Scholarships Grants

Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – The latest US employment report revealed a major slowdown in the number of jobs created in May with the economy only adding 54,000 jobs to payrolls, not even enough to keep up with growth in the workforce.

It was a sharp contrast to April when the economy added 232,000 jobs added to payrolls, according to the US Department of Labor report released Friday.

However, even the April figures were not much help in bringing down the high unemployment rates created by the recession that officially ended in June 2009.

That is because economists say the nation needs to create around 200,000 jobs each month just to keep up with new people entering the labor force for the first time. But job creation has not picked up and new graduates are having a trouble getting their first job.

To put the nation’s unemployed back to work would require consistently creating more than 200,000 jobs monthly for a decade or more.

The disappointing creation of only 54,000 non-farm jobs basically left unchanged the unemployment rate of 9.1 percent and the number of people unemployed at around 13.9 million, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report.

It also left the percentage of working-age Americans who have either a part- or full-time job unchanged at 64.2 percent for the fifth consecutive month. Before the recession at least 89 percent, or more, of all working-age Americans had a job.

Long-term unemployment rates, defined as those who were jobless for 27 weeks or more, increased by 361,000 to 6.2 million. In addition, their share of the unemployed increased to 45.1 percent.

Unemployment rates among major worker groups were:

• adult men (8.9 percent)
• adult women (8.0 percent)
• teenagers (24.2 percent)
• whites (8.0 percent)
• blacks (16.2 percent)
• Hispanics (11.9 percent)

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Dhaka, Bangladesh (AHN) – After a five-year hiatus, a revived regional dialogue on human rights of migrant workers worldwide resumed in the Bangladesh capital Dhaka on Tuesday.

Ministers from Asian labor-sending countries are holding three days of business about endorsing protections for migrant workers, Human Rights Watch, Migrant Forum in Asia, and CARAM Asia said in a briefing paper. The protect should give priority to protecting migrant domestic workers, who are at especially high risk of abuse, and to ending recruitment-related exploitation, the organizations said.

The gathering marks the fourth round of the “Colombo Process,” a series of regional consultative meetings on Asian contractual migrant workers. Under the theme “Migration with Dignity,” delegates from 11 Asian countries that send large numbers of workers abroad are discussing strategies to improve coordination, optimize benefits from migration, and prevent worker abuses at home and abroad.

Several labor-receiving countries from Asia and the Middle East will attend as observers.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Tuesday underscored the need for establishing an international regimen to administer cross-border migration and internal displacements, the outcomes of adversities caused by climate change.

“We need an international regime under the United Nations as our country is likely to have huge human displacements due to climate change,” she said.

Some 3 million Asian men and women migrate each year, a large proportion working in domestic service, construction, manufacturing, and agriculture in other Asian countries and the Gulf states. In 2010, Asian migrants sent home an estimated US$175 billion in remittances.

Gulf countries in particular rely heavily on Asian contract labor; for example, there is approximately one migrant domestic worker for every two Kuwaiti citizens. Migrants from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka have fueled construction booms in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain.

“Abuses against migrants are often linked to gaps in information, poor coordination, and competition for jobs, so it’s a big deal for these governments to sit around the table and address these problems together,” said Nisha Varia, senior women’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The Dhaka meeting is also a chance to share information about successful reforms with other countries in the region.”

The briefing paper “Protecting Asian Migrants’ Rights” prepared by New York based Human Rights Watch, urged delegates to pledge support for a proposed international convention on labor standards for domestic work, increase civil society participation in future regional dialogues, promote increased multilateral cooperation, and take measures to eliminate recruitment fees charged to migrant workers.

But inadequate protections mean migrants also risk an array of abuses, the groups said, including recruitment-related deception and debts, unpaid wages, hazardous working conditions, physical and sexual abuse, and forced labor, including human trafficking. Unlicensed recruiters often operate with impunity, migrants have limited information about their rights and channels to seek help, and immigration policies can trap workers with abusive employers.

“When high, and often inflated, recruitment fees leave migrants heavily indebted, they are especially vulnerable to abuse,” said Dr. Chowdhury Abrar, chairman of the international relations department at the University of Dhaka. “Cracking down on excessive fees and unethical recruitment practices will be a key ingredient to any reform.”

