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If you are looking to open a business of your very own, you are not alone. Every year more and more people make the decision to stop working to make other people rich and to start their own businesses. For most of them, having the start-up capital that is needed is harder than one might think.
Small business grants are often a hot topic with new business people with a small amount of money and little access to other capital. We have all seen the many media cl… More >>
Product Description
If you are looking to open a business of your very own, you are not alone. Every year more and more people make the decision to stop working to make other people rich and to start their own businesses. For most of them, having the start-up capital that is needed is harder than one might think.
Small business grants are often a hot topic with new business people with a small amount of money and little access to other capital. We have all seen the many media cl… More >>
Auckand, New Zealand (AHN) – An international research study by the World Health Organization has found that millions of non-smokers worldwide get sick each year from secondhand smoke, and that more than 600,000 of that number die as a consequence. Some 165,000 are children under age five.
The study was based on data obtained from 192 countries and was published Thursday in the British medical journal The Lancet.
The study added that the proper enforcement of smoking bans worldwide would greatly eliminate the risk of secondhand smoke in places such as bars and restaurants by 90 percent.
However, only 7.4 of the world’s population live in countries where public smoking is banned. Even so, non-smoking signs are not always rigid or effectively enforced.
Lead author of the study, Dr. Annette Pruss-Ustun from WHO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, said in a statement, “Policy-makers should bear in mind that enforcing complete smoke-free laws will probably substantially reduce the number of deaths attributable to exposure to second-hand smoke within the first year of its implementation, with accompanying reduction in costs of illness in social and health systems.”
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Baghdad, Iraq (TML) – As Americans living everywhere from Morocco to Iraq gather around their Thanksgiving tables Thursday, they will be forsaking afternoon football, nippy weather and autumn foliage. Not a few will be complementing it with couscous stuffing instead of cranberry sauce or succotash.
But when it comes to the turkey, only the Americans on the most outlying parts of the region will be forced to make do without the culinary centerpiece of America’s oldest and deepest-rooted holiday.
“In Egypt, they raise a lot of turkeys, so they’re sold at the supermarkets. Here we have almost everything you could think of as far as American food goes,” Latifa Taylor, who works in the American embassy in Cairo with her husband, told The Media Line.
Whether they are teaching English as a second language in Egypt, patrolling the streets of Baghdad, or helping to run oil installations in Saudi Arabia, Americas have substantial presence in the Middle East. For many of them, the holiday acts as a way not only to showcase a national tradition but to engage in a little table-side diplomacy in a region where America is not always the most popular of countries.
“We try to invite our friends from the host country in order to share with them what Thanksgiving is all about – sharing and giving. It’s a nice experience,” said Taylor, who was born in Morocco but lived in the United States for a number of years.
Since the family left the United States in the early 1990s, the Taylor family has kept up the tradition wherever they have gone.
Still, cooking and eating is the focal point of the Thanksgiving holiday and most Americans are careful to make sure the traditional array of food is served.
“We cook Arab dishes on a regular basis, but we would try not to include them in a Thanksgiving meal. I think a lot of the [Middle Eastern] salads would show up. I wouldn’t blink to see them as part of a Thanksgiving table in Jordan,” Sarah Harpending, assistant director of the Center for Oriental Research, an institute based in Amman, Jordan, told The Media Line.
Harpending has lived in Jordan for a decade, but has tried to keep the holiday every year and share it with local friends, mostly Arabs who lived in the U.S. for a long enough stretch to acquire a taste for the holiday and its cuisine. “I feel bad when I miss it,” she said.
She added that most everything that one needs is available in Amman, including cranberries, pumpkin pie filling and stuffing mix. She has had some trouble finding what she needs for a traditional pecan pie, but Harpending makes sure to have certain essentials brought back by acquaintances traveling from the U.S.
Taylor tries to mix a bit of local cuisine into the meal, but not at the expense of diluting the taste and look of the traditional meal. “In some cases, we even try to incorporate local flavors. For example, I will make couscous stuffing, but I also make bread stuffing as well,” she said.
Turkey is of course the essential centerpiece of any Thanksgiving table. Despite the bird being native to the forests of the Americas, it was introduced to Europe through Spain by the returning Conquistadors in 1498, and has since spread throughout the world. Frozen turkey, along with many other traditional American foods served this time of year, is readily available in many Middle East countries.
