tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-42869610096921490012024-03-08T02:39:12.445-08:00highbeams891News Satu Untuk Semuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12431820897146969246noreply@blogger.comBlogger425125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4286961009692149001.post-34237175198349770762013-03-02T10:10:00.001-08:002013-03-02T10:10:20.813-08:00Community college grads out-earn bachelor’s degree holders<br /><div class="home-content-ad"><br /><div class="ad-code"><br /><br /></div></div><br /><p>Berevan Omer graduated on a Friday in February with an associate’s degree from Nashville State Community College and started work the following Monday as a computer-networking engineer at a local television station, making about $ 50,000 a year.</p><br /><p>That’s 15% higher than the average starting salary for graduates — not only from community colleges, but for bachelor’s degree holders from four-year universities.</p><div class="home-content-ad"><br /><div class="ad-code"><br /><br /></div></div><br /><br /><p>“I have a buddy who got a four-year bachelor’s degree in accounting who’s making $ 10 an hour,” Omer says. “I’m making two and a-half times more than he is.”</p><br /><p>Omer, who is 24, is one of many newly minted graduates of community colleges defying history and stereotypes by proving that a bachelor’s degree is not, as widely believed, the only ticket to a middle-class income.</p><br /><p>Nearly 30% of Americans with associate’s degrees now make more than those with bachelor’s degrees, according to Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce. In fact, other recent research in several states shows that, on average, community college graduates right out of school make more than graduates of four-year universities.</p><br /><p>The average wage for graduates of community colleges in Tennessee, for instance, is $ 38,948 — more than $ 1,300 higher than the average salaries for graduates of the state’s four-year institutions.</p><br /><p>In Virginia, recent graduates of occupational and technical degree programs at its community colleges make an average of $ 40,000. That’s almost $ 2,500 more than recent bachelor’s degree recipients.</p><br /><p>“There is that perception that the bachelor’s degree is the default, and, quite frankly, before we started this work showing the value of a technical associate’s degree, I would have said that, too,” says Mark Schneider, vice president of the American Institutes for Research, which helped collect the earning numbers for some states.</p><br /><p>And while by mid-career, many bachelor’s degree recipients have caught up in earnings to community college grads, “the other factor that has to be taken into account is that getting a four-year degree can be much more expensive than getting a two-year degree,” Schneider says.</p><br /><p>A two-year community college degree, at present full rates, costs about $ 6,262, according to the College Board. A bachelor’s degree from a four-year, private residential university goes for $ 158,072.</p><br /><p>The increase in wages for community college grads is being driven by a high demand for people with so-called “middle-skills” that often require no more than an associate’s degree, such as lab technicians, teachers in early childhood programs, computer engineers, draftsmen, radiation therapists, paralegals, and machinists.</p><br /><p>With a two-year community college degree, air traffic controllers can make $ 113,547, radiation therapists $ 76,627, dental hygienists $ 70,408, nuclear medicine technologists $ 69,638, nuclear technicians $ 68,037, registered nurses $ 65,853, and fashion designers $ 63,170, CareerBuilder.com reported in January.</p><br /><p>“You come out with skills that people want immediately and not just theory,” Omer says.</p><br /><p>The Georgetown center estimates that 29 million jobs paying middle class wages today require only an associate’s, and not a bachelor’s, degree.</p><br /><p>“I would not suggest anyone look down their nose at the associate’s degree,” says Jeff Strohl, director of research at the Georgetown center.</p><br /><p>“People see those programs as tracking into something that’s dead end,” Strohl says. “It’s very clear that that perception does not hold up.”</p><br /><p>The bad news is that not enough associate’s degree holders are being produced.</p><br /><p>Only 10% of American workers have the sub-baccalaureate degrees needed for middle-skills jobs, compared with 24% of Canadians and 19% of Japanese, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development reports.</p><br /><p>Over the last 20 years, the number of graduates with associate’s degrees in the United States has increased by barely 3%. And while the Obama administration has pushed community colleges to increase their numbers, enrollment at these schools fell 3.1% this year, the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center reports. Graduation rates also remain abysmally low.</p><br /><p>Meanwhile, many people with bachelor’s degrees are working in fields other than the ones in which they majored, according to a new report by the Center for College Affordability and Productivity.</p><br /><p>“We have a lot of bartenders and taxi drivers with bachelor’s degrees,” says Christopher Denhart, one of the report’s coauthors.</p><br /><p>Still, the salary advantage for associate’s degree holders narrows over time, as bachelor’s degree recipients eventually catch up, says Schneider.</p><br /><p>Although these figures vary widely by profession, associate’s degree recipients, on average, end up making about $ 500,000 more over their careers than people with only high school diplomas, but $ 500,000 less than people with bachelor’s degrees, the Georgetown center calculates.</p><br /><p>As for Omer, he’s already working toward a bachelor’s degree.</p><br /><p>“Down the road a little further, I may want to become a director or a manager,” he says. “A bachelor’s degree will get me to that point.”</p><br /><p>This story was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, nonpartisan education-news outlet based at Teachers College, Columbia University. It’s one of a series of reports about workforce development and higher education.</p><br /><p>View this article on CNNMoney</p><br /><p><strong>More From CNNMoney.com</strong><br /></p><br /><p>Yahoo! Finance – Personal Finance</p><br /><div><br /><div itemscope="" itemtype="http://data-vocabulary.org/Review-aggregate"><br /><div><br />Title Post: <span itemprop="itemreviewed"><strong>Community college grads out-earn bachelor’s degree holders</strong></span><br />Url Post: <strong>http://www.news.fluser.com/community-college-grads-out-earn-bachelors-degree-holders/</strong><br />Link To Post : <strong>Community college grads out-earn bachelor’s degree holders</strong><br />Rating: <span itemprop="rating" itemscope="" itemtype="http://data-vocabulary.org/Rating"><br /><span itemprop="average">100%</span><br /></span><br />based on <span itemprop="votes">99998</span> ratings.<br /><span itemprop="count">5</span> user reviews.<br />Author: <b><span class="vcard author"><span class="fn">Fluser SeoLink</span></span></b><br />Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment</div><br /></div><br /></div><br /><br />News Satu Untuk Semuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12431820897146969246noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4286961009692149001.post-31501009638203058852013-03-02T10:08:00.001-08:002013-03-02T10:08:16.152-08:00With record highs in sight, stocks face roadblocks<p class="first">NEW YORK (Reuters) - If <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1362202326700_3">Wall Street</span> needs to climb a wall of worry, it will have plenty of opportunity next week.</p><br /><p> Major <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1362202326700_7">U.S.</span> stock indexes will make another attempt at reaching all-time records, but the fitful pace that has dominated trading is likely to continue. Next Friday's unemployment report and the hefty spending cuts that look like they about to take effect will be at the forefront.</p><br /><p> The importance of whether equities can reach and sustain those highs is more than Wall Street's usual fixation on numbers with psychological significance. Breaking through to uncharted territory is seen as a test of <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1362202326700_2">investors</span>' faith in the rally.</p><br /><p> "It's very significant," said <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1362202326700_1">Bucky Hellwig</span>, senior vice president at BB&T Wealth Management in Birmingham, Alabama.</p><br /><p> "The thinking is, there's just not enough there for an extended bull run," he said. "If we do break through (<span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1362202326700_4">record highs</span>), then maybe the charts and price action are telling us there's something better ahead."</p><br /><p> Flare-ups in the euro zone's sovereign debt crisis and next Friday's report on the U.S. labor market could jostle the market, though U.S. job indicators have generally been trending in a positive direction.</p><br /><p> Small- and mid-cap stocks hit lifetime highs in February. Now the Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> and the S&P 500 <.spx> are racing each other to the top. The Dow, made up of 30 stocks, is about 75 points - less than 1 percent - away from its record close of 14,164.53, which it hit on October 9, 2007. The broader S&P is still 3 percent away from its closing high of 1,565.15, also reached on October 9, 2007.</.spx></.dji></p><br /><p> The advantage may be in the Dow's court. So far in 2013, it has gained 7.5 percent, beating the S&P 500 by about 1 percent.</p><br /><p> THE RALLY AND THE REALITY CHECK</p><br /><p> The Dow's relative strength owes much to its unique make-up and calculation, as well as to investors' recent preference for buying value stocks likely to generate steady reliable gains, rather than growth stocks.</p><br /><p> But the more defensive stance illustrates how stock buyers are getting concerned about this year's rally. While investors don't want to miss out on gains, they're picking up companies that are less likely to decline as much as high-flying names - if a market correction comes.</p><br /><p> The Russell Value Index <.rav> is up 7.6 percent for the year so far, outpacing the Russell Growth Index's <.rag> 5.7 percent rise. Within the realm of the S&P 500, the consumer staples sector led the market in February, gaining 3.1 percent.</.rag></.rav></p><br /><p> There is some concern that growth-oriented names are being eclipsed by defensive bets, said Ryan Detrick, senior technical strategist at Schaeffer's Investment Research in Cincinnati.</p><br /><p> "This isn't a be-all and end-all sell signal by any means, but we would feel much more comfortable if some of the more aggressive areas, like technology and small caps, would start to gain some leadership here," Detrick said.</p><br /><p> Signs that investors are becoming concerned about the rally's pace is evident in the options market, where the ratio of put activity to call activity has recently shifted in favor of puts, which represent expectations for a stock to fall.</p><br /><p> "We are seeing some put hedging in the financials, building up for the past month," said Henry Schwartz, president of options analytics firm Trade Alert in New York.</p><br /><p> The put-to-call ratio representing an aggregate of about 562 financial stocks is 1:1, when normally, calls should be outnumbering puts.</p><br /><p> Investors have no shortage of reasons to crave the relative safety of blue chips and defensive stocks. Although markets have mostly looked past uncertainty over Washington's plans to cut the deficit, fiscal policy negotiations still pose a risk to equities.</p><br /><p> The $85 billion in spending cuts set to begin on Friday is expected to slow economic growth this year if policymakers do not reach a new deal. Markets so far have held firm despite the wrangling in Washington, but tangible economic effects could pinch stock prices going forward.</p><br /><p> The International Monetary Fund warned that full implementation of the cuts would probably take at least 0.5 percentage point off U.S. growth this year.</p><br /><p> EASY MONEY AND TEPID HIRING</p><br /><p> Investors will also take in a round of economic data at a time when concerns are percolating that the market is being pushed up less by fundamentals and more by loose monetary policy around the world.</p><br /><p> The main economic event will be Friday's non-farm payrolls report for February. The U.S. economy is expected to have added 160,000 jobs last month, only a tad higher than in January, in a sign the <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1362202326700_6">labor market</span> is healing at a slow pace. The U.S. unemployment rate is forecast to hold steady at 7.9 percent.</p><br /><p> While lackluster data has been a catalyst in the past for <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1362202326700_5">stock market</span> gains as investors bet it would ensure continued stimulus from the Federal Reserve, that sentiment may be wearing thin.</p><br /><p> Markets stumbled last week following worries that the Fed might wind down its quantitative easing program sooner than expected.</p><br /><p> "It shows the underpinning of the market is being driven at this point by monetary policy," Hellwig said.