Beletweyne, Somalia (AHN) – Militants loyal to the militant extremist group Al Shabaab on Wednesday stormed the Voice of Hiran radio station in the town of Beletweyne, forcibly silencing the station, witnesses said.

An eyewitness who spoke on condition of anonymity said that early Wednesday morning a large number of militants armed with heavy and light weapons and flanked by military vehicles encircled the station and forcibly removed all station staff.

“Al Shabaab accused the administration of Odka Hiran (Voice Of Hiran Radio) of airing a religion-based address read by a Somali cleric the group doesn’t like,” the witness told All Headline News by phone.

He said the cleric’s message aired by the station charged that the actions of Al Shabaab have no basis in the Islamic religion, which made the militants very angry.

He said that the militants also searched the station’s room of religion-related tapes and took all the tapes.

“Still, the station is under al Shabaab control as all employees and administration were ordered to leave the town as soon as possible…We don’t know what is next!” he stated.

Al Shabaab officials in the Hiran region have not released any comments about the action so far.

However, the extremist group, which the United States alleges to be al Qaeda’s proxy in Somalia, has in the past looted the transmitters of the BBC in Mogadishu, Marka and Kismayo. Al Shabaab also has confiscated more than five local FM stations in the capital and elsewhere in the country.

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Jerusalem, Israel David Rosenberg – Efforts by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Qatar to become leading world financial centers took a step back on Tuesday after MSCI Inc. – whose indices are used by international investors to decide how to allocate their capital – put off a decision on whether to upgrade the two Gulf countries’ status.

MSCI said it would wait until December to decide if the countries’ stock markets met the criteria to be considered “emerging markets,” a rise in status from their current designation as “frontier markets.” The decision to wait six months and reconsider is unusual, as MSCI announces such changes once a year.

At stake for the Dubai Financial Market, Nasdaq Dubai and Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange, the three stock markets resident in the UAE and Qatar, is a chunk of some $450 billion in global capital invested in emerging markets. It also enhances their markets’ prestige, vaulting them into the ranks of some of the fastest growing economies. By contrast, frontier markets include countries like Bangladesh and Botswana.

MSCI said it needed more time to assess a mechanism introduced by the three exchanges only a month ago called delivery versus payment (DVP) that makes it easier to complete the purchase of securities. The system hasn’t been in place long enough to fully evaluate it and MSCI said there are problems that need to be addressed.

But MSCI hinted that the UAE, and especially Qatar, faced a more serious obstacle because of the limitations they place on foreign investment in locally traded stocks. Qatar has a ceiling of 25 percent. While the UAE has a higher ceiling of 49 percent, many of its most popular stocks are more restricted. Etisalat, the Middle East’s largest telecommunications operator by market capitalization, is banned to foreigners, while Dubai’s biggest bank Emirates NBD allows foreigners to hold only 5 percent.

“It is a problem big enough under current conditions for Qatar not to be included,” Remy Briand, global head of index research at MSCI, told a news conference on Wednesday. “The UAE has a higher level and in a zone that gives a little more room. It is our hope that during this extended period it will be increased.”

However, both countries have indicated they have no intention of raising the limits for now. Mohammed Al-Shihhi, the undersecretary at the Economy Ministry, said this week that the UAE did not plan to raise the ownership cap. Qatar wants individual firms to raise foreign ownership limits but isn’t planning a general increase, an unidentified stock market official told Reuters on Wednesday.

Yazan Abdeen, a Dubai-based fund manager for ING Investment Bank, said the failure to raise the cap could jeopardize Qatar’s upgrade next December.

“There is a concentration in Qatar in four or five stocks which are the majority of market cap. This makes the barrier higher for emerging status. The largest is Industries Qatar, but it’s closed due to foreign ownership limitations,” Abdeen told The Media Line. “They regard these assets as strategic.”

Last year, MSCI weighed promoting the two Gulf countries, but decided to wait until the settlement system was upgraded. In the meantime FTSE Group, another market benchmark organization, offered some hope when it decided in September to categorize the UAE as a “secondary emerging” market.

As a result, investors had been trading up share prices in the three stock markets over the past month in anticipation that the MSCI announcement would bring foreign investors into the market and increase demand. The markets, however, mostly took the news in stride. While Dubai’s DFM General Share index fell the most in a month, Qatar’s QE Index and Abu Dhabi ADX index closed almost unchanged on Wednesday.

