Category Archives: personal loan
Helping Somali young people to find work
Nairobi, Kenya (IRIN) – Instead of joining militias or idling at street corners, the youth in Garowe, the regional capital of the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland, are learning skills to help them earn a living, officials said.
A local NGO, the Farsano Technical Institute, is implementing the project, which is funded by the Education Development Centre (EDC), an American NGO. Trainees learn skills such as welding, plumbing and electrical services; carpentry, auto mechanics, bookkeeping and IT.
“These are young people in their teens and 20s; most, if not all, were born during the civil war,” said Abdihakim Mohamed Jama, of the Farsano Technical Institute. “We have to find something for them to do or they may end up in criminal gangs, such as militia groups.”
Jama said the project, Shaqa Doon (“Looking for a job” in Somali] started early this year with 156 trainees.
“We have two types of trainees; those with no education and those with some education,” he said, adding that some had completed primary school while others had a secondary school education, “but most are illiterate”.
Jama told IRIN: “Bookkeeping and IT are taught to those with education, because the others cannot manage. We also teach reading, writing and basic mathematics to those who never had an education. So while they are learning the skills, we are also teaching them how to read and write.”
Of the total number of current trainees, Jama said, 38 are women.
One of the trainees, Amina Mohamed Nur, 20, said after completing primary school, she could not afford secondary school fees.
“I was basically sitting at home doing nothing; when I heard about the project I applied and was accepted.”
Nur chose to train as a mechanic, an unusual profession for a woman from a conservative community. “I am not the only one,” she told IRIN. “Four other girls are with me in this training. Since I was a child, I always wanted to work with cars. I don’t know why but that is what I wanted to do.”
She said she would eventually like to own a garage.
Nur Hassan Hussein, 25, from Garowe, was unemployed when he heard about Farsano. He had dropped out of school due to a lack of funds and is training to become an electrician. “I want to be the best electrician I can be and then eventually start my own business.”
Hussein said there were many young people like him “who would do anything to get this opportunity; I am very lucky”.
Jama said that once they have finished the course, trainees “go out and become self-employed, placed in jobs with government agencies or with businesses and other groups. If they don’t get the first two options, we absorb them in Farsano and they help with the project.”
“All these trainees are at-risk young people; if we save them now, they, in turn, will save others and contribute to the well-being of the community instead of becoming a menace,” he said.
The Farsano Technical Institute project is the only one in Garowe targeting the youth.
“There are many young people out there who need help, but we cannot take them all,” Jama said, urging other agencies to help with the growing number of unemployed youth by “giving them the ability and capacity to be productive members of their community”.
ah/mw
– Provided by Integrated Regional Information Networks.
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NFL cancels rookie symposium ahead of lockout
Indianapolis, IN, United States (AHN Sports) – According to numerous reports, the NFL is canceling next month’s rookie symposium in Canton, Ohio.
League officials are scheduled to officially inform teams of the cancellation during today’s NFL Spring Meeting in Indianapolis.
The symposium is designed to teach rookies life lessons on dealing with football, finances and their new lifestyle. Those lessons will have to wait.
Scheduled for June 26, the symposium was to been held in Canton, home of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, for the first time.
The league and the NFLPA are both waiting for a June 3 court hearing before the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on the legality of the ongoing lockout — the event is not going forward.
Teams have laid off or furloughed employees and had staff take pay cuts but the symposium is the first event to be called off due to the current labor unrest.
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Greece prepares large cuts in public sector wages to meet bailout terms
Athens, Greece (AHN) – The Greek government is preparing tougher belt-tightening measures as it attempts to meet the terms of the country’s $110 billion (EUR 78 billion) bailout.
Prime Minister George Papandreou rejected debt restructuring ahead of a Monday cabinet meeting to tackle austerity measures, which includes tax hikes and sale of government assets.
Papandreou’s policy is in line with the European Central Bank stand that did not favor a debt restructuring for Greece. However, the drastic wage cut proposal may lead to more civil unrest among public employees. A study published on Sunday found that 80 percent of Greeks are not willing to make any more sacrifices for the country to enjoy further European Union and International Monetary Fund support for the bailout.
Experts opined that Greece is so mired in a debt spiral that more austerity measures would cause further recession and drastic drops in tax revenues. They warned that these economic consequences are self-reinforcing and very difficult to recover from.