</p><br /><p> With investors questioning what is behind the rally, it will make a run to record highs even more significant, Hellwig added.</p><br /><p> "There's smart people that are in the bull camp and the bear camp and the muddle-through camp," Hellwig said. "The fact that you can statistically, using historical evidence, make a case for going higher, lower, or staying the same makes this number very important this time around."</p><br /><p> (Wall St Week Ahead runs every Friday. Comments or questions on this column can be emailed to: leah.schnurr(at)thomsonreuters.com)</p><br /><p> (Reporting by Leah Schnurr; Additional reporting by Doris Frankel in Chicago; Editing by Jan Paschal)</p><br /><br />News Satu Untuk Semuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12431820897146969246noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4286961009692149001.post-7587409335721406042013-03-02T10:04:00.001-08:002013-03-02T10:04:14.432-08:00U.S. evolves on same-sex marriage<br /><!--startclickprintexclude--><br /><br /><br /><div class="cnn_strylftcntnt"><div class="cnn_strylctcntr"><br /><p><strong>STORY HIGHLIGHTS</strong></p><br /><ul class="cnn_bulletbin cnnStryHghLght"><!--google_ad_section_start--><li>The president and the nation have shifted perspectives on same-sex marriage</li><br /><li>Supreme Court ruling on California's same-sex marriage ban a critical test</li><br /><li>Growing public support for gay marriage give proponents hope for change</li><br /><!--google_ad_section_end--><br /></ul></div></div><br /><!--endclickprintexclude--><!--google_ad_section_start--><!--startclickprintinclude--><br /><p><strong>Washington (CNN)</strong> -- The nation's growing acceptance of same-sex marriage has happened in slow and painstaking moves, eventually building into a momentum that is sweeping even the most unlikely of converts.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph2">Even though he said in 2008 that he could only support civil unions for same-sex couples, President Barack Obama nonetheless enjoyed strong support among the gay community. He disappointed many with his conspicuously subdued first-term response to the same-sex marriage debate.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph3">Last year, after Vice President Joe Biden announced his support, the president then said his position had evolved and he, too, supported same-sex marriage.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph4">So it was no small matter when on Thursday the Obama administration formally expressed its support of same-sex marriage in a court brief weighing in on California's Proposition 8, which bans same-sex weddings. The administration's effort was matched by at least 100 high-profile Republicans — some of whom in elections past depended on gay marriage as a wedge issue guaranteed to rally the base — who signed onto a brief supporting gay couples to legally wed.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph5">Obama on same-sex marriage: Everyone is equal</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph6">Then there are the polls that show that an increasing number of Americans now support same-sex marriage. These polls show that nearly half of the nation's Catholics and white, mainstream Protestants and more than half of the nation's women, liberals and political moderates all support same-sex marriage.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph7">According to Pew Research Center polling, 48% of Americans support same-sex marriage with 43% opposed. Back in 2001, 57% opposed same-sex marriage while 35% supported it.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph8">In last year's presidential election, same-sex marriage scarcely raised a ripple. That sea change is not lost on the president.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph9">"The same evolution I've gone through is the same evolution the country as a whole has gone through," Obama told reporters on Friday.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph10">Craig Rimmerman, professor of public policy and political science at Hobart and William Smith colleges says there is history at work here and the administration is wise to get on the right side.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph11">"There is no doubt that President Obama's shifting position on Proposition 8 and same-sex marriage more broadly is due to his desire to situate himself on the right side of history with respect to the fight over same-sex marriage," said Rimmerman, author of "From Identity to Politics: The Lesbian and Gay Movements in the United States."</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph12">"I also think that broader changes in public opinion showing greater support for same-sex marriage, especially among young people, but in the country at large as well, has created a cultural context for Obama to alter his views."</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph13">For years, Obama had frustrated many in the gay community by not offering full-throated support of same-sex marriage. However, the president's revelation last year that conversations with his daughters and friends led him to change his mind gave many in that community hope.</p><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph14">Last year, the Obama administration criticized a measure in North Carolina that banned same-sex marriage and made civil unions illegal. The president took the same position on a similar Minnesota proposal.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph15">Obama administration officials point to what they see as the administration's biggest accomplishment in the gay rights cause: repealing "don't ask, don't tell," the military's ban on openly gay and lesbian members serving in the forces.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph16">Then there was the president's inaugural address which placed the gay community's struggle for equality alongside similar civil rights fights by women and African-Americans.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph17">"Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law, for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal, as well," Obama said in his address after being sworn in.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph18">In offering its support and asserting in the brief that "prejudice may not be the basis for differential treatment under the law," the Obama administration is setting up a high stakes political and constitutional showdown at the U.S. Supreme Court over a fast-evolving and contentious issue.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph19">The justices will hear California's Proposition 8 case in March. That case and another appeal over the federal Defense of Marriage Act will produce blockbuster rulings from the justices in coming months.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph20">Beyond the legal wranglings there is a strong social and historic component, one that has helped open the way for the administration to push what could prove to be a social issue that defines Obama's second term legacy, Rimmerman said.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph21">The nation is redefining itself on this issue, as well.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph22">Pew survey: Changing attitudes on gay marriage</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph23">The changes are due, in part, to generational shifts. Younger people show a higher level of support than their older peers, according to Pew polling "Millennials are almost twice as likely as the Silent Generation to support same-sex marriage."</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph24">"As people have grown up with people having the right to marry the generational momentum has been very, very strong," said Evan Wolfson, president of Freedom to Marry, a gay rights organization.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph25">That is not to say that there isn't still opposition.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph26">Pew polling found that most Republicans and conservatives remain opposed to same-sex marriage. In 2001, 21% of Republicans were supportive; in 2012 that number nudged slightly to 25%.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph27">Conservative groups expressed dismay at the administration's same-sex marriage support.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph28">"President Obama, who was against same-sex 'marriage' before he was for it, and his administration, which said the Defense of Marriage Act was constitutional before they said it was unconstitutional, has now flip-flopped again on the issue of same-sex 'marriage,' putting allegiance to extreme liberal social policies ahead of constitutional principle," Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said in a statement.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph29">But there are signs of movement even among some high profile Republican leaders</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph30">Top Republicans sign brief supporting same-sex marriage</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph31">The Republican-penned friend of the court brief, which is designed to influence conservative justices on the high court, includes a number of top officials from the George W. Bush administration, Mitt Romney's former campaign manager and former GOP presidential candidate Jon Huntsman.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph32">It is also at odds with the Republican Party's platform, which opposes same-sex marriage and defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph33">Still, with White House and high-profile Republican support, legal and legislative victories in a number of states and polls that show an increasing number of Americans support same sex-marriage, proponents feel that the winds of history are with them.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph34">"What we've seen is accelerating and irrefutable momentum as Americans have come to understand who gay people are and why marriage matters," Wolfson said. "We now have a solid national majority and growing support across every demographic. We have leaders across the spectrum, including Republicans, all saying it's time to end marriage discrimination."</p><br /><p class="cnn_strycbftrtxt">CNN's Peter Hamby, Ashley Killough and Bill Mears contributed to this report. </p><br /><!--endclickprintinclude--><!--google_ad_section_end--><br /><!--no partner--><br /><br /><br />News Satu Untuk Semuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12431820897146969246noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4286961009692149001.post-33623776837155478112013-03-02T10:02:00.001-08:002013-03-02T10:02:21.684-08:00Cellar victim Kampusch raped, starved in film of ordeal<br /><div class="home-content-ad"><br /><div class="ad-code"><br /><br /></div></div><br /><p class="first">VIENNA (Reuters) – A new film based on the story of Austrian kidnap victim <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1361825469398_1">Natascha Kampusch</span> shows her being repeatedly raped by the captor who beat and starved her during the eight-and-a-half years that he kept her in a cellar beneath his house.</p><br /><p><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1361825469398_3">Kampusch</span> was snatched on her way to school at the age of 10 by <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1361825469398_2">Wolfgang Priklopil</span> and held in a windowless cell under his garage near Vienna until she escaped in 2006, causing a sensation in Austria and abroad. Priklopil committed suicide.</p><div class="home-content-ad"><br /><div class="ad-code"><br /><br /></div></div><br /><br /><p>Kampusch had always refused to respond to claims that she had had sex with <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1361825469398_4">Priklopil</span>, but in a German television interview on her 25th birthday last week said she had decided to reveal the truth because it had leaked out from police files.</p><br /><p>The film, “3,096 Days” – based on Kampusch’s autobiography of the same name – soberly portrays her captivity in a windowless cellar less than 6 square metres (65 square feet) in area, often deprived of food for days at a time.</p><br /><p>The emaciated Kampusch – who weighed just 38 kg (84 pounds) at one point in 2004 – keeps a diary written on toilet paper concealed in a box.</p><br /><p>One entry reads: “At least 60 blows in the face. Ten to 15 nausea-inducing fist blows to the head. One strike with the fist with full weight to my right ear.”</p><br /><p>The movie shows occasional moments that approach tenderness, such as when Priklopil presents her with a cake for her 18th birthday or buys her a dress as a gift – but then immediately goes on to chide her for not knowing how to waltz with him.</p><br /><p>GREY AREAS</p><br /><p>Antonia Campbell-Hughes, who plays the teenaged Kampusch, said she had tried to portray “the strength of someone’s soul, the ability of people to survive… but also the grey areas within a relationship that people don’t necessarily understand.”</p><br /><p>The British actress said she had not met Kampusch during the making of the film or since. “It was a very isolated time, it was a bubble of time, and I wanted to keep that very focused,” she told journalists as she arrived for the Vienna premiere.</p><br /><p>Kampusch herself attended the premiere, looking composed as she posed for pictures but declining to give interviews.