“Even though migrants from Asia confront similar abuses while working abroad, their governments have typically addressed these bilaterally, and the results have been far weaker protections than if they negotiated together,” said Mohammad Harun Al Rashid, regional coordinator for CARAM Asia.

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JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (IRIN) – Two court cases have thrown a spotlight on the predicament of hundreds of thousands of former mineworkers in southern Africa who have received little or no compensation for occupational lung diseases that have left them debilitated and jobless.

Years of working in poorly ventilated mines, inhaling silica dust – present in high concentrations in deep-level gold mines – can lead to silicosis, a crippling and progressive disease caused by scarring of the lungs.

A study of former gold mine workers by the Aurum Institute, a non-profit health research organization, found that nearly 25 percent had silicosis. The disease has no cure and sufferers are also more prone to tuberculosis (TB), an infectious disease that is endemic in gold-mining communities.

Across the region, 280,000 ex-mineworkers are estimated to be eligible for compensation under South Africa’s Occupational Diseases in Mines and Works Act (ODIMWA), but according to one study as few as 2 percent have received the benefits they are entitled to.

Those who do manage to apply for compensation sometimes wait years to be paid, and the amounts they eventually receive are insignificant in the context of diseases that often leave them unable to work.

This could change after a Constitutional Court ruling earlier in March found that Thembekile Mankanyi, an ex-mineworker, could claim damages of more than of R2.6 million (US$366,440) from his former employer, AngloGold Ashanti, for a lung disease he acquired while working at one of their mines.

A High Court judgement had previously found that he was ineligible for further compensation because he had already received a payment of R16,320 ($2,300) through ODIMWA.

Mankanyi died from respiratory problems a week before the Constitutional Court ruling, but the judgment allows his family to return to court and pursue his claim. “Now, for the first time, the civil justice system can kick in,” Mankayi’s attorney, Richard Spoor, told IRIN.

Another case, which could also set a precedent, is expected to go to court in 2012 and involves 18 ex-mineworkers who developed silicosis and TB after working at the President Steyn gold mine in Welkom, a town in Free State Province. They are suing the mine’s former parent company, Anglo American, for failing to adequately advise its subsidiaries on the safe operation of their mines.

A “decrepit” system

The symptoms of silicosis can take over a decade to appear, by which time many miners have returned to their homes in rural areas of South Africa, Lesotho and Mozambique, where they are unlikely to be able access the two-yearly examinations that could make them eligible for compensation.

Thuthula Balfour-Kaipa, a health advisor to the Chamber of Mines of South Africa, pointed out that the over-stretched public health system was struggling to deliver basic healthcare, “so when it comes to a miner who looks fairly well and needs a chest x-ray, they’re not a priority”.

A joint project was launched in 2007 by the Chamber of Mines, the Department of Health, and the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) to set up clinics with the sole purpose of providing medical examinations for mineworkers in areas where labour is sourced, but so far only two clinics have opened, one in KwaZulu-Natal Province and one in Eastern Cape.

The project also allocated funding to the Medical Bureau for Occupational Diseases (MBOD), which falls under the Department of Health and administers ODMWA, to help address delays in compensation payouts but, according to Balfour-Kaipa, the money has not been used. “The [health] department has never quite agreed what the funding should be used for,” she told IRIN.

The health department did not respond to questions from IRIN, but according to the NUM’s health and safety chair, Peter Bailey, the backlog of claims at the MBOD was still “massive”.

Spoor described South Africa’s legislation regulating compensation for occupational injuries and diseases as “very out-dated”, and the system for implementing it as “decrepit”. He also noted that mining company contributions to the compensation fund were trivial.

“If you look at the prevalence studies of these [occupational lung] diseases, then it’s abundantly clear that this fund [should be] bankrupt, however, there’s never any challenge on its funding because so few people claim what they’re due.” He added that there was little pressure to reform the compensation system because “Injured workers are invariably unemployed workers, and they are poor and voiceless.”

Effective safety measures?

The Chamber of Mines has set up a Mining Industry Occupational Safety and Health (MOSH) initiative, aimed at identifying industry best practices for managing silica dust, as well as other safety issues such as noise and underground falls, and encouraging mining companies to adopt them.

According to the MOSH team, the most effective ways of controlling dust are to install fine water spray systems, and apply chemicals to underground walls that will cause the dust to stick to them. Installing large fans to ventilate shafts is also crucial.