“We don’t think the decision to delay is going to be unreservedly negative for the market. At least we are happy that the story is behind us and people can focus on underlying fundamentals,” Abdeen said.

Local stock market officials said they looked on the delay – as against an outright “no” – as a positive sign and said they are intent on using the grace period to make themselves MSCI-friendly.

“Nasdaq Dubai will work with market participants in coming months to increase their understanding of the enhancements to the clearing and settlement process,” its president, Jeff Singer, said on Wednesday.

The UAE and Qatar have worked hard to establish themselves as financial centers as part of a wider strategy of creating whole new industries in tourism, aviation, media and technology. Vast amounts of oil-generated wealth ensure a ready clientele.

The Qatar Financial Centre was set up by the government in 2005 and it is working to develop its asset-management industry. In the UAE, the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) operates as a financial free zone while in Abu Dhabi, Securities Exchange is building a headquarters with more than 21,000 square meters of office space and a trading floor of 1,000 square meters.

More recently, their efforts have been helped by the Arab Spring, which sparked mass protests and a violent crackdown in neighboring Bahrain, which had pioneered the strategy of luring banks and investors to the Gulf.

But the UAE and Qatar rely on local investors as customers. A recent research note from Al Ramz Securities showed that only 3.3 percent of UAE stocks are held by foreign investors. Besides regulatory issues, the Gulf suffers a glut of stock markets (bourses). The UAE and Qatar have a combined population of just 5 million people, yet they serve as home for three stock exchanges.

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London, United Kingdom (AHN) – Virgin Atlantic pilots have voted to strike against the airline, marking the first time pilots with that airline have taken such action.

It also marks the first pilot’s strike in the United Kingdom in 32 years.

BALPA union general secretary Jim McAuslans said the issue was a lack of pay raises.

Some 94 percent of Virgin Atlantic pilots voted, with 97 percent of those present voting for a strike action.

“Pilots are being driven to strike. With no pay increase since 2008, a below inflation offer for 2011 and proposals for 2012 and 2013 that will be sub-inflation this is now a six year attack on living standards which has not happened in any other UK airline. Pilots at Virgin are saying ‘enough,’” McAuslans said in a statement.

McAuslans added that the pilots have been trying to negotiate with Virgin Atlantic owner Sir Richard Branson since November.

Although prepared to strike, the pilots would rather work out an agreement with Branson, McAuslans said.

“We do not want to inconvenience the public and hope that Sir Richard will use some of his undoubted Virgin Flair to settle this,” McAuslans said.

However, the pilots have only been offered increases that are below the inflation rate for the next 2.5 years. Virgin Atlantic says their offer is double the national average of British businesses.

Virgin Atlantic also said it is developing contingency plans should pilots go ahead with their planned strike.

Pilots have not set a firm strike date in hopes that an acceptable settlement with Virgin Atlantic can be reached.

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Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – The U.S. Postal Service plans to suspend payments to a pension fund, the latest step the cash-strapped agency is taking while it continues to push for legislation to adjust mandatory payments for employee benefits.

In a statement on Wednesday, the Postal Service said it would stop its weekly $115 million contribution for the Federal Employees Retirement System annuity on Friday.

The decision will save the agency about $800 million in the current fiscal year. It will have little effect on the pension fund, for which the Postal Service has an overpayment of $6.9 billion.

Access to the surplus fund is one of the issues the agency has asked of Congress. In addition, the agency is seeking a bill giving it authority to determine frequency of mail delivery as well as ending pre-payments for retiree health benefits.

The Postal Service warned as early as last year that it had insufficient cash to meet a $5.5 billion payment to its Retiree Health Benefit Fund due on Sept. 30, 2011.

The agency receives no federal funds for its operations and depends only on revenues from postage and other services.

It has been struggling to remain viable since the growth of electronic communications, with mail volume falling 20 percent between 2006 and the following year. In the previous fiscal year, net loss was $8.5 billion.

Cost-cutting measures, such as layoffs of 110,000 career positions, have saved it $12 billion in the past four years but liquidity issues have remained. The agency has also implemented steps to raise revenue, opening retail locations in supermarkets and drug stores.

Last year, it sought to raise revenue by increasing the price of first class mail to 46 cents, and of postcards to 30 cents. The Postal Regulatory Commission, however, unanimously ruled against a rate hike, saying there were no exigent circumstances to justify it.