</p><br /><p>In an interview with Germany’s Bild Zeitung last week, she said: “Yes, I did recognize myself, although the reality was even worse. But one can’t really show that in the cinema, since it wasn’t supposed to be a horror film.”</p><br /><p>The movie, made at the Constantin Film studios in Bavaria, Germany, also stars Amy Pidgeon as the 10-year-old Kampusch and Danish actor Thure Lindhardt as Priklopil.</p><br /><p>“I focused mainly on playing the human being because… we have to remember it was a human being. Monsters do not exist, they’re only in cartoons,” Lindhart said.</p><br /><p>“It became clear to me that it’s a story about survival, and it’s a story about surviving eight years of hell. If that story can be told then I can also play the bad guy.”</p><br /><p>The director was German-American Sherry Hormann, who made her English-language debut with the 2009 move “Desert Flower”, an adaptation of the autobiography of Somali-born model and anti-female circumcision activist Waris Dirie.</p><br /><p>“I’m a mother and I wonder at the strength of this child, and it was important for me to tell this story from a different perspective, to tell how this child using her own strength could survive this atrocious martyrdom,” Hormann said.</p><br /><p>The Kampusch case was followed two years later by that of Josef Fritzl, an Austrian who held his daughter captive in a cellar for 24 years and fathered seven children with her.</p><br /><p>The crimes prompted soul-searching about the Austrian psyche, and questions as to how the authorities and neighbors could have let such crimes go undetected for so long.</p><br /><p>The film goes on general release on Thursday.</p><br /><p>(Reporting by Georgina Prodhan, Editing by Paul Casciato)</p><br /><p>Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News</p><br /><div><br /><div itemscope="" itemtype="http://data-vocabulary.org/Review-aggregate"><br /><div><br />Title Post: <span itemprop="itemreviewed"><strong>Cellar victim Kampusch raped, starved in film of ordeal</strong></span><br />Url Post: <strong>http://www.news.fluser.com/cellar-victim-kampusch-raped-starved-in-film-of-ordeal/</strong><br />Link To Post : <strong>Cellar victim Kampusch raped, starved in film of ordeal</strong><br />Rating: <span itemprop="rating" itemscope="" itemtype="http://data-vocabulary.org/Rating"><br /><span itemprop="average">100%</span><br /></span><br />based on <span itemprop="votes">99998</span> ratings.<br /><span itemprop="count">5</span> user reviews.<br />Author: <b><span class="vcard author"><span class="fn">Fluser SeoLink</span></span></b><br />Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment</div><br /></div><br /></div><br /><br />News Satu Untuk Semuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12431820897146969246noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4286961009692149001.post-71484640527280498072013-03-01T10:12:00.001-08:002013-03-01T10:12:10.704-08:00Warning about student ‘money mules’<br /><div class="home-content-ad"><br /><div class="ad-code"><br /><br /></div></div><br /><p><span class="story-date"><span class="date">25 February 2013</span> <span class="time-text">Last updated at</span> <span class="time">19:03 ET</span></span></p><br /><p><span class="byline"><span class="byline-name">By Simon Gompertz</span> <span class="byline-title">Personal finance correspondent, BBC News</span></span></p><div class="home-content-ad"><br /><div class="ad-code"><br /><br /></div></div><br /><br /><p class="introduction" id="story_continues_1">Fraud experts are warning that hundreds of thousands of people are in danger of being duped into laundering money for fraudsters.</p><br /><p>They are being recruited as unwitting “money mules” who allow their own bank accounts to be used to disguise the proceeds of crime.</p><br /><p>The study was carried out by Financial Fraud Action, which tackles fraud on behalf of banks.</p><br /><p>It said that students and jobseekers could be especially vulnerable.</p><br /><p>Some 19% of students who had been approached had agreed to become money mules.</p><br /><p>“It’s a very serious problem,” warns DCI Dave Carter, an investigator from Financial Fraud Action.</p><br /><p>“Almost every single criminal transaction that goes on depends on money mules, to turn the money from crime into something the criminals can spend themselves.”</p><br /><p><span class="cross-head">How it works</span></p><br /><div class="story-feature narrow" readability="24.462585034">Continue reading the main story<br /><blockquote readability="5"><br /><p class="first-child">It just makes you feel sick. I don’t want it to happen again.”</p><br /></blockquote><br /><p><span class="endquote">End Quote</span> <span class="quote-credit">Kayleigh Rance</span> <span class="quote-credit-title">job-seeker</span></p></div><br /><p id="story_continues_2">The fraudsters contact likely targets by sending out mass emails offering employment, or after sifting through CVs posted by job seekers on employment websites.</p><br /><p>Then they offer jobs as “money transfer agents”, “payment processing agents” or “administration assistants” for salaries of hundreds of pounds a week.</p><br /><p>It looks like a proper job offer, but the real purpose is to channel cash from criminal activity through a person’s own bank account, making them the fraudster’s money mule.</p><br /><p>Kayleigh Rance has been hunting for work for a year. She was taken in and even signed a contract. Then, luckily, she pulled out.</p><br /><p>“It just makes you feel a bit sick,” she complains, “I feel like I’ve got to go through all the websites now and take my CV off because I don’t want it to happen again.”</p><br /><p>The dirty cash comes from credit card fraud, money stolen from bank accounts and other rip-offs.</p><br /><p>Paying it into the money mule’s account disguises where it comes from. The mule transfers it to an account in an overseas bank, controlled by the fraudster. It is classic money laundering.</p><br /><p>Some money mules are paid by a straightforward cut of the cash being handled. A typical share would be 8%.</p><br /><p><span class="cross-head">Campaign</span></p><br /><p>The first mules tended to be new entrants to the UK, processing funds generated by crime within their own communities in London and other major cities.</p><br /><p>But the power of the internet has allowed the perpetrators to start targeting other groups, including students desperate to earn some extra cash.</p><br /><p>Financial Fraud Action commissioned ICM to question 2,000 adults along with separate groups exclusively made up of students, jobseekers and new entrants to the UK.</p><br /><p>Around 15% had received the suspect job offers. Overall 6% of those who had been approached accepted the offers, rising to 13% of the unemployed, 19% of students and 20% of new entrants.</p><br /><p>Crimestoppers is running a campaign in universities across the UK to warn students not to be fooled into becoming involved, telling them: “Don’t be a mule!”.</p><br /><p><span class="cross-head">‘Colossal risk’</span></p><br /><p>Megan Owen, who is studying criminology, volunteered to help at one recent event in Birmingham City University.</p><br /><p>“Lots of students we approached said they’d been affected or their friends had been affected,” she said.</p><br /><p>Extrapolating from its survey, Financial Fraud Action concludes that 380,000 people could have become unwitting money mules.</p><br /><p>The figure is a stab in the dark, but it is clear that the problem is becoming worse and that few of those who become involved understand the risks they are running.</p><br /><p>Their bank accounts could be frozen. If prosecuted, they could be sent to prison for up to 10 years.</p><br /><p>“It’s a colossal risk,” warns DCI Carter. “In fact you are taking almost all the risk on behalf of the criminal. That’s why they ask – the money mules are the ones most likely to be caught.”</p><br /><p>BBC News – Business</p><br /><div><br /><div itemscope="" itemtype="http://data-vocabulary.org/Review-aggregate"><br /><div><br />Title Post: <span itemprop="itemreviewed"><strong>Warning about student ‘money mules’</strong></span><br />Url Post: <strong>http://www.news.fluser.com/warning-about-student-money-mules/</strong><br />Link To Post : <strong>Warning about student ‘money mules’</strong><br />Rating: <span itemprop="rating" itemscope="" itemtype="http://data-vocabulary.org/Rating"><br /><span itemprop="average">100%</span><br /></span><br />based on <span itemprop="votes">99998</span> ratings.<br /><span itemprop="count">5</span> user reviews.<br />Author: <b><span class="vcard author"><span class="fn">Fluser SeoLink</span></span></b><br />Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment</div><br /></div><br /></div><br /><br />News Satu Untuk Semuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12431820897146969246noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4286961009692149001.post-33406345860226094742013-03-01T10:10:00.001-08:002013-03-01T10:10:15.498-08:00Community college grads out-earn bachelor’s degree holders<br /><div class="home-content-ad"><br /><div class="ad-code"><br /><br /></div></div><br /><p>Berevan Omer graduated on a Friday in February with an associate’s degree from Nashville State Community College and started work the following Monday as a computer-networking engineer at a local television station, making about $ 50,000 a year.</p><br /><p>That’s 15% higher than the average starting salary for graduates — not only from community colleges, but for bachelor’s degree holders from four-year universities.</p><div class="home-content-ad"><br /><div class="ad-code"><br /><br /></div></div><br /><br /><p>“I have a buddy who got a four-year bachelor’s degree in accounting who’s making $ 10 an hour,” Omer says. “I’m making two and a-half times more than he is.”</p><br /><p>Omer, who is 24, is one of many newly minted graduates of community colleges defying history and stereotypes by proving that a bachelor’s degree is not, as widely believed, the only ticket to a middle-class income.</p><br /><p>Nearly 30% of Americans with associate’s degrees now make more than those with bachelor’s degrees, according to Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce. In fact, other recent research in several states shows that, on average, community college graduates right out of school make more than graduates of four-year universities.</p><br /><p>The average wage for graduates of community colleges in Tennessee, for instance, is $ 38,948 — more than $ 1,300 higher than the average salaries for graduates of the state’s four-year institutions.</p><br /><p>In Virginia, recent graduates of occupational and technical degree programs at its community colleges make an average of $ 40,000. That’s almost $ 2,500 more than recent bachelor’s degree recipients.</p><br /><p>“There is that perception that the bachelor’s degree is the default, and, quite frankly, before we started this work showing the value of a technical associate’s degree, I would have said that, too,” says Mark Schneider, vice president of the American Institutes for Research, which helped collect the earning numbers for some states.</p><br /><p>And while by mid-career, many bachelor’s degree recipients have caught up in earnings to community college grads, “the other factor that has to be taken into account is that getting a four-year degree can be much more expensive than getting a two-year degree,” Schneider says.</p><br /><p>A two-year community college degree, at present full rates, costs about $ 6,262, according to the College Board. A bachelor’s degree from a four-year, private residential university goes for $ 158,072.</p><br /><p>The increase in wages for community college grads is being driven by a high demand for people with so-called “middle-skills” that often require no more than an associate’s degree, such as lab technicians, teachers in early childhood programs, computer engineers, draftsmen, radiation therapists, paralegals, and machinists.</p><br /><p>With a two-year community college degree, air traffic controllers can make $ 113,547, radiation therapists $ 76,627, dental hygienists $ 70,408, nuclear medicine technologists $ 69,638, nuclear technicians $ 68,037, registered nurses $ 65,853, and fashion designers $ 63,170, CareerBuilder.com reported in January.</p><br /><p>“You come out with skills that people want immediately and not just theory,” Omer says.</p><br /><p>The Georgetown center estimates that 29 million jobs paying middle class wages today require only an associate’s, and not a bachelor’s, degree.</p><br /><p>“I would not suggest anyone look down their nose at the associate’s degree,” says Jeff Strohl, director of research at the Georgetown center.</p><br /><p>“People see those programs as tracking into something that’s dead end,” Strohl says. “It’s very clear that that perception does not hold up.”</p><br /><p>The bad news is that not enough associate’s degree holders are being produced.</p><br /><p>Only 10% of American workers have the sub-baccalaureate degrees needed for middle-skills jobs, compared with 24% of Canadians and 19% of Japanese, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development reports.</p><br /><p>Over the last 20 years, the number of graduates with associate’s degrees in the United States has increased by barely 3%. And while the Obama administration has pushed community colleges to increase their numbers, enrollment at these schools fell 3.1% this year, the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center reports. Graduation rates also remain abysmally low.