle Nichols

NEW YORK | Mon Sep 26, 2011 9:54am EDT

(Reuters) - Two American men jailed in Iran for more than two years for spying arrived in New York on Sunday, saying they were innocent and had been held hostage simply because of their nationality.

Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer, arrested with their friend Sarah Shourd while hiking along the Iraq-Iran border in July 2009, were freed on Wednesday after Oman paid bail of $1 million. Shourd was released on $500,000 bail a year ago.

Fattal and Bauer were sentenced to eight years in prison last month after a trial held behind closed doors. Washington denied the group were spies and U.S. President Barack Obama said on Wednesday they should never have been detained.

Flanked by family members at a news conference in New York, Bauer and Fattal said the case against them was a "total sham" with "ridiculous lies that depicted us as being involved in an elaborate American-Israeli conspiracy to undermine Iran."

For complete article, click here

Is That a Fish in Your Ear?: Translation and the Meaning of Everything by David Bellos: review

A witty look at the dark art of translation

By Maureen Freely

There was a time when all good schoolboys knew Latin, and even debutantes spoke French. Today, we who claim English as our mother tongue feel less pressed to learn a foreign language. Why bother, when the rest of the world is so keen to master ours?

And yet the idea of translation continues to excite strong passions. If I mention that I dabble in this dark art, I am accused of taking liberties and betraying the author’s intentions. I am instructed either to serve the text invisibly or to accept that some things just can’t be translated, and give up.

In this witty, erudite exploration of translation and its history, David Bellos sets out to render such inquisitions obsolete. It was translation that allowed the Romans to learn from the Greeks. When French seeped into English after the Norman conquest, our language was not eroded but enriched.

For complete article, click here