No one knows exactly how effectively these techniques will reduce dust levels, and therefore the incidence of silicosis. Balfour-Kapia said dust was very difficult to measure. “Any way you measure [it], there’s still a 25 percent margin of error,” and because silicosis takes so many years to manifest, “We can only know in years to come whether these measures have worked.”

She said the incidence of silicosis had levelled off at about 1,600 cases per year, compared to 3,000 a year in’98.

Bailey of the NUM maintained that mines have made progress in implementing safety measures, and that the presence of health and safety representatives had empowered workers to exercise their rights to a safe working environment, but Spoor was unconvinced.

He said the lack of sanctions against mines that failed to comply with safety guidelines, and the small amounts they were currently required to pay into the compensation fund, meant there was no incentive for employers to look after their workers.

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Antananarivo, Madagascar (IRIN) – The burden of paying for education in Madagascar has shifted to the poor after donor funding was frozen in the wake of a coup on 17 March 2009.

About 70 percent of the education sector had been funded by donor countries, but since Andry Rajoelina seized power from former President Marc Ravalomanana with the backing of the military, state financial support to the education sector has become erratic.

“The question is what we have lost… over these years; how much damage has been done by vulnerable families having to pick up the bill for their children’s education,” said Margarita Focas Licht, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) head of education in Madagascar.

She said the government had not allocated any funds to the education sector in the 2009/10 academic year, which begins in October, but had begun transfers for 2010/11. However, it had not been established how much the state was paying per learner. In the past, the annual subsidy had been US$1.50 each for of the about 4.3 million primary school pupils.

According to 2008 estimates by the Ministry of Education, the average Malagasy has less than five years’ education and only 60 percent of learners completed primary school, which is considered low by regional standards.

The government’s failure to fund the education sector in the 2009/10 school year has led to the effective demise of free primary school education, with public schools demanding registration fees to compensate for the loss of income.

There is no uniformity in the registration fees. Some schools in the capital, Antananarivo, have been asking as much as $13 in a country where about three-quarters of the 20 million population live below the poverty line. An average class has about 50 learners, but some classes have as many as 100 learners.

Marie-Angele Ramanandraitsiory, principal of the Manakambahiny public primary school in Antananarivo, told IRIN the $4 registration fee her school charged was the cheapest of the city’s 92 public primary schools.

The money is being used to help pay the salaries of “community teachers”, who have no formal training but account for about two-thirds of the country’s roughly 70,000 primary school teachers. The government usually paid them, but not in the previous school year. The salaries of formally trained teachers had not been affected.

“We ask for things everywhere. We know that we don’t have enough money, but we work with the available means as we have to try and get all the kids to study, with or without funding,” Ramanandraitsiory said. But the money does not stretch to repairing roof leaks in some classrooms, which have become unusable because of knee-deep water.

School food

“There are many children who can’t come to school if there is no subsidized food. If they eat, and if parents receive help and starter packs for their children, they will come. If not, the children will be kept at home, or sent out to the streets to beg or work,” she said.

Starter packs include stationery items like pens, notebooks and rulers, but the supply of these has also become inconsistent.

A $730 grant from the education ministry fed the school’s 580 learners beyond the prescribed 60 days and reduced absenteeism, Ramanandraitsiory said. Four of the 12 educators at Manakambahiny primary are community teachers

In 2008 there was a proposal to provide training to all community teachers, but this has yet to materialize. Focas Licht said the ministry of education used to have the capacity to train about 2,800 teachers annually, but the teacher training system was “dysfunctional at the moment”.

“The local coping mechanism is to hire community teachers locally and pay them,” Focas Licht said, and this was why public schools had instituted registration fees, effectively ending free primary school education. “There would be a serious risk of sector collapse if two-thirds of the primary school teachers were no longer paid,” she said.

After donors froze funding in the wake of the 17 March 2009 coup, UNICEF assumed management of the $64 million Education For All – Fast Track Initiative, previously the domain of government under supervision of the World Bank, which still maintains its supervisory role.

In the 2009/10 school year 15$ million was used, in the 2010/11 academic year $22 million will be spent and $26 million remains for the 2011/12 school year, but beyond that no funding has been allocated.

Focas Licht said the money was being used to pay community teachers, maintain school feeding schemes with the assistance of the World Food Program (WFP) in the food insecure south of the island, fund school construction projects in partnership with the International Labour Organization, and reduce disparities in schools.