</p><br /><p>Meanwhile, many people with bachelor’s degrees are working in fields other than the ones in which they majored, according to a new report by the Center for College Affordability and Productivity.</p><br /><p>“We have a lot of bartenders and taxi drivers with bachelor’s degrees,” says Christopher Denhart, one of the report’s coauthors.</p><br /><p>Still, the salary advantage for associate’s degree holders narrows over time, as bachelor’s degree recipients eventually catch up, says Schneider.</p><br /><p>Although these figures vary widely by profession, associate’s degree recipients, on average, end up making about $ 500,000 more over their careers than people with only high school diplomas, but $ 500,000 less than people with bachelor’s degrees, the Georgetown center calculates.</p><br /><p>As for Omer, he’s already working toward a bachelor’s degree.</p><br /><p>“Down the road a little further, I may want to become a director or a manager,” he says. “A bachelor’s degree will get me to that point.”</p><br /><p>This story was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, nonpartisan education-news outlet based at Teachers College, Columbia University. It’s one of a series of reports about workforce development and higher education.</p><br /><p>View this article on CNNMoney</p><br /><p><strong>More From CNNMoney.com</strong><br /></p><br /><p>Yahoo! Finance – Personal Finance</p><br /><div><br /><div itemscope="" itemtype="http://data-vocabulary.org/Review-aggregate"><br /><div><br />Title Post: <span itemprop="itemreviewed"><strong>Community college grads out-earn bachelor’s degree holders</strong></span><br />Url Post: <strong>http://www.news.fluser.com/community-college-grads-out-earn-bachelors-degree-holders/</strong><br />Link To Post : <strong>Community college grads out-earn bachelor’s degree holders</strong><br />Rating: <span itemprop="rating" itemscope="" itemtype="http://data-vocabulary.org/Rating"><br /><span itemprop="average">100%</span><br /></span><br />based on <span itemprop="votes">99998</span> ratings.<br /><span itemprop="count">5</span> user reviews.<br />Author: <b><span class="vcard author"><span class="fn">Fluser SeoLink</span></span></b><br />Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment</div><br /></div><br /></div><br /><br />News Satu Untuk Semuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12431820897146969246noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4286961009692149001.post-65749314161732026132013-03-01T10:08:00.001-08:002013-03-01T10:08:13.547-08:00Strong data lifts Wall Street, trumps sequester fears<p class="first">NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks edged higher on Friday as strong economic figures more than offset growth concerns out of China and Europe and as <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1362160926034_4">investors</span> shrugged off expected across-the-board U.S. goverment spending cuts.</p><br /><p> Stocks opened sharply lower as Asian factories slowed and European output fell, but most of the losses disappeared after a report showed U.S. manufacturing activity expanded last month at its fastest clip in 20 months.</p><br /><p> U.S. consumer confidence also rose in February as Americans turned more optimistic about the job market.</p><br /><p> With government budget cuts set to begin on Friday, <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1362160926034_1">President Barack Obama</span> blamed Republicans for failure to reach a compromise to avert the cuts, known as sequester. Investors, who have had plenty of time to prepare, appeared not too worried about the immediate impact.</p><br /><p> "Despite the headlines, the drama and the finger pointing, the U.S. economy can still expand and as long as you see expansion, (equity) markets can go higher," said <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1362160926034_3">Quincy Krosby</span>, market strategist at Prudential Financial in Newark, New Jersey.</p><br /><p> Krosby said the market was also looking ahead to next week's government payrolls report. A stronger jobs market points to stronger <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1362160926034_2">consumer spending</span>, an important component for economic growth. Separately, a government report on Friday said consumer spending rose in January as Americans spent more on services.</p><br /><p> The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> rose 38.09 points or 0.27 percent, to 14,092.58, the S&P 500 <.spx> gained 3.4 points or 0.22 percent, to 1,518.08 and the Nasdaq Composite <.ixic> added 7.68 points or 0.24 percent, to 3,167.87.</.ixic></.spx></.dji></p><br /><p> For the week so far, the Dow is up 0.7 percent while the Nasdaq and S&P are up 0.2 percent.</p><br /><p> Equities continue to attract investors in an environment of low interest rates due to an accommodative monetary policy. The Dow is less than 1 percent away from its all-time intraday high of 14,198.10. Declines have been shallow and short-lived, with investors jumping in to buy on dips.</p><br /><p> Intuitive Surgical <isrg.o> jumped 8.3 percent to $552.18 after Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Jeremy Feffer upgraded the stock, saying the more than 11 percent slide in the stock on Thursday was a gross overreaction to a news report.</isrg.o></p><br /><p> Groupon Inc <grpn.o> surged 9 percent to $4.94 a day after the online coupon company fired its chief executive officer in the wake of weak quarterly results.</grpn.o></p><br /><p> Gap Inc <gps.n> rose 2.7 percent to $33.81 after reporting fourth-quarter earnings that beat expectations and boosting its dividend by 20 percent, while Salesforce.com Inc <crm.n> posted sales that beat forecasts, sending shares up 7.2 percent to $181.41.</crm.n></gps.n></p><br /><p> Chesapeake Energy Corp <chk.n> fell 1.7 percent to $19.81 after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission escalated its investigation into the company and its Chief Executive Aubrey McClendon for a controversial perk that granted him a share in each of the natural gas producer's wells.</chk.n></p><br /><p> (Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Kenneth Barry)</p><br /><br />News Satu Untuk Semuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12431820897146969246noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4286961009692149001.post-69867701468805203052013-03-01T10:06:00.001-08:002013-03-01T10:06:12.728-08:00McIlroy walks off course at Honda Classic<br /><p class="first">PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1362157026615_1">Rory McIlroy</span> abruptly walked off the course Friday at the <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1362157026615_3">Honda Classic</span>, telling reporters who followed him to his car he's "not in a good place mentally." An hour later, he attributed his withdrawal to a sore wisdom tooth.</p><br /><p>It raised serious questions about golf's No. 1 player with the Masters just more than a month away.</p><br /><p>McIlroy already was 7-over par through eight holes of the second round when he hit his second shot into the water on the par-5 18th at <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1362157026615_2">PGA National</span>. He shook hands with Ernie Els and Mark Wilson and was headed to the parking lot before they even finished the hole.</p><br /><p>"There's not really much I can say, guys," McIlroy told three reporters before he drove away. "I'm not in a good place mentally, you know?"</p><br /><p>He said there was nothing wrong physically. When asked about his swing, the 23-year-old from Northern Ireland replied, "Yeah, I really don't know what's going on."</p><br /><p>About an hour after he left, McIlroy released a statement that pinned his withdrawal on dental problems.</p><br /><p>"I have been suffering with a sore wisdom tooth, which is due to come out in the near future," McIlroy said. "It began bothering me again last night, so I relieved it with Advil. It was very painful again this morning, and I was simply unable to concentrate. It was really bothering me and had begun to affect my playing partners."</p><br /><p>He was seen eating a sandwich on the 18th fairway.</p><br /><p>McIlroy apologized to the tournament, saying he had every intention of defending his title at the Honda Classic. He mentioned the wisdom tooth on Twitter and said he was "gutted."</p><br /><p>McIlroy, coming off a year in which he won a second major in record fashion, already set himself up for scrutiny when he left Titleist to sign an equipment deal with Nike that was said to be worth upward of $20 million a year.</p><br /><p>Nike introduced him with blaring music and a laser show in Abu Dhabi, but it's been all downhill from there.</p><br /><p>McIlroy missed the cut in the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship with rounds of 75-75. He took a four-week break, and then was eliminated in the opening round of the Match Play Championship to Shane Lowry in one of the most poorly played matches of the round.</p><br /><p>McIlroy played 36 holes with Tiger Woods at The Medalist on Sunday and said Tuesday it was no time to panic.</p><br /><p>"Even though my results haven't revealed it, I really felt like I was rounding a corner," McIlroy said. "This is one of my favorite tournaments of the year and I regret having to make the decision to withdraw, but it was one I had to make."</p><br /><p>It looked more like McIlroy was sinking than rounding the corner, not difficult to do on a course with so many water hazards. And he found plenty of them.</p><br /><p>McIlroy, who opened with a 70, hit two poor chips that led to double bogey on No. 11, and a wild tee shot to the right led to a bogey on the 13th. His round really unraveled on the par-4 16th, when he hit his tee shot to the right and into the water, took a penalty drop, and then came up short of the green and into the water again. He made a 6-foot putt for a triple bogey.</p><br /><p>He three-putted from 40 feet, running his first putt about 10 feet by the hole, for a bogey to go 7 over. And then came the approach that found water for the third time of his short day on the 18th.</p><br /><p>McIlroy is scheduled to play next week in the Cadillac Championship at Doral, which has no cut, and then the Houston Open. But on the first day of March, he has completed only four rounds of competition.</p><br /><p>It was the second straight year one of golf's biggest stars failed to finish a tournament on the Florida swing. Woods withdrew after 11 holes on the final round at Doral last year because of tightness in his Achilles tendon, raising questions about the seriousness of his recurring leg injuries. He won Bay Hill two weeks later.</p><br /><p>McIlroy at least drove off from PGA National without a helicopter camera following him.</p><br />News Satu Untuk Semuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12431820897146969246noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4286961009692149001.post-62689197906342238542013-03-01T10:04:00.001-08:002013-03-01T10:04:17.395-08:00Syria war is everybody's problem<br /><!--startclickprintexclude--><br /><br /><div class="cnn_stryimg640caption" readability="8"><p>Syrians search for survivors and bodies after the Syrian regime attacked the city of Aleppo with missiles on February 23.</p></div><br /><br /><div class="cnn_strylftcntnt"><div class="cnn_strylctcntr"><br /><p><strong>STORY HIGHLIGHTS</strong></p><br /><ul class="cnn_bulletbin cnnStryHghLght"><!--google_ad_section_start--><li>Frida Ghitis: We are standing by as Syria rips itself apart, thinking it's not our problem</li><br /><li>Beyond the tragedy in human terms, she says, the war damages global stability</li><br /><li>Ghitis: Syria getting more and more radical, jeopardizing forces of democracy</li><br /><li>Ghitis: Peace counts on moderates, whom we must back with diplomacy, training arms</li><br /><!--google_ad_section_end--><br /></ul></div></div><br /><!--endclickprintexclude--><!--google_ad_section_start--><!--startclickprintinclude--><br /><p class="cnnEditorialNote"><em><strong>Editor's note:</strong> Frida Ghitis is a world affairs columnist for The Miami Herald and World Politics Review. A former CNN producer and correspondent, she is the author of "The End of Revolution: A Changing World in the Age of Live Television." Follow her on Twitter: @FridaGColumns</em></p><br /><p><strong>(CNN)</strong> -- Last week, a huge explosion rocked the Syrian capital of Damascus, killing more than 50 people and injuring hundreds. The victims of the blast in a busy downtown street were mostly civilians, including schoolchildren. Each side in the Syrian civil war blamed the other.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph3">In the northern city of Aleppo, about 58 people -- 36 of them children -- died in a missile attack last week. Washington condemned the regime of Bashar al-Assad; the world looked at the awful images and moved on.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph5">Syria is ripping itself to pieces. The extent of human suffering is beyond comprehension. That alone should be reason enough to encourage a determined effort to bring this conflict to a quick resolution. But if humanitarian reasons were not enough, the international community -- including the U.S. and its allies -- should weigh the potential implications of allowing this calamity to continue.