While the prime minister is ready to fast track a $70.4 billion (EUR 50 billion) privatization program to raise more money to pay off the country’s mountain of debt, Papandreou said the government will keep its holdings in water and electricity utilities.
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China imposes export quotas on rare earths needed for manufacturing high tech items
Beijing, China (AHN) – Tight new controls on rare earth minerals were announced by China’s State Council on Thursday, which issued a national guideline for the industry.
World-wide high demand for rare earth minerals, which are essential in high tech manufacturing of electronics, has caused rapid development of mining for the minerals, which has exposed numerous problems.
Electronics that contain rare earths include everything from consumer electronics to hybrid car batteries and even weapons guidance systems.
Controls include export quotas for rare earth minerals. The new controls mark the first time rare earths have been designated a national strategic reserve in China.
Rare earth minerals are comprised of 17 chemical elements in the periodic table.
The commerce ministry began an immediate export quota on all iron alloys that contain more than 10 percent of rare earths.
In addition, China announced it would begin building a strategic reserve stockpile of rare earths.
The move was not unexpected.
But it is bound to increase anxiety over the availability of supplies to industries that depend on rare earths as well as anxiety over prices. China holds one-third of the world’s reserves of rare earths and provides more than 90 percent of global production.
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Unemployment claims decrease to 409,000
Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – Initial jobless claims declined by 29,000 to 409,000 for the week ending May 14 compared to the previous week’s tally of 438,000 claims.
That is still above the 400,000 mark. Analysts say first time unemployment compensation insurcance claims must drop below 400,000 and stay below that mark to signal the economy has turned around.
However, the less volatile four-week moving average was up by 1,250 from the previous figure, increasing to 439,000 claims.
The number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending April 30, the most recent week such data is available fell below the 8 million mark to 7,936,548, a decrease of 47,124 from the previous week.
Here is a look at which states had the largest increase in new claims for the week ending May 7.
- Alabama (+5,767)
- California (+4,015)
- Michigan (+3,122)
- Mississippi (+1,666)
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Canada Post workers threaten to strike
Montreal, Quebec, Canada (AHN) – Members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers threatened on Wednesday to go on a nationwide strike on May 25 unless they reach a deal with Canada Post. The job walk off would involve 48,000 mail carriers and postal workers.
Canada Post and the union are in a deadlock over salary cuts for new workers. Canada Post wants to reduce the pay of new employees to $17.50 from $24 an hour. The company justified the lower pay to the use of new technology that would sort the mail, which had resulted in changing working conditions for Canada Post employees.
Like other postal companies worldwide, technology has shrunk the business of Canada Post. Although 240,000 new addresses are being added each year with the construction of new homes and condos, actual mail sent is decreasing at an average yearly rate of 1.5 percent due to the shift by Canadians to electronic mode of communication.
Canada Post said that despite the offer of lower salaries, workers in the company still enjoy a competitive wage and benefit package.
The planned strike may delay the delivery of mail-in referendum on the harmonized sales tax in British Columbia. But delivery of unemployment and welfare checks, pensions and other social-assistance checks would not be affected because Canada Post has an agreement with the union to continue with that service.
Despite the agreement, BC sent welfare checks a week in advance to avoid possible delivery problems, according to BC Finance Minister Kevin Falcon.
Falcon added Elections BC has the power to change the HST referendum date if the postal strike would push through and delay the mail out of the ballots slated to begin on June 13.
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UK unemployment rate drops
London, United Kingdom (AHN) – The unemployment rate in the United Kingdom fell during the first three months of the year, but the number of people filing claims for jobless benefits rose in April, the Office for National Statistics said.
Unemployment declined by 36,000 to 2.46 million people in the first quarter of the year, which was the lowest number since September. It marked the second consecutive quarter of declines and brought the unemployment rate down by 0.1 percentage points to 7.7 percent, which was better than some analysts expected.
Employment increased by 118,000 people.
However, the number of people filing for unemployment compensation benefits in April increased by 12,400 to 1.47 million, the ONS said.
In addition, the number of people unemployed for more than 12 months rose to its highest level since January 2007, increasing by 20,000 to 850,000 people.