Last year the only money that 10,000 schools in 10 regions of Madagascar received was sourced from the Education For All Initiative.

The WFP supports 1,200 school canteens in the southern rural areas of Madagascar, feeding 215,000 beneficiaries in the drought-affected regions of Anosy, Androy and Atsimo Andrefana. UNICEF has a separate $13 million budget for supporting schools in seven other regions.

Fewer enrollments

Although there is no formal data available, Focas Licht said spot checks by UNICEF at schools in October 2010 indicated that enrollments were experiencing a downward trend.

“What we are noticing… on weekly visits to the poorest neighborhoods, is that the number of families that are no longer in a position to pay enrollment costs for their children in public primary schools is increasing,” Céline Guillaud, coordinator of Graines de Bitume (Pavement Seeds), an NGO in Antananarivo supporting poor and homeless children, told IRIN.

The NGO provides day care centers, assists in enrollment of primary school children and helps with school equipment, meals and medical expenses.

Although the NGO usually focused on families living on the streets, she said “non-single parented families, living in proper houses, where both parents work but can’t meet the expenses linked to schooling for their children,” were now seeking their help.

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Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – The United States reiterated its focus on “visa fraud” in the ongoing investigation into Tri-Valley University while the subject was highlighted during high-level visits from Indian officials to the U.S.

The latest efforts of Sushmita Thomas, Indian Consul General in San Francisco, on Wednesday resulted in the US Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) de-tagging three more Indian students out of total 18, bringing the number to five.

Noting that ICE has returned the passport of these three students along with two others from whom radio tags were removed last week, Thomas elaborated that the students were taken to ICE by two immigration attorneys.

Both of the attorneys, Kalpana Peddibhotla and Manpreet Gahra, are from the South Asian Bar Association, which is cooperating with the Consulate to provide free legal aid for the Tri Valley students.

There has been a flurry of diplomatic activities over the last weeks, as more than 1,500 students of Indian origin await results of the ongoing investigation by the Department of Homeland Security into the murky waters of Tri-Valley University.

Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao met with U.S. Undersecretary for political affairs William Burn and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton this week.

Commenting on the meetings, Heide Bronke Fulton, director of the State Department’s Office of Press Relations, told All Headline News, “During these discussions the issue of Tri-Valley University was raised. This is the issue that the United States government takes very seriously. Our Department of Homeland Security is leading the investigation into the situation and has established a website to assist all students who are affected by the issue of fraud that has risen.”

Asked to sum up her advise to the affected students, Indian Foreign Secretary Rao told AHN, “To stay in touch with the embassy and the consulates —– to reach out to the embassy and the consulates and not to be afraid to reach out to embassy and consulates —- we are there to help you to try to seek a solution to your problems and to their parents back home similar message —- that we would do our best to help them and to take up their case with the US authorities —- we are there to help Indian citizens —- that is the primary responsibility and primary work of any diplomatic establishment abroad.”

Addressing journalists on Wednesday, PJ Crowley, the State Department spokesman, said, “We will work as cooperatively as we can with the Indian government as we move ahead here, but it’s hard to know exactly what is possible because the matter is still under investigation.”

Commenting on the phone conversation between Indian External Affairs Minister SM Krishna and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over the weekend, Crowley said, “India has made the point, and we understand it fully, that students caught up in this, the risk is that they’ll lose a year of schooling and go through great inconvenience as this matter is being investigated. We do understand that and we have pledged our cooperation.”

During the State Department briefing Crowley said, “But we do recognize that there’s – are strong indications of visa fraud, and we don’t know who is involved, we don’t know how they got involved, but this has to be investigated fully, and we will do that.”

Over the weekend visiting Indian minister Krishna told journalists in New York, “We would like to assure that we have taken attempt with the authorities in the United States at the highest level and we have been assured that the students in the Tri-Valley – so called university will be dealt in all fairness – just not legalistically but taking into on the basis of humanitarian situations.”

“Our consul general in San Francisco has already provided legal assistance to some of these affected students,” added Krishna.

Indian Consul General Thomas told AHN, “We have been speaking to ICE repeatedly regularly – in fact we have been speaking to their principal chief investigator in this case and we have finally got them to agree that they would be dealing with this in a very humanitarian manner – not just a legalistical manner – and that in the cases where they are convinced that the students were not guilty – they would be willing to help them -either leave for India and then come back without prejudice or allow them to transfer to other universities and if their transfers get accepted or allow them a reinstatement of their visas if the universities from where they originally transferred accept them back.”