</p><br /><div class="cnn_strylftcntnt"><div class="cnn_strylctcntr cnn_strylccimg214"><br /><img src="http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/dam/assets/111012033349-frida-ghitis-left-tease.jpg" alt="Frida Ghitis" border="0" class="box-image" height="122" width="214"/><p>Frida Ghitis</p><br /></div></div><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph7">We've all heard the argument: It's not our problem. We're not the world's policeman. We would only make it worse.</p><br /><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph9">This is not a plea to send American or European troops to fight in this conflict. Nobody wants that.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph11">But before we allow this mostly hands-off approach to continue, we would do well to consider the potential toll of continuing with a failed policy, one that has focused in vain over the past two years searching for a diplomatic solution.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph13">U. S. Secretary of State John Kerry has just announced that the U.S. will provide an additional $60 million in non-lethal assistance to the opposition. He has hinted that President Obama, after rejecting suggestions from the CIA and previous Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to arm Syrian rebels, might be ready to change course. And not a day too soon.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph15">The war is taking longer than anyone expected. The longer it lasts, the more Syria is radicalized and the region is destabilized.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph17">If you think the Syrian war is the concern of Syrians alone, think about other countries that have torn themselves apart over a long time. Consider Lebanon, Afghanistan or Somalia; each with unique circumstances, but with one thing in common: Their wars created enormous suffering at home, and the destructiveness eventually spilled beyond their borders. All of those wars triggered lengthy, costly refugee crises. They all spawned international terrorism and eventually direct international -- including U.S. -- intervention.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph19">The uprising against al-Assad started two years ago in the spirit of what was then referred to -- without a hint of irony -- as the Arab Spring. Young Syrians marched, chanting for freedom and democracy. The ideals of equality, rule of law and human rights wafted in the air.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph21">Al-Assad responded to peaceful protests with gunfire. Syrians started dying by the hundreds each day. Gradually the nonviolent protesters started fighting back. Members of the Syrian army started defecting.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph23">The opposition's Free Syrian Army came together. Factions within the Syrian opposition took up arms and the political contest became a brutal civil war. The death toll has climbed to as many as 90,000, according to Kerry. About 2 million people have left their homes, and the killing continues with no end in sight.</p><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph25">In fairness to Washington, Europe and the rest of the international community, there were never easy choices in this war. Opposition leaders bickered, and their clashing views scared away would-be supporters. Western nations rejected the idea of arming the opposition, saying Syria already has too many weapons. They were also concerned about who would control the weaponry, including an existing arsenal of chemical and biological weapons, after al-Assad's fall.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph27">These are all legitimate concerns. But inaction is producing the worst possible outcome.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph29">The moderates, whose views most closely align with the West, are losing out to the better-armed Islamists and, especially, to the extremists. Moderates are losing the ideological debate and the battle for the future character of a Syria after al-Assad.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph31">Radical Islamist groups have taken the lead. Young people are losing faith in moderation, lured by disciplined, devout extremists. Reporters on the ground have seen young democracy advocates turn into fervent supporters of dangerous groups such as the Nusra Front, which has scored impressive victories.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph33">The U.S. State Department recently listed the Nusra Front, which has close ties to al Qaeda in Iraq and a strong anti-Western ideology, as a terrorist organization.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph35">Meantime, countries bordering Syria are experiencing repercussions. And these are likely to become more dangerous.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph37">Jordan, an important American ally, is struggling with a flood of refugees, as many as 10,000 each week since the start of the year. The government estimates 380,000 Syrians are in Jordan, a country whose government is under pressure from its own restive population and still dealing with huge refugee populations from other wars.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph39">Turkey is also burdened with hundreds of thousands of refugees and occasional Syrian fire. Israel has warned about chemical weapons transfers from al-Assad to Hezbollah in Lebanon and may have already fired on a Syrian convoy attempting the move.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph41">Lebanon, always perched precariously on the edge of crisis, lives with growing fears that Syria's war will enter its borders. Despite denials, there is evidence that Lebanon's Hezbollah, a close ally of al-Assad and of Iran, has joined the fighting on the side of the Syrian president. The Free Syrian Army has threatened to attack Hezbollah in Lebanon if it doesn't leave Syria.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph43">The possible outcomes in Syria include the emergence of a failed state, stirring unrest throughout the region. If al-Assad wins, Syria will become an even more repressive country.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph45">Al-Assad's survival would fortify Iran and Hezbollah and other anti-Western forces. If the extremists inside the opposition win, Syria could see factional fighting for many years, followed by anti-democratic, anti-Western policies.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph47">The only good outcome is victory for the opposition's moderate forces. They may not be easy to identify with complete certainty. But to the extent that it is possible, these forces need Western support.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph48">They need training, funding, careful arming and strong political and diplomatic backing. The people of Syria should know that support for human rights, democracy and pluralism will lead toward a peaceful, prosperous future.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph50">Democratic nations should not avert their eyes from the killings in Syria which are, after all, a warning to the world.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph52"><i>Follow us on Twitter </i><i>@CNNOpinion.</i></p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph53"><i>Join us on </i><i>Facebook/CNNOpinion.</i></p><br /><p class="cnn_strycbftrtxt">The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Frida Ghitis.</p><br /><!--endclickprintinclude--><!--google_ad_section_end--><br /><!--no partner--><br /><br /><br />News Satu Untuk Semuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12431820897146969246noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4286961009692149001.post-66077386554925105152013-03-01T10:02:00.001-08:002013-03-01T10:02:15.262-08:00Cellar victim Kampusch raped, starved in film of ordeal<br /><div class="home-content-ad"><br /><div class="ad-code"><br /><br /></div></div><br /><p class="first">VIENNA (Reuters) – A new film based on the story of Austrian kidnap victim <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1361825469398_1">Natascha Kampusch</span> shows her being repeatedly raped by the captor who beat and starved her during the eight-and-a-half years that he kept her in a cellar beneath his house.</p><br /><p><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1361825469398_3">Kampusch</span> was snatched on her way to school at the age of 10 by <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1361825469398_2">Wolfgang Priklopil</span> and held in a windowless cell under his garage near Vienna until she escaped in 2006, causing a sensation in Austria and abroad. Priklopil committed suicide.</p><div class="home-content-ad"><br /><div class="ad-code"><br /><br /></div></div><br /><br /><p>Kampusch had always refused to respond to claims that she had had sex with <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1361825469398_4">Priklopil</span>, but in a German television interview on her 25th birthday last week said she had decided to reveal the truth because it had leaked out from police files.</p><br /><p>The film, “3,096 Days” – based on Kampusch’s autobiography of the same name – soberly portrays her captivity in a windowless cellar less than 6 square metres (65 square feet) in area, often deprived of food for days at a time.</p><br /><p>The emaciated Kampusch – who weighed just 38 kg (84 pounds) at one point in 2004 – keeps a diary written on toilet paper concealed in a box.</p><br /><p>One entry reads: “At least 60 blows in the face. Ten to 15 nausea-inducing fist blows to the head. One strike with the fist with full weight to my right ear.”</p><br /><p>The movie shows occasional moments that approach tenderness, such as when Priklopil presents her with a cake for her 18th birthday or buys her a dress as a gift – but then immediately goes on to chide her for not knowing how to waltz with him.</p><br /><p>GREY AREAS</p><br /><p>Antonia Campbell-Hughes, who plays the teenaged Kampusch, said she had tried to portray “the strength of someone’s soul, the ability of people to survive… but also the grey areas within a relationship that people don’t necessarily understand.”</p><br /><p>The British actress said she had not met Kampusch during the making of the film or since. “It was a very isolated time, it was a bubble of time, and I wanted to keep that very focused,” she told journalists as she arrived for the Vienna premiere.</p><br /><p>Kampusch herself attended the premiere, looking composed as she posed for pictures but declining to give interviews.</p><br /><p>In an interview with Germany’s Bild Zeitung last week, she said: “Yes, I did recognize myself, although the reality was even worse. But one can’t really show that in the cinema, since it wasn’t supposed to be a horror film.”</p><br /><p>The movie, made at the Constantin Film studios in Bavaria, Germany, also stars Amy Pidgeon as the 10-year-old Kampusch and Danish actor Thure Lindhardt as Priklopil.</p><br /><p>“I focused mainly on playing the human being because… we have to remember it was a human being. Monsters do not exist, they’re only in cartoons,” Lindhart said.</p><br /><p>“It became clear to me that it’s a story about survival, and it’s a story about surviving eight years of hell. If that story can be told then I can also play the bad guy.”</p><br /><p>The director was German-American Sherry Hormann, who made her English-language debut with the 2009 move “Desert Flower”, an adaptation of the autobiography of Somali-born model and anti-female circumcision activist Waris Dirie.</p><br /><p>“I’m a mother and I wonder at the strength of this child, and it was important for me to tell this story from a different perspective, to tell how this child using her own strength could survive this atrocious martyrdom,” Hormann said.</p><br /><p>The Kampusch case was followed two years later by that of Josef Fritzl, an Austrian who held his daughter captive in a cellar for 24 years and fathered seven children with her.</p><br /><p>The crimes prompted soul-searching about the Austrian psyche, and questions as to how the authorities and neighbors could have let such crimes go undetected for so long.</p><br /><p>The film goes on general release on Thursday.</p><br /><p>(Reporting by Georgina Prodhan, Editing by Paul Casciato)</p><br /><p>Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News</p><br /><div><br /><div itemscope="" itemtype="http://data-vocabulary.org/Review-aggregate"><br /><div><br />Title Post: <span itemprop="itemreviewed"><strong>Cellar victim Kampusch raped, starved in film of ordeal</strong></span><br />Url Post: <strong>http://www.news.fluser.com/cellar-victim-kampusch-raped-starved-in-film-of-ordeal/</strong><br />Link To Post : <strong>Cellar victim Kampusch raped, starved in film of ordeal</strong><br />Rating: <span itemprop="rating" itemscope="" itemtype="http://data-vocabulary.org/Rating"><br /><span itemprop="average">100%</span><br /></span><br />based on <span itemprop="votes">99998</span> ratings.<br /><span itemprop="count">5</span> user reviews.