Beyond expatriate and the diplomatic community, the largest concentration of Americans in the Middle East is the American troops stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan. While there numbers have fallen from a peak of 170,000 in 2007, there are currently about 48,000 stationed in Iraq and each gets to enjoy a holiday dinner in a mammoth Pentagon undertaking. Another 95,000 are in Afghanistan.
Thanksgiving preparations by the Defense Logistics Agency began last spring, long before the typical holiday host would be searching the Internet for a stuffing recipe. The Army’s turkey-meisters have arranged for 244,000 pounds of bird to be readied for the troops as well as 8,600 cans of sweet potatoes and more than 38,000 pies to be served in 225 different locations throughout Iraq and Afghanistan.
“Providing traditional holiday meals to these American heroes are one of the single most important things we do all year,” said Air Force Brig. Gen. Scott Chambers, who commands the agency’s troop operations. “It is an expression of our thanks and appreciation for what they are doing for America every day.”
Young Americans in Israel are also being provided for on the Thanksgiving holiday. The Lone Soldiers Center, a Tel Aviv-based organization that provides help for immigrant soldiers serving in the Israel Defense Forces with no nearby family, is holding a Thanksgiving dinner for 200 American-born soldiers.
“They are alone in this country, but they are still connected to their own culture. It’s a taste of back home. It gives them support and brings them together, and they get to partake in something that they grew up with,” Josh Flaster, director of the organization, told The Media Line.
Not everywhere in the region, however, can Americans comfortably gather around the table and feast on turkey.
Robert Majure, director of the American International School in Sana’a, Yemen, has watched sadly as celebrating the holiday becomes progressively more difficult during the 17 years he has been in the country.
Yemen has emerged at the center of an Al-Qaeda cell targeting Americans and other Westerners. In its latest action, it sought to bring down cargo jets on their way to America before a tip-off to intelligence services thwarted the plan. Last month, the U.S. State Department warned Americans to avoid “non-essential” travel to the country.
“I used to go to Thanksgiving dinner, but because of the security situation there aren’t many foreign people around anymore. I don’t think I’ve been to a Thanksgiving meal in two or three years,” Majure told The Media Line. “Even when you go around town you do a double-take when you see a foreigner.”
The land is not just bereft of Americans, but also turkey to eat and children to create a family atmosphere, he said.
“On Thanksgiving you need family, you need kids,” he said. “Even at the embassy everyone is on bachelor status. People don’t come to Yemen with their children anymore.”
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Windermere, FL, United States (AHN) – “Yep, it’s me,” he twittered.
“I’m not the same man I was a year ago,” he wrote on Newsweek.com.
“It’s about time I basically made a connection to the fans who have been incredible to me over the past year,” he said on ESPN radio Thursday.
He is Tiger Woods and he’s suddenly thrown himself into the open as the one-year anniversay of his Thanksgiving “incident” is a week away.
He’s twittering away on Twitter. He’s composed a mea culpa for Newsweek and he’s been chatting away on ESPN radio. He’s out ahead of what will surely be re-hashed over Thanksgiving, the holiday that turned his life sour a year ago.
His Newsweek.com short was titled “How I’ve Redefined Victory.” And he needs to redefine it as he’s now gone a year without a victory on the PGA Tour or anywhere else for that matter.
“I’m learning that some victories can mean smiles, not trophies and that life’s most ordinary events can bring joy. Giving my son Charlie, a bath, for example, beats chipping another bucket of balls. Making mac and cheese for him and his sister, Sam, is better than dining in any restaurant,” he wrote.
Woods spent about 20 minutes Thursday morning with Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic of ESPN’s Mike and Mike radio show.
His thoughts included these:
He said he’s glad at what happened a year ago. “Had it not happened, I wouldn’t be as blessed and balanced as I am how. Best thing for me.”
“Everything is in a much better perspective now.”
This year: “Difficult for me, more difficult for my kids. I take responsibility.”
On telling his children about his indescretions one day: “I will tell them the truth — face to face, eyeball to eyeball.”
On healing: “I will have to earn the trust and respect of my kids.”
When Tiger vanished from the public eye following Thanksgiving 2009, he said he relied on a few close friends. “People I’d known the longest. If you have three people like that in your life, you are blessed.”
Tiger cited his golf course behavior in the past as a result of his lifestyle. “While playing, I was frustrated and angry becaue of the way my life was, when you go against your core values….”