“The Postal Service knows how to cut costs, streamline… and make the necessary changes to bring our organization further into the 21st century,” David Williams, the agency’s vice president of network operations, testified before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform last week. “Our achievements notwithstanding, issues that fall outside our control continue to prevent us from being able to close the gap between revenue and costs.”

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Moscow, Russian Federation (AHN) – Russian authorities say they will lift the ban on vegetable imports from the European Union that it instituted after an outbreak of E. coli.

However, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said his country must see certificates proving the food is safe before it allows trade to resume.

Under the deal, each nation exporting vegetables to Russia would have to supply a certificate stating where the food was from and also stating that the food was free of the deadly E. coli bacteria.

Russia accounts for $866.1 million in trade annually for EU vegetable farmers, with most of that coming from farms in France, Germany, Poland and Spain.

The recent E. coli outbreak killed 35 people and sickened another 3,000. The outbreak was initially blamed on cucumbers from Spain, but authorities later identified an organic sprouts farm in Germany as the source of the outbreak.

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How to get a college scholarship for single mothers will depend on what you do to get that college scholarship. The first thing you want to do is to find scholarships to apply for. Most scholarships are given out on the basis of merit – you do something to qualify you for the scholarship. For most scholarships you will have to actually apply for them to qualify.

There are many websites online that list current scholarships offered by both the government and private parties. These websites can make finding single mother college scholarships much easier. You can of course also look for scholarships on your own.

It`s expensive to go to school and getting a college scholarship can significantly decrease the amount of money you need to pay for college. Besides scholarships for college, there are also many grants to pursue as well. The main difference between a grant and a scholarship is that grants are given to people in financial need and scholarships are given out on the basis of some merit – like high grades.

As a single mother, you can get college scholarships to help pay for your education. If you are in the situation where you are thinking about going back to school but can`t afford it, then consider college scholarships for single moms as the means to do so.

Author: Jon Snow
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Hopefully you have not encouraged your son or daughter to not consider college. A college education is a necessity in today’s cruel hard world, and not having a college education almost guarantees a struggle through life. Life is hard enough as it is, why complicate matters? For economic reasons, you may have encouraged your son or daughter to seriously consider a local community college instead of the brand-name state university. But I would urge you to reconsider that suggestion, since you of course want to be able to give your son or daughter every possible advantage that they could have, and the education that they get at the four-year state university or brand name college is almost certainly going to better than the local community college. You are saying fine, but how can I afford it?

The overall total cost of sending your son or daughter to the college that provides the BEST education for them should not be the deciding factor. The reason I say this is because there is a truckload of college scholarships and grants available that your son or daughter CAN qualify for. Maybe some of these are only a couple hundred bucks where others will cover the costs of the whole enchilada. There is not any kind of quota or limit on the number of scholarships that your son or daughter can apply for and be awarded. It is important to note that while you can almost certainly qualify for a student loan for your child, a student loan needs to be paid back after graduation, whereas a college scholarship or college grant does NOT need to be paid back. This is a tremendous difference.

As you research the availability of college scholarships and college grants, be fully aware that like most things, there are scams out there. You should never be required to pay a fee simply to find out if you qualify for a particular scholarship. While it happens, this requirement is rare and should be avoided, or at least looked at very carefully. And despite popular beliefs and myths, college scholarships and college grants are not only awarded to the top football player, the star soccer player, the musical genius, etc. Nor is award determination based solely on financial need as it was in years past. A majority of scholarships simply require the student to apply for them!

There are tons of college scholarships and college grants available, all of them totaling well into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. One of the almost ludicrous facts about this is that a large number of these scholarships and grants do not get awarded each year simply because nobody applied for them! These scholarships and grants are given by corporations who take it as a tax write-off, and if the scholarship does not get awarded, then they do not get the tax write-off. The best thing you can do to manage the costs of college is to apply for as many scholarships as you can find, and then do some more!

Author: Jon Arnold
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Even with a scholarship search service, there’s no guarantee that you will be able to win a college scholarship. And unlike grants or loans, they are more difficult to search for. This is because grants and loans usually come from the colleges themselves or from federal or state sources.

On the other hand, the money for college scholarships comes from numerous sources including businesses, private donors, non-profit organizations, college endowments, etc. When it comes to scholarships, there are thousands of options available. You have to know how to search and apply for a college scholarship.