<br />Author: <b><span class="vcard author"><span class="fn">Fluser SeoLink</span></span></b><br />Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment</div><br /></div><br /></div><br /><br />News Satu Untuk Semuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12431820897146969246noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4286961009692149001.post-79394949427997584382013-02-28T10:12:00.001-08:002013-02-28T10:12:15.531-08:00Warning about student ‘money mules’<br /><div class="home-content-ad"><br /><div class="ad-code"><br /><br /></div></div><br /><p><span class="story-date"><span class="date">25 February 2013</span> <span class="time-text">Last updated at</span> <span class="time">19:03 ET</span></span></p><br /><p><span class="byline"><span class="byline-name">By Simon Gompertz</span> <span class="byline-title">Personal finance correspondent, BBC News</span></span></p><div class="home-content-ad"><br /><div class="ad-code"><br /><br /></div></div><br /><br /><p class="introduction" id="story_continues_1">Fraud experts are warning that hundreds of thousands of people are in danger of being duped into laundering money for fraudsters.</p><br /><p>They are being recruited as unwitting “money mules” who allow their own bank accounts to be used to disguise the proceeds of crime.</p><br /><p>The study was carried out by Financial Fraud Action, which tackles fraud on behalf of banks.</p><br /><p>It said that students and jobseekers could be especially vulnerable.</p><br /><p>Some 19% of students who had been approached had agreed to become money mules.</p><br /><p>“It’s a very serious problem,” warns DCI Dave Carter, an investigator from Financial Fraud Action.</p><br /><p>“Almost every single criminal transaction that goes on depends on money mules, to turn the money from crime into something the criminals can spend themselves.”</p><br /><p><span class="cross-head">How it works</span></p><br /><div class="story-feature narrow" readability="24.462585034">Continue reading the main story<br /><blockquote readability="5"><br /><p class="first-child">It just makes you feel sick. I don’t want it to happen again.”</p><br /></blockquote><br /><p><span class="endquote">End Quote</span> <span class="quote-credit">Kayleigh Rance</span> <span class="quote-credit-title">job-seeker</span></p></div><br /><p id="story_continues_2">The fraudsters contact likely targets by sending out mass emails offering employment, or after sifting through CVs posted by job seekers on employment websites.</p><br /><p>Then they offer jobs as “money transfer agents”, “payment processing agents” or “administration assistants” for salaries of hundreds of pounds a week.</p><br /><p>It looks like a proper job offer, but the real purpose is to channel cash from criminal activity through a person’s own bank account, making them the fraudster’s money mule.</p><br /><p>Kayleigh Rance has been hunting for work for a year. She was taken in and even signed a contract. Then, luckily, she pulled out.</p><br /><p>“It just makes you feel a bit sick,” she complains, “I feel like I’ve got to go through all the websites now and take my CV off because I don’t want it to happen again.”</p><br /><p>The dirty cash comes from credit card fraud, money stolen from bank accounts and other rip-offs.</p><br /><p>Paying it into the money mule’s account disguises where it comes from. The mule transfers it to an account in an overseas bank, controlled by the fraudster. It is classic money laundering.</p><br /><p>Some money mules are paid by a straightforward cut of the cash being handled. A typical share would be 8%.</p><br /><p><span class="cross-head">Campaign</span></p><br /><p>The first mules tended to be new entrants to the UK, processing funds generated by crime within their own communities in London and other major cities.</p><br /><p>But the power of the internet has allowed the perpetrators to start targeting other groups, including students desperate to earn some extra cash.</p><br /><p>Financial Fraud Action commissioned ICM to question 2,000 adults along with separate groups exclusively made up of students, jobseekers and new entrants to the UK.</p><br /><p>Around 15% had received the suspect job offers. Overall 6% of those who had been approached accepted the offers, rising to 13% of the unemployed, 19% of students and 20% of new entrants.</p><br /><p>Crimestoppers is running a campaign in universities across the UK to warn students not to be fooled into becoming involved, telling them: “Don’t be a mule!”.</p><br /><p><span class="cross-head">‘Colossal risk’</span></p><br /><p>Megan Owen, who is studying criminology, volunteered to help at one recent event in Birmingham City University.</p><br /><p>“Lots of students we approached said they’d been affected or their friends had been affected,” she said.</p><br /><p>Extrapolating from its survey, Financial Fraud Action concludes that 380,000 people could have become unwitting money mules.</p><br /><p>The figure is a stab in the dark, but it is clear that the problem is becoming worse and that few of those who become involved understand the risks they are running.</p><br /><p>Their bank accounts could be frozen. If prosecuted, they could be sent to prison for up to 10 years.</p><br /><p>“It’s a colossal risk,” warns DCI Carter. “In fact you are taking almost all the risk on behalf of the criminal. That’s why they ask – the money mules are the ones most likely to be caught.”</p><br /><p>BBC News – Business</p><br /><div><br /><div itemscope="" itemtype="http://data-vocabulary.org/Review-aggregate"><br /><div><br />Title Post: <span itemprop="itemreviewed"><strong>Warning about student ‘money mules’</strong></span><br />Url Post: <strong>http://www.news.fluser.com/warning-about-student-money-mules/</strong><br />Link To Post : <strong>Warning about student ‘money mules’</strong><br />Rating: <span itemprop="rating" itemscope="" itemtype="http://data-vocabulary.org/Rating"><br /><span itemprop="average">100%</span><br /></span><br />based on <span itemprop="votes">99998</span> ratings.<br /><span itemprop="count">5</span> user reviews.<br />Author: <b><span class="vcard author"><span class="fn">Fluser SeoLink</span></span></b><br />Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment</div><br /></div><br /></div><br /><br />News Satu Untuk Semuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12431820897146969246noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4286961009692149001.post-65212849422741395842013-02-28T10:10:00.001-08:002013-02-28T10:10:24.117-08:00Community college grads out-earn bachelor’s degree holders<br /><div class="home-content-ad"><br /><div class="ad-code"><br /><br /></div></div><br /><p>Berevan Omer graduated on a Friday in February with an associate’s degree from Nashville State Community College and started work the following Monday as a computer-networking engineer at a local television station, making about $ 50,000 a year.</p><br /><p>That’s 15% higher than the average starting salary for graduates — not only from community colleges, but for bachelor’s degree holders from four-year universities.</p><div class="home-content-ad"><br /><div class="ad-code"><br /><br /></div></div><br /><br /><p>“I have a buddy who got a four-year bachelor’s degree in accounting who’s making $ 10 an hour,” Omer says. “I’m making two and a-half times more than he is.”</p><br /><p>Omer, who is 24, is one of many newly minted graduates of community colleges defying history and stereotypes by proving that a bachelor’s degree is not, as widely believed, the only ticket to a middle-class income.</p><br /><p>Nearly 30% of Americans with associate’s degrees now make more than those with bachelor’s degrees, according to Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce. In fact, other recent research in several states shows that, on average, community college graduates right out of school make more than graduates of four-year universities.</p><br /><p>The average wage for graduates of community colleges in Tennessee, for instance, is $ 38,948 — more than $ 1,300 higher than the average salaries for graduates of the state’s four-year institutions.</p><br /><p>In Virginia, recent graduates of occupational and technical degree programs at its community colleges make an average of $ 40,000. That’s almost $ 2,500 more than recent bachelor’s degree recipients.</p><br /><p>“There is that perception that the bachelor’s degree is the default, and, quite frankly, before we started this work showing the value of a technical associate’s degree, I would have said that, too,” says Mark Schneider, vice president of the American Institutes for Research, which helped collect the earning numbers for some states.</p><br /><p>And while by mid-career, many bachelor’s degree recipients have caught up in earnings to community college grads, “the other factor that has to be taken into account is that getting a four-year degree can be much more expensive than getting a two-year degree,” Schneider says.</p><br /><p>A two-year community college degree, at present full rates, costs about $ 6,262, according to the College Board. A bachelor’s degree from a four-year, private residential university goes for $ 158,072.</p><br /><p>The increase in wages for community college grads is being driven by a high demand for people with so-called “middle-skills” that often require no more than an associate’s degree, such as lab technicians, teachers in early childhood programs, computer engineers, draftsmen, radiation therapists, paralegals, and machinists.</p><br /><p>With a two-year community college degree, air traffic controllers can make $ 113,547, radiation therapists $ 76,627, dental hygienists $ 70,408, nuclear medicine technologists $ 69,638, nuclear technicians $ 68,037, registered nurses $ 65,853, and fashion designers $ 63,170, CareerBuilder.com reported in January.</p><br /><p>“You come out with skills that people want immediately and not just theory,” Omer says.</p><br /><p>The Georgetown center estimates that 29 million jobs paying middle class wages today require only an associate’s, and not a bachelor’s, degree.</p><br /><p>“I would not suggest anyone look down their nose at the associate’s degree,” says Jeff Strohl, director of research at the Georgetown center.</p><br /><p>“People see those programs as tracking into something that’s dead end,” Strohl says. “It’s very clear that that perception does not hold up.”</p><br /><p>The bad news is that not enough associate’s degree holders are being produced.</p><br /><p>Only 10% of American workers have the sub-baccalaureate degrees needed for middle-skills jobs, compared with 24% of Canadians and 19% of Japanese, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development reports.</p><br /><p>Over the last 20 years, the number of graduates with associate’s degrees in the United States has increased by barely 3%. And while the Obama administration has pushed community colleges to increase their numbers, enrollment at these schools fell 3.1% this year, the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center reports. Graduation rates also remain abysmally low.</p><br /><p>Meanwhile, many people with bachelor’s degrees are working in fields other than the ones in which they majored, according to a new report by the Center for College Affordability and Productivity.</p><br /><p>“We have a lot of bartenders and taxi drivers with bachelor’s degrees,” says Christopher Denhart, one of the report’s coauthors.</p><br /><p>Still, the salary advantage for associate’s degree holders narrows over time, as bachelor’s degree recipients eventually catch up, says Schneider.</p><br /><p>Although these figures vary widely by profession, associate’s degree recipients, on average, end up making about $ 500,000 more over their careers than people with only high school diplomas, but $ 500,000 less than people with bachelor’s degrees, the Georgetown center calculates.</p><br /><p>As for Omer, he’s already working toward a bachelor’s degree.</p><br /><p>“Down the road a little further, I may want to become a director or a manager,” he says. “A bachelor’s degree will get me to that point.”</p><br /><p>This story was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, nonpartisan education-news outlet based at Teachers College, Columbia University. It’s one of a series of reports about workforce development and higher education.</p><br /><p>View this article on CNNMoney</p><br /><p><strong>More From CNNMoney.com</strong><br /></p><br /><p>Yahoo! Finance – Personal Finance</p><br /><div><br /><div itemscope="" itemtype="http://data-vocabulary.org/Review-aggregate"><br /><div><br />Title Post: <span itemprop="itemreviewed"><strong>Community college grads out-earn bachelor’s degree holders</strong></span><br />Url Post: <strong>http://www.news.fluser.com/community-college-grads-out-earn-bachelors-degree-holders/</strong><br />Link To Post : <strong>Community college grads out-earn bachelor’s degree holders</strong><br />Rating: <span itemprop="rating" itemscope="" itemtype="http://data-vocabulary.org/Rating"><br /><span itemprop="average">100%</span><br /></span><br />based on <span itemprop="votes">99998</span> ratings.<br /><span itemprop="count">5</span> user reviews.<br />Author: <b><span class="vcard author"><span class="fn">Fluser SeoLink</span></span></b><br />Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment</div><br /></div><br /></div><br /><br />News Satu Untuk Semuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12431820897146969246noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4286961009692149001.post-12885449687738566462013-02-28T10:08:00.001-08:002013-02-28T10:08:16.442-08:00Wall Street drifts after two-day run, Dow record in sight<p class="first">NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks edged higher on Thursday with investors hard-pressed to lift indexes to multi-year highs despite strong economic data.