Woods did touch on his golf game, which is also in the rebulding process. “I can’t get better as a player unless I get better as as a person,” he said. As far as chasing Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18 major championships? “I still want to get to 19.”
He says he’s still a work in progress with new swing coach Sean Foley. “Anytime you move to a new coach — what are the fixes for the misses? That’s something I’m getting toward.”
Woods gave short answers when he was questioned about his visits from Dr. Anthony Galea and the public scolding given him at the Masters by Chairman Billy Payne.
“Dr. Galea performed PRP,” Woods said. “I had torn my achilles.”
As Woods moves on with his life on and off the golf course, he says his top priority is his children.
“Thankful to have my kids, spend time with them. Priorities? No. 1 the kids, they mean everything to me. I want to spend time with them and teach them something every day I’m with them. It’s just a blast.”
Woods also says he’s grateful at how well he’s been received everywhere this year. “People have been respectful and it’s amazing how good and supportive they’ve been.”
Read what he writes and listen to what he’s saying and Woods is campaigning to rebuild his tarnished image. “One way to rebuild is to come to grips with who I am,” Woods said.
No one can be sure who Tiger Woods really is these days.
His golf game and the struggles surrounding it are unfamiliar territory to the man who dominated golf the past six years.
Woods admits that when all is said and done, he’s a happier man.
“Infinitely,” he emphasized. “Infinitely.”
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The huge economic crisis which the nation suffered during the past years has set a great thinking process in the administration of the federal government. The government attributes to the crash of economy due to underemployment and unemployment. This situation has arisen due to the lack of adequate educational qualifications on the part of the citizens. The mothers are amongst the worst-hit category as most of them are relatively less educated and cannot start their education again due to lack of funds. The government considers it as their duty to help the mothers and for this reason has been started federal funding for scholarships for mothers.
The federal government under President Obama’s guidance has analyzed the situation and is deciding on how to help the mothers appropriately. For this reason, the grants have become so advanced nowadays that if the applicant’s paperwork is evaluated and then later approved, the grant covers the entire cost of the degree or course without the applicant spending any money on the education. The government has also declared that for the academic year 2010-2011, $30 billion has been donated for federal grants. Amongst the different federal grants, the Pell grants are the widely known and are awarded to the mothers of the low-income group. For this academic year 2010-2011, $17 billion has been dedicated only for Pell grants. Other federal grants available to mothers are as below:
Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant (FSEOG) – This is provided to the extremely poor mothers who intend to continue with their education. The grant amount will vary from $100 to $4000.
Academic Competitiveness Grant (ACG) – The applicants eligible for ACG also qualify for Pell grants and the grant provides $750 for the first year and $1300 for the second year of undergraduates.
SMART Grant – This is offered to full-time students who also are eligible for Pell grants. The students must be majoring in life sciences, physics, mathematics, or engineering.
TEACH Grants – This aid includes a wide category of undergraduates, graduates, current or former teachers or even retirees.
All the federal grants are to be applied free and on the website centre called the FAFSA. While submitting the application, the applicant should also include his/her tax payment receipts of the previous year.
There is also the new initiative of the American Opportunity Tax Credit Program. This program intends to help the U.S citizens by offering to waive the initial $4000 fees of higher education. Also, Obama’s ‘Moms return to school’ program is catching up amongst the mothers.
The initiatives and programs started by the government are targeted for the welfare of the mothers to lead smart lives. Federal funding for scholarships for mothers would enable the mothers to add a fresh meaning to their lives and will help them to stand proudly on their feet.
About Author Pell grants are the most important grants in the real of government education programs. These programs are by far the best when it comes giving away free money for college. It is this program that puts young Americans though college for free without the need to repay anything back later when they graduate.
Everyone knows college costs money and it’s not only the college tuition students have to pay. On top of the tuition there are expenses related to school fees, transportation, boarding, and normal everyday life related expenses. All theses expenses total to be a big sum of money every year. Many students can not afford to pay all these expenses without some kind of help. This help is called Pell Grants and that’s what you must apply to and receive in order to receive free education. It was formerly known by as Basic Educational Opportunity Grant (BEOG). The name came after a U.S. Senator Claiborne Pell. Pell being the senator of Rhode Island proposed the program. Other financial aid and other grants supplements Pell grants.