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Philippine VP forecasts higher Filipino worker deployment overseas
Manila, Metro Manila, Philippines (AHN) – Philippine Vice President Jejomar Binay forecast on Monday that the deployment of Filipino workers overseas would soon recover as the political situation in the Middle East and North Africa stabilizes. Binay is also the presidential adviser on Overseas Filipino Workers.
Because of the armed conflict in Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen and other nations in the two regions which are popular destinations for Filipino overseas workers, deployment of migrant workers for the first quarter of 2011 dropped by 15,000 to 380,000 compared to 395,000 for the same period last year.
During the first quarter, the Philippine government also temporarily suspended deployment of OFWs to Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Bahrain. Manila instead redeployed the workers to other Middle Eastern nations, particularly Qatar which needs thousands of workers in preparation for its hosting of the 2022 World Cup football games.
Besides the lesser numbers of workers deployed, thousands of migrant Filipino workers who had jobs in those regions had to go home, causing the growth of remittances sent by the workers to the Philippines to slow down by 4.1 percent in March to $1.6 billion.
The slow down also affected annual remittance growth rates, which slid down from the 6.2 percent growth in February and 7.6 percent in January.
For the first quarter of this year, the total remittances sent by Filipino migrant workers reached $4.59 billion, up 5.9 percent from $4.34 billion for the same quarter last year.
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Brown to unveil revised California budget, tax proposal
Sacramento, CA, United States (AHN) – California Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday was set to unveil an updated budget plan to close a record $26.6 billion deficit while taking into account better-than-expected April tax receipts and Republican opposition to a June ballot on tax extensions.
The announcement will come as the end of the fiscal year looms, and teachers and students in the state, which has the nation’s largest university system and the world’s eighth-largest economy, protest further cuts.
Brown early this year proposed a plan reducing spending by $12.5 billion, including $1.4 billion in cuts to higher education, and generating $12 billion from an extension of taxes that are due to expire this summer.
The tax extensions require a June ballot that in turn, must first be approved by two Republicans from the Assembly and two from the state Senate. The deadline for including the extensions in the ballot has passed, and unions have asked lawmakers to instead pass a bill allowing the ballot.
The governor’s revised budget plan is expected to seek at least some of his revenue-generating tax hikes even as Republicans point out the state’s more than $2 billion in unanticipated April tax revenue.
Last week, Brown announced drastic measures such as eliminating the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board and shuttering 70 of 278 state parks, including the governor’s mansion.
Eliminating the appeals board, which is composed of appointees who preside over appeals on disputes about jobless and disability claims, would save the state $1.2 million.
The closure of parks would reduced spending by $11 million in the fiscal year starting in July, and another $22 million the following year. Parks with the least attendance and cultural and environmental significance were chosen for the closure, which will not affect 92 percent of public attendance in parks.
Brown, who served as governor for two terms nearly three decades ago, also plans to merge the state’s two personnel agencies into a single human resources department to save at least $5.8 million.
Previously, he ordered a hiring freeze and slashed the number of state cars and cell phones by 50 percent.
Republicans, who released an alternative budget plan last week, have railed against the latest proposals as “posturing” and ” misguided threats.”
State GOP spokesman Mark Standriff called the planned closure of parks “a ‘Washington Monument Strategy’ that is both cynical and manipulative, and shows little respect for the taxpayers.”
The Republican plan relies on the higher April revenue to prevent cuts to education and law enforcement. It does not raise taxes and calls on state workers to “do their part” with a 10 percent reduction in pay, benefits and other employee costs, which the GOP says would provide the government with $1.1 billion in savings.
The California Teachers Association, which held statewide protests last week, said the GOP’s alternative proposal would leave a $14.7 billion budget gap and fails to provide “real solutions.”
The San Francisco Chronicle said in its editorial on Monday that the GOP plan “should be dismissed as a nonstarter,” because it “included a heavy dose of borrowing and reliance on ‘savings.’ ” The newspaper also blasted Republicans for pushing “a ridiculously long wish list that strayed far from the subject of the budget.”
In March, Brown ended negotiations with Republicans after what he said was “an ever changing list of collateral demands” in return for support for a special election, such as giving a $1 billion tax break to out-of-state corporations so the companies would bring jobs to California.
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