</p><br /><p> The U.S. economy ticked up in the fourth quarter, reversing an earlier estimate showing contraction, and a drop in new claims for unemployment benefits last week added to a string of data that suggests the economy improved early this year.</p><br /><p> Still, the positive revision to GDP data was expected and the claims continue a trend that is baked into prices. The market lacks catalysts as it digests its recent move higher, according to <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1362071046499_1">Kevin Caron</span>, market strategist at Stifel, Nicolaus & Co in Florham Park, New Jersey, where he helps oversee $120 billion in assets under management.</p><br /><p> "That's why I think you're seeing a fairly listless trading environment today," Caron said.</p><br /><p> The <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1362071046499_2">Dow</span> was within striking distance of a record high after a more than 7 percent year-to-date run. The Dow transports index <.djt>, seen as a bet on future growth, is up almost 13 percent this year and hit a record intraday high Thursday before turning slightly negative.</.djt></p><br /><p> The <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1362071046499_3">Dow Jones industrial average</span> <.dji> rose 14.79 points or 0.11 percent, to 14,090.16, the S&P 500 <.spx> gained 3.12 points or 0.21 percent, to 1,519.11 and the Nasdaq Composite <.ixic> added 9.13 points or 0.29 percent, to 3,171.39.</.ixic></.spx></.dji></p><br /><p> The Dow's intraday record, set October 11, 2007, stands at 14,198.10.</p><br /><p> The S&P 500 has gained more than 2 percent in the past three sessions.</p><br /><p> Equity markets suffered steep losses earlier in the week on concerns over the impact of an Italian election on the European economy, but bounced back on strong data and recent comments by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke that showed continued support for the Fed's economic stimulus policy.</p><br /><p> J.C. Penney Co Inc <jcp.n> slumped 17.9 percent to $17.38 after the department store reported a steep drop in sales on Wednesday. Groupon Inc <grpn.o> also slumped on weak revenue, with the stock off 20 percent at $4.76.</grpn.o></jcp.n></p><br /><p> Cablevision <cvc.n> shares tumbled nearly 10 percent after the cable provider took a $100 million hit on costs related to Superstorm Sandy and posted deeper video customer losses than expected.</cvc.n></p><br /><p> Mylan Inc <myl.o> shares were on track to close at their highest ever after the generic drugmaker posted a 25 percent rise in fourth-quarter profit and said it will buy a unit of India's Strides Arcolab Ltd. Shares were last up 3.8 percent at $29.66.</myl.o></p><br /><p> Investors were keeping an eye on the debate in Washington over U.S. government budget cuts that will take effect starting Friday if lawmakers fail to reach agreement on spending and taxes. President Barack Obama and Republican congressional leaders arranged last-ditch talks to prevent the cuts, but expectations were low that any deal would emerge.</p><br /><p> With 93 percent of the S&P 500 companies having reported results so far, 69.5 percent have beaten profit expectations, compared with a 62 percent average since 1994 and 65 percent over the past four quarters, according to Thomson Reuters data.</p><br /><p> Fourth-quarter earnings for S&P 500 companies are estimated to have risen 6.2 percent, according to the data, above a 1.9 percent forecast at the start of the earnings season.</p><br /><p> (Reporting by Rodrigo Campos, additional reporting by Ryan Vlastelica; Editing by Nick Zieminski)</p><br /><br />News Satu Untuk Semuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12431820897146969246noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4286961009692149001.post-69100235634643999322013-02-28T10:06:00.001-08:002013-02-28T10:06:16.018-08:00Rodman tells Kim Jong Un he has 'friend for life'<br /><p class="first">SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Ex-NBA star <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1362072022346_3">Dennis Rodman</span> hung out Thursday with <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1362072022346_2">North Korea</span>'s <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1362072022346_1">Kim Jong Un</span> on the third day of his improbable journey to <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1362072022346_4">Pyongyang</span>, watching the Harlem Globetrotters with the leader and later dining and drinking with him at his palace.</p><br /><p>"You have a friend for life," Rodman told Kim before a crowd of thousands at a gymnasium where they sat side by side, chatting as they watched players from North Korea and the U.S. play on mixed teams, <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1362072022346_7">Alex Detrick</span>, a spokesman for the New York-based <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1362072022346_6">VICE</span> media company, told The Associated Press.</p><br /><p>Rodman arrived in Pyongyang on Monday with three members of the professional Harlem Globetrotters basketball team, VICE correspondent Ryan Duffy and a production crew to shoot an episode on North Korea for a new weekly HBO series.</p><br /><p>The unlikely encounter makes Rodman the most high-profile American to meet Kim since the young <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1362072022346_5">North Korean leader</span> took power in December 2011, and takes place against a backdrop of tension between Washington and Pyongyang. North Korea conducted an underground nuclear test just two weeks ago, making clear the provocative act was a warning to the <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1362072022346_8">United States</span> to drop what it considers a "hostile" policy toward the North.</p><br /><p>Kim, a diehard basketball fan, told the former Chicago Bulls star he hoped the visit would break the ice between the United States and North Korea, VICE founder Shane Smith said.</p><br /><p>Dressed in a blue Mao suit, Kim laughed and slapped his hands on the table before him during the game as he sat nearly knee to knee with Rodman. Rodman, the man who once turned up in a wedding dress to promote his autobiography, wore a dark suit and dark sunglasses, but still had on his nose rings and other piercings. A can of Coca-Cola sat on the table before him in photos shared with AP by VICE.</p><br /><p>The two chatted in English, but Kim primarily spoke in Korean through a translator, Smith said after speaking to the VICE crew in Pyongyang.</p><br /><p>"They bonded during the game," Smith said by telephone from New York after speaking to the crew. "They were both enjoying the crazy shots, and the Harlem Globetrotters were putting on quite a show."</p><br /><p>The surprise visit by the flamboyant Hall of Famer known as "The Worm" makes him an unlikely ambassador at a time when North Koreans are girding for battle with the U.S. Just last week, Kim guided frontline troops in military exercises.</p><br /><p>North Korea and the U.S. fought on opposite sides of the three-year Korean War, which ended in a truce in 1953. The foes never signed a peace treaty, and do not have diplomatic relations.</p><br /><p>Thursday's game ended in a 110-110 draw, with two Americans playing on each team alongside North Koreans, Detrick said. The Xinhua News Agency first reported on the game, citing witnesses who attended.</p><br /><p>After the game, Rodman addressed Kim in a speech before a crowd of tens of thousands of North Koreans, telling him, "You have a friend for life," Detrick said.</p><br /><p>At a lavish dinner at Kim's palace, the leader plied the group with food and drinks as the group made round after round of toasts, members of the delegation said.</p><br /><p>"Um ... so Kim Jong Un just got the (hash)VICEonHBO crew wasted ... no really, that happened," VICE producer Jason Mojica wrote on his Twitter feed from Pyongyang.</p><br /><p>Duffy later invited Kim to visit the United States, a proposal met with hearty laughter from the North Korean leader, Smith said, adding that he was "speechless" after hearing from Duffy how well the dinner went.</p><br /><p>Rodman's trip is the second attention-grabbing U.S. visit this year to North Korea. Google's executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, made a four-day trip in January to Pyongyang, but did not meet the North Korean leader.</p><br /><p>Extending an invitation to a man known as much for his piercings, tattoos and bad behavior as for his basketball may seem inexplicable. But Kim is known to love the NBA, and has promoted sports since becoming leader.</p><br /><p>"We knew that he's a big lover of basketball, especially the Bulls, and it was our intention going in that we would have a good-will mission of something that's fun," Smith said. "A lot of times, things just are serious and everybody's so concerned with geopolitics that we forget just to be human beings."</p><br /><p>Rodman's agent, Darren Prince, said Rodman wasn't concerned about criticism about making a visit to an enemy nation.</p><br /><p>"Dennis called me last night and said it's been a great experience and he made this trip out of the love of the USA ," he said. "It's all about peace and love."</p><br /><p>___</p><br /><p>Associated Press NBA writer Brian Mahoney contributed to this report from New York. Follow AP's Korea bureau chief Jean Lee at twitter.com/newsjean.</p><br />News Satu Untuk Semuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12431820897146969246noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4286961009692149001.post-46973277524628171192013-02-28T10:04:00.001-08:002013-02-28T10:04:19.423-08:00Syria war is everybody's problem<br /><!--startclickprintexclude--><br /><br /><br /><div class="cnn_strylftcntnt"><div class="cnn_strylctcntr"><br /><p><strong>STORY HIGHLIGHTS</strong></p><br /><ul class="cnn_bulletbin cnnStryHghLght"><!--google_ad_section_start--><li><b>NEW:</b> United States will give food and medical aid to rebel fighters for the first time</li><br /><li><b>NEW:</b> It's not clear how much that aid is worth, but $60 million will go to opposition council</li><br /><li><b>NEW:</b> "Behave as a human being," opposition leader urges Syrian president</li><br /><li>U.S. officials are considering more nonlethal military aid</li><br /><!--google_ad_section_end--><br /></ul></div></div><br /><!--endclickprintexclude--><!--google_ad_section_start--><!--startclickprintinclude--><br /><p><strong>Rome (CNN)</strong> -- The United States stepped further into Syria's civil war Thursday, promising rebel fighters food and medical supplies -- but not weapons -- for the first time in the nearly two-year conflict that has claimed more than 60,000 lives and laid waste to large portions of the country.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph2">Secretary of State John Kerry said the aid would help fighters in the high-stakes effort to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a conflict that has already spawned an enormous humanitarian crisis as refugees flee the fighting.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph3">The ongoing fighting also poses the persistent threat of widening into a destabilizing regional crisis.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph4">"The United States' decision to take further steps now is the result of the continued brutality of a superior armed force propped up by foreign fighters from Iran and Hezbollah, all of which threatens to destroy Syria," Kerry said after meeting opposition leaders in Rome.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph5">Kerry didn't say how much that aid would be worth, but did announce that the United States would separately give $60 million to local groups working with the Syrian National Council to provide political administration and basic services in rebel-controlled areas of Syria.</p><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph6">READ: U.S. weighing nonlethal aid to Syrian opposition</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph7">That's on top of $50 million in similar aid the United States has previously pledged to the council, as well as $385 million in humanitarian assistance, Kerry said.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph8">"This funding will allow the opposition to reach out and help the local councils to be able to rebuild in their liberated areas of Syria so that they can provide basic services to people who so often lack access today to medical care, to food, to sanitation," he said.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph9"><strong>Islamist Influence</strong></p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph10">That aid is partly an effort to hem in radical Islamist groups vying for influence in Syria after the fall of al-Assad, a senior State Department official told CNN.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph11">"If the Syrian opposition coalition can't touch, improve and heal the lives of Syrians in those places that have been freed, then extremists will step in and do it," the official said.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph12">Sheikh Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib, president of the Syrian National Council, said concerns about Islamist influence had been overstated.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph13">"We stand against every radical belief that aims to target Syria's diverse social and religious fabric," he said.