Why are Pell grants so important when it comes to free education? The answer to this question can be seen when we take a look at the budget of this grant. It has the the biggest budget out of all education programs. The biggest meaning, every year the most money is allocated to it. In 2009-2010 academic year alone the average grant was $3,611 and the the maximum was $5,350. As if this was not enough the recent president’s proposal would raise the maximum Pell grant by $200, to $5,550 for the 2010-11 academic year making it a great think in our real of educational aid.
Moreover, it has been estimate this increased budget proposal would make additional 260,000 students eligible decreasing the number of students who had to apply for student loans instead. As you can see pell grants program is what you should be using going forward. That’s why students should be eager to know everything about.
Besides being one of the best programs out there when it comes to education, Pell grants are the main components of financial aid. When students enroll in school and apply for financial aid they are being considered for this grant in the first place. In most of the cases it comes the education costs.
Free Pell grants deliver free money to students from low income families. The award it based on the financial need. The goal is to provide access to post secondary education for students who would not be able to afford it otherwise. The need is determined by the U.S. Department of Education using a standard formula invented and approved by the US Congress. When we provide our financial information on the FAFSA application the money is calculated based on that information.
Pell grants do not have to be repaid as long as students remain eligible. It is widely known that about 5,400 schools, organizations, and institutions participate in Pell Grants.
London, United Kingdom (AHN) – An estimated 50,000 British students took to the streets protesting a rise in tuition costs on Wednesday. A small group of the students attempted to force their way into the Conservative party’s headquarters, prompting authorities to evacuate the central London building.
A window of the 30-story Milbank Tower complex was smashed and reports of flooding have also surfaced. The building is the headquarters for the Tory Party in addition to numerous other government agencies.
Police intervened to disperse the placard-wielding students shouting “Tories Out.”
Organizers of the protest called the violent turn “regrettable.”
The government plans to cut university funding and raise tuition fees nearly $14,500 dollars a year in 2012. Students at universities in England, Wales and Northern Ireland currently pay just a third of that, $3,200 a year.
The Labor government of Prime Minister Tony Blair first introduced the fees for students shortly after he was elected in 1997. Scotland abolished tuition fees in 2000, and in the rest of Britain the cost is capped at about 3,000 pounds a year.
Current Prime Minster David Cameron’s government is also planning to cut funding to universities as it strives to cut $128 billion from public expenditure over the next four years.
There have been calls by some to unseat lawmakers who back the measures to cut funds to students.
The president of the National Union of Students, Aaron Porter, said, “We will initiate a right to recall against any MP that breaks their pledge on tuition fees,” Porter said.
Despite being a staunch supporter of the students, Porter took to Twitter to denounce the violence, “Disgusted that the actions of a minority of idiots are trying to undermine 50,000 who came to make a peaceful protest.”
As scenes of the marching students in London’s streets and images of the melee began pouring in, Cameron defended his tuition hike plan.
“In the past we have been pushing up the fees on overseas students and using that as a way of keeping them down for domestic students,” Cameron said. “We have done the difficult thing. We have put up contributions for British students.”
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Cairo, Egypt (TML) – While Arab world was busy translating the Greek philosopher Aristotle into Arabic 1,000 years ago, Europe was trudging through the Dark Ages.
But today, according to a United Nations study, it seems that the number of books translated annually into Arabic in all Arab countries combined was one-fifth the number translated into Greek in Greece. In fact, it found that in the past 1,000 years only about 10,000 books have been translated into Arabic – equivalent to the number of books translated in Spain each year.
In 2003, the last year in which a survey was taken, the UN found that just 330 books had been translated into Arabic in Arab countries that year. Now Arabic publishers are attempting to improve the situation and turn the tide by translating more books.
“The overall goal is to make the Arabic reader aware of what other cultures write,” said Nagwa Abdelmottaleb, the owner of Egypt’s Kalimat Arabia publishing house.
“This, over a long period of time, will make people better citizens, because they will be more informed of the world and so have the chance for a better society,” said Abdelmottaleb, who founded the house in 2007.
It is a monumental challenge. The Arab world suffers from under-development and a variety of social ills: repressive dictatorships, stratospheric unemployment, and increasingly-violent religious fundamentalism. Compounding this is the dearth of translated works, which limits the extent to which the global conversation seeps into the Arab world, hindering intellectual curiosity, access to knowledge, and development.
Others are taking steps to counter the trend, as well. The United Arab Emirates, for its part, hosts an annual international book fair, currently under way from October 26 to November 6. In 2008, Dubai launched its Tarjem initiative, which means “translate” in Arabic. Its stated goal is to translate itself 365 books a year into Arabic, more than doubling the amount of books translated in all of 2003.