Calling the process “a long haul,” Thomas said, “I feel definitely it would be much longer than that–six to seven months or eight months but definitely there is a lot of hope and a lot of student whom we can possibly help to reinstate themselves and to get back to their studies.”

Over the weekend, a group of 25 students along with Mohan Nannapaneni, secretary of the Telgu Association of North American (TANA), met with Krishna to apprise him of the situation.

After the meeting, Nannapaneni told AHN, “We had a very lengthy meeting. The foreign affairs minister and the external affairs secretary listened to our concerns very carefully and a lot of students came and they gave a very clear description of their problems that they are going through.”

“Until we met the minister they didn’t even have an idea what exactly was going on here and the ministry and the government – they did not understand the urgency of this issue – now at least we have a feeling that they know the urgency of the issue and they are going to work quickly on it,” hoped Nannapaneni.

Praising TANA for supporting the students in distress, the Indian Consul General urged other community organizations to come forward with their resources to help these students.

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Australia is known for being a preferred destination not just in terms of travel and work but also of education. This land down under is said to attract the third largest number of foreign students in the English-speaking world after the US and the UK. Australia is the first choice of destination in some other countries. One of the advantages of owning a student visa Australia is that the country offers an educational experience that makes a real difference from other nations. It gives every international student a unique kind of education and a learning style that encourages one to be more innovative, creative and think independently. Students learn to work as a team, communicate effectively with others and develop their practical skills and intellectual abilities you need for worldwide success.

Teachers and professors encourage students in using their initiative and teach them with practical solutions in facing the real-world problems. Qualifications of students will make highly sought after by Australian and International employers upon graduation. It has been a trademark of Australia to bring in students success in finding jobs and hold prominent positions worldwide once graduated in college. Another thing is the country readily accepted students for postgraduate study at leading international universities. In this country also known as the “land of kangaroos”, students have the freedom to choose a path that suits your particular goals as they have thousands of courses on offer.

The Australian education system is known for its strong international reputation. Its education is also famous for its effective structure and innovative policy developments. Other countries wanting to improve their education systems turn to Australia for effective and reliable advice. Furthermore, the country’s approach to vocational and technical education has been already recognized as among the best and most innovative in the world. Its education system is excellent in all areas of both education and training. International and national students enjoy unparalleled level of service and financial protection in their stay in the country. This is provided in the terms and conditions on any visas such as work visa Australian or travel visas to Australia.

The country is committed to provide quality education to students. On the other hand, Australia also offers research opportunities to qualified professionals who are willing to enhance their career. The biggest advantage of studying in Australia is that it offers a country-based research that is spread all over the continent. There are more scholarships are given compared to the United States of the UK. Australia is a less populated yet vast country, so keep in mind that employment opportunities fit in at a rate faster than any other part of the world. Australia has been one of the best places to live, work and most of all study. Its young, friendly and vibrant country makes more students to come in to live, learn and grow. So if you want an excellent education and a good lifestyle don’t hesitate and choose Australia the place to be. You apply for travel visas initially just to try out living in the country and discover its unique lifestyle.

It is very expensive these days to get in to a medical school. All of them who are planning to get in to a medical school should plan for the expenses associated with this. If you cannot afford all the expenses then you can always apply for Medical School Loans. These loans are designed to help you when you want to pursue your studies in a medical school. Many of lucky students get scholarships and grants and this money is not supposed to be paid. But for those who are not getting any grants they can always apply for these loans.

Medical School Loans can finance all the expenses associated with your studies. If you agree to serve under for two to four years in an underserved area of the country then the entire tuition fee will be paid by the government. This provision comes under the government program know as US health service corp. you are supposed to serve rural and impoverished areas of the country.

One can easily study without thinking much about the money. Military branches also offer fee assistance under their tuition program. For availing this you need to agree to serve a number of years in exchange for them paying for your fees. The period you will serve will depend on the program and the money needed for that. So it is very easy to complete your studies through this government organization. You can also take students loans for which you have to pay the money back after completing your education. You need to have a job right after completing your education. This is because the repayment term starts just after completion of your education. So if you are looking for a financial assistance for completing your education then you can apply for these loans.