Before searching on the internet for a college scholarship, it’s best to talk to your guidance counselor. Determine what majors you are interested in and where you plan to apply. If you are undecided at this point in time, your guidance counselor can give you some good advice.

Use whatever source is available to search for college scholarships. Check the college or university website for scholarships. Academic institutions usually offer scholarships for academic excellence and athletics. Keep in mind that this kind of scholarship will require special effort from you. For an academic scholarship, you will be required to maintain a specified grade point average. An athletic scholarship will require you to perform well in a sport.

You can use a scholarship search service that can match your personal profile with available scholarships that you are eligible to apply for. Make sure that you can get up-to-date information on scholarships that are available for the current academic year.

Don’t overlook scholarships or grants offered by the government. Some government agencies offer scholarships and grants but specify the college course that a student may take. A huge advantage to a government scholarship, aside from the obvious benefit of free college education, is the job that awaits you after graduation. The scholarship grant contract may include a government job after you earn your college degree.

It takes time and effort to find scholarships that you can apply for, but your hard work will be amply rewarded with a free college education. Many students use reputable and reliable college scholarship search services on the internet to help them in their search. Students can also ask their family and friends to help them look for scholarships, including those listed on local newspapers and bulletin boards.

Author: Nathan Rodgers
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Types of College Scholarships for Free

There are many types of free college scholarships that may be awarded based on academic merit, financial need, community involvement, political affiliation, religious membership, leadership or personal achievement.

Applicants will be required to establish their eligibility and qualification through a personal interview, an essay or other means. Guidelines are provided by the sponsoring institution or organization.

For academic scholarships, for example, you may be required to provide academic transcripts, letters of recommendation, documentation of community involvement or leadership, and academic merit.

If you are applying for a financial-based assistant scholarship, you will be asked for financial documents to establish your inability to meet the costs of a college study for a specified academic year or semester. Along with the projected tuition fees, you may have to provide tax return documents, W-2 form, and bank statements.

How a College Scholarship Helps

Scholarships provide funding for college tuition, books, laboratory fees and books. In some cases, meals and miscellaneous may also be covered. Typically, scholarships for college are applied on tuition and housing expenses. The sponsoring institution usually provides an outline of areas where scholarship funds can be applied.

The money is usually paid directly to the college or school where the applicant will study, and not directly to the applicant. Free academic-based college scholarships are frequently used for specific fields of study.

Restrictions

As a rule, free college scholarships are limited to a specified academic year or semester, field of study, and academic institution. A scholarship from one university cannot be used by the applicant to study at another university.

If the college scholarship is approved for the academic year 2010, it cannot be applied for the following year. The applicant will have to re-apply and gain approval for the following academic year.
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While free college scholarships are available to all, applicants must meet the requirements stipulated by the sponsoring organization. There will be hundreds if not thousands of applicants competing for the scholarships. It is not enough to just qualify, you have to stand out and establish yourself as the best choice.

If you win a free college scholarship, you must maintain a specified grade point average or you may risk losing the scholarship for the next school year. This is particularly true for scholarships given out by colleges and universities. If you fail to maintain your GPA, you may be put on academic probation. This will give you a chance to improve your academic standing and retain the scholarship.

Author: Nathan Rodgers
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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The thing is, most high school students do not enter college because aside from the fact that a college education requires a lot of money and effort, they do not have college scholarships and college tuition grants to help the finance their education. But there are various scholarships and low tuition cost programs that are available online. Most of these students just do not know where to look.

But do not fret. Here are some online sources you can use as a guide to help you browse through and check scholarships that could fit you and your specifications.

1. FastWeb – Fast Web enables scholarship searchers to check the site for scholarships and college tuition grants with regards to their year in college, interests, major and region. Aside from the scholarships, Fast Web has tons of articles on college loans, financial assistance, student life and internship announcements.

2. Scholarship Experts – Scholarship Experts was declared “best scholarship search engine” in Forbes Magazine’s Best of the Web Review. Aside from the scholarship information, you can also fill the necessary details and they will send your queries directly to the scholarship bodies.

3. SuperCollege -Super College’s members are free to access the site’s database of scholarships. The scholarships are ordered by name and coupled with the corresponding amount and are graded based on a five-star rating system.

There are more than 50 sites that offer free scholarship searches, college tuition comparisons, college tuition grant information and eligibility requirements. All you have to do is simply log in and search until you find the scholarship that suits you best.

Author: Anne Jones
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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