There is also Kalima, a non-profit funded by the Abu Dhabi government which, since 2007, has published translations of works not previously translated into Arabic. It recently published a translation of a work by Galileo, the Italian renaissance scientist.
The Cairo-based Kalimat Arabia publishes 24 titles a year, everything from books on applied economics, to biographies of Thomas Jefferson and Gandhi, to children’s books.
But non-religious books are not in high-demand in the Arab world. A 2007 study by the Next Page Foundation, a Bulgaria-based NGO, showed that Egyptian readers mostly read the Koran. Other books are not generally produced in high volume and no uniform distribution network exists.
At first Kalimat Arabia published 2,000 copies each of its translated titles, Abdelmottaleb said. But the publishing house quickly realized the number was too high. It now prints its books solely at the request of book sellers, with 500 books as the minimum. Barack Obama’s 1995 memoir, Dreams of My Father, is its highest-selling title to date, selling 10,000 copies.
Egypt’s government-run National Center for Translation has translated 1,700 books into Arabic, said an official at the center.
“There are no obstacles to translation except finding good translators,” said Hani Tulba, the center’s deputy-director.
Abdelmottaleb said that while censorship did not impede Kalimat Arabia from publishing the books it wanted, religion and high costs remained challenges.
“If you are religious, you’re not going to translate other books because you feel that you don’t need them,” she said.
Many people in the Middle East do not have the disposable income to buy books, according to Abdelmottaleb. Translated books sell at a slightly higher price than books originally written in Arabic. The publishing house sells most of its books in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, where readers have more disposable income to spend on books.
But despite this, Kalimat Arabia would soldier on.
“We have a saying in Arabic,” Abdelmottaleb said. “Lighting a candle is better than complaining all the time.”
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Las Vegas, NV, United States (AHN) – It actually rained again Friday in Las Vegas.
Though that rainfall was brief during the second round of the Shriners Hospitals for Children Classic, there was a constant pouring of birdies all day at the TPC Summerlin.
Jonathan Byrd made his share on his way to an eight-under par 63 that gave him a 36-hole total of 129 and a one stroke lead going into the weekend.
Byrd played the back nine first and turned with a 32, then shot 31 on the front and birdied his final hole of the day for his 63.
Byrd wasn’t the only player on a birdie run. Ryuji Imada shot his career-best round on the PGA Tour, a nine-under par 62 and was one shot off of Byrd’s pace with a 12-under 130 total.
Imada and Byrd weren’t the only players with a spectacular day. Defending champion Martin Laird shot a 62 of his own and is in the group of five players who are two shots off Byrd’s lead.
Laird was joined by Alex Prugh, John Senden, Nicholas Thompson and George McNeill, who finished runnerup here last year to Laird.
Another eight players reached double-digits under par, among them was pre-tournament favorite and Las Vegas resident Rickie Fowler. T
he tour rookie shot 64 and joined Chad Campbell, Michael Letzig, Cameron Tringle, Nick Watney and Graham DeLaet at 132, 10-under.
With the soft conditions, perfect greens and lack of wind, scoring was low, very low. It appeared that it would take a score of four-under par to make the 36-hole cut.
And there are a lot of players who find the course to their liking.
“I didn’t make any mistakes,” said Imada, who is looking for his second career win. “I’ve been striking the ball well the last two weeks and hopefully I can keep that up,” he said after putting together eight birdies, an eagle and a single bogey. “It was a great round,” he said afterward.
It rained early in the day and there were some brief showers late and that only made things easier for the field.
“I love this golf course,” Laird said after his 62. “It’s kind of a fun tournament to come and know you gotta make a lot of birdies. “Apart from the rains we got for those couple of holes, it’s perfect. There’s no wind and soft greens.
It was the perfect formula for going low.
As for McNeill’s success, he was unsure. “I have no idea. I think I say the same thing every year. It must have been from the first year I played here and I won. Obviously I’ve had success here. I feel comfortable going around this golf course.”
The back nine was the scoring ground for most of the leaders. Prugh was seven under through his first seven holes thanks to a 41-foot putt for eagle at the driveable par four 15th.
“I made a bunch of great putts,” Prugh said. “There’s not a whole lot of times when you’re seven-under through seven.”
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