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph14">READ: Inside Syria: Exclusive look at pro-Assad Christian militia</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph15">U.S. officials hope the aid will help the coalition show what it can do and encourage al-Assad supporters to "peel away from him" and help end the fighting, the official said.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph16">The opposition council will decide where the money goes, Kerry said.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph17">But the United States will send technical advisers through its partners to the group's Cairo headquarters to make sure it's being used properly, the senior State Department official said.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph18"><strong>Additional aid possible</strong></p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph19">In addition to the decision to give rebel fighters food and medical supplies, President Barack Obama is thinking about training rebels and equipping them with defensive gear such as night vision goggles, body armor and military vehicles, according to sources familiar with the discussions.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph20">The training would help rebels decide how to use their resources, strategize and maybe train a police force to take over after al-Assad's fall, one of the sources said.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph21">READ: Syrian army in Homs is showing strains of war</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph22">Kerry did not announce that sort of aid Thursday, but said the United States and other countries backing the rebels would "continue to consult with each other on an urgent basis."</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph23">An official who briefed reporters said the opposition has raised a lot of needs in the Rome meetings and the administration will continue to "keep those under review."</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph24">"We will do this with vetted individuals, vetted units, so it has to be done carefully and appropriately," the official said.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph25"><strong>Humanitarian crisis</strong></p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph26">The conflict began with demands for political reform after the Arab Spring movement that swept the Middle East and Africa, but descended into a brutal civil war when the al-Assad regime began a brutal crackdown on demonstrators.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph27">At least 60,000 people have died since the fighting began in March 2011, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said in early January.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph28">Another 940,000 had fled the country as of Tuesday, while more than one in 10 of Syria's 20 million residents have been forced to move elsewhere inside the country because of the fighting, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph29">The situation is nearing crisis proportions, with the dramatic influx of refugees threatening to break the ability of host nations to provide for their needs, Assistant High Commissioner Erika Feller told the U.N. Human Rights Council on Tuesday</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph30">"The host states, including Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq, Egypt and the North African countries, have been exemplary in their different ways, but we fear the pressure will start to overwhelm their capacities," she told the council, according to a text of her remarks posted on the United Nations website.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph31">Al-Khatib said it's time for the fighting to stop.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph32">"I ask Bashar al-Assad for once, just once, to behave as a human being," he said. "Enough massacres, enough killings. Enough of your bloodshed and enough torture. I urge you to make a rational decision once in your life and end the killings."</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph33">READ: Syrian war is everybody's problem</p><br /><p class="cnn_strycbftrtxt">Jill Dougherty reported from Rome, and Michael Pearson reported and wrote from Atlanta. CNN's Elise Labott also contributed to this report.</p><br /><!--endclickprintinclude--><!--google_ad_section_end--><br /><!--no partner--><br /><br /><br />News Satu Untuk Semuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12431820897146969246noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4286961009692149001.post-62935111031175599382013-02-28T10:02:00.001-08:002013-02-28T10:02:23.403-08:00Cellar victim Kampusch raped, starved in film of ordeal<br /><div class="home-content-ad"><br /><div class="ad-code"><br /><br /></div></div><br /><p class="first">VIENNA (Reuters) – A new film based on the story of Austrian kidnap victim <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1361825469398_1">Natascha Kampusch</span> shows her being repeatedly raped by the captor who beat and starved her during the eight-and-a-half years that he kept her in a cellar beneath his house.</p><br /><p><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1361825469398_3">Kampusch</span> was snatched on her way to school at the age of 10 by <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1361825469398_2">Wolfgang Priklopil</span> and held in a windowless cell under his garage near Vienna until she escaped in 2006, causing a sensation in Austria and abroad. Priklopil committed suicide.</p><div class="home-content-ad"><br /><div class="ad-code"><br /><br /></div></div><br /><br /><p>Kampusch had always refused to respond to claims that she had had sex with <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1361825469398_4">Priklopil</span>, but in a German television interview on her 25th birthday last week said she had decided to reveal the truth because it had leaked out from police files.</p><br /><p>The film, “3,096 Days” – based on Kampusch’s autobiography of the same name – soberly portrays her captivity in a windowless cellar less than 6 square metres (65 square feet) in area, often deprived of food for days at a time.</p><br /><p>The emaciated Kampusch – who weighed just 38 kg (84 pounds) at one point in 2004 – keeps a diary written on toilet paper concealed in a box.</p><br /><p>One entry reads: “At least 60 blows in the face. Ten to 15 nausea-inducing fist blows to the head. One strike with the fist with full weight to my right ear.”</p><br /><p>The movie shows occasional moments that approach tenderness, such as when Priklopil presents her with a cake for her 18th birthday or buys her a dress as a gift – but then immediately goes on to chide her for not knowing how to waltz with him.</p><br /><p>GREY AREAS</p><br /><p>Antonia Campbell-Hughes, who plays the teenaged Kampusch, said she had tried to portray “the strength of someone’s soul, the ability of people to survive… but also the grey areas within a relationship that people don’t necessarily understand.”</p><br /><p>The British actress said she had not met Kampusch during the making of the film or since. “It was a very isolated time, it was a bubble of time, and I wanted to keep that very focused,” she told journalists as she arrived for the Vienna premiere.</p><br /><p>Kampusch herself attended the premiere, looking composed as she posed for pictures but declining to give interviews.</p><br /><p>In an interview with Germany’s Bild Zeitung last week, she said: “Yes, I did recognize myself, although the reality was even worse. But one can’t really show that in the cinema, since it wasn’t supposed to be a horror film.”</p><br /><p>The movie, made at the Constantin Film studios in Bavaria, Germany, also stars Amy Pidgeon as the 10-year-old Kampusch and Danish actor Thure Lindhardt as Priklopil.</p><br /><p>“I focused mainly on playing the human being because… we have to remember it was a human being. Monsters do not exist, they’re only in cartoons,” Lindhart said.</p><br /><p>“It became clear to me that it’s a story about survival, and it’s a story about surviving eight years of hell. If that story can be told then I can also play the bad guy.”</p><br /><p>The director was German-American Sherry Hormann, who made her English-language debut with the 2009 move “Desert Flower”, an adaptation of the autobiography of Somali-born model and anti-female circumcision activist Waris Dirie.</p><br /><p>“I’m a mother and I wonder at the strength of this child, and it was important for me to tell this story from a different perspective, to tell how this child using her own strength could survive this atrocious martyrdom,” Hormann said.</p><br /><p>The Kampusch case was followed two years later by that of Josef Fritzl, an Austrian who held his daughter captive in a cellar for 24 years and fathered seven children with her.</p><br /><p>The crimes prompted soul-searching about the Austrian psyche, and questions as to how the authorities and neighbors could have let such crimes go undetected for so long.</p><br /><p>The film goes on general release on Thursday.</p><br /><p>(Reporting by Georgina Prodhan, Editing by Paul Casciato)</p><br /><p>Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News</p><br /><div><br /><div itemscope="" itemtype="http://data-vocabulary.org/Review-aggregate"><br /><div><br />Title Post: <span itemprop="itemreviewed"><strong>Cellar victim Kampusch raped, starved in film of ordeal</strong></span><br />Url Post: <strong>http://www.news.fluser.com/cellar-victim-kampusch-raped-starved-in-film-of-ordeal/</strong><br />Link To Post : <strong>Cellar victim Kampusch raped, starved in film of ordeal</strong><br />Rating: <span itemprop="rating" itemscope="" itemtype="http://data-vocabulary.org/Rating"><br /><span itemprop="average">100%</span><br /></span><br />based on <span itemprop="votes">99998</span> ratings.<br /><span itemprop="count">5</span> user reviews.<br />Author: <b><span class="vcard author"><span class="fn">Fluser SeoLink</span></span></b><br />Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment</div><br /></div><br /></div><br /><br />News Satu Untuk Semuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12431820897146969246noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4286961009692149001.post-70590396309808243972013-02-27T10:12:00.001-08:002013-02-27T10:12:12.737-08:00Warning about student ‘money mules’<br /><div class="home-content-ad"><br /><div class="ad-code"><br /><br /></div></div><br /><p><span class="story-date"><span class="date">25 February 2013</span> <span class="time-text">Last updated at</span> <span class="time">19:03 ET</span></span></p><br /><p><span class="byline"><span class="byline-name">By Simon Gompertz</span> <span class="byline-title">Personal finance correspondent, BBC News</span></span></p><div class="home-content-ad"><br /><div class="ad-code"><br /><br /></div></div><br /><br /><p class="introduction" id="story_continues_1">Fraud experts are warning that hundreds of thousands of people are in danger of being duped into laundering money for fraudsters.</p><br /><p>They are being recruited as unwitting “money mules” who allow their own bank accounts to be used to disguise the proceeds of crime.</p><br /><p>The study was carried out by Financial Fraud Action, which tackles fraud on behalf of banks.</p><br /><p>It said that students and jobseekers could be especially vulnerable.</p><br /><p>Some 19% of students who had been approached had agreed to become money mules.</p><br /><p>“It’s a very serious problem,” warns DCI Dave Carter, an investigator from Financial Fraud Action.</p><br /><p>“Almost every single criminal transaction that goes on depends on money mules, to turn the money from crime into something the criminals can spend themselves.”</p><br /><p><span class="cross-head">How it works</span></p><br /><div class="story-feature narrow" readability="24.462585034">Continue reading the main story<br /><blockquote readability="5"><br /><p class="first-child">It just makes you feel sick. I don’t want it to happen again.”</p><br /></blockquote><br /><p><span class="endquote">End Quote</span> <span class="quote-credit">Kayleigh Rance</span> <span class="quote-credit-title">job-seeker</span></p></div><br /><p id="story_continues_2">The fraudsters contact likely targets by sending out mass emails offering employment, or after sifting through CVs posted by job seekers on employment websites.</p><br /><p>Then they offer jobs as “money transfer agents”, “payment processing agents” or “administration assistants” for salaries of hundreds of pounds a week.</p><br /><p>It looks like a proper job offer, but the real purpose is to channel cash from criminal activity through a person’s own bank account, making them the fraudster’s money mule.</p><br /><p>Kayleigh Rance has been hunting for work for a year. She was taken in and even signed a contract. Then, luckily, she pulled out.</p><br /><p>“It just makes you feel a bit sick,” she complains, “I feel like I’ve got to go through all the websites now and take my CV off because I don’t want it to happen again.”</p><br /><p>The dirty cash comes from credit card fraud, money stolen from bank accounts and other rip-offs.</p><br /><p>Paying it into the money mule’s account disguises where it comes from. The mule transfers it to an account in an overseas bank, controlled by the fraudster. It is classic money laundering.</p><br /><p>Some money mules are paid by a straightforward cut of the cash being handled. A typical share would be 8%.</p><br /><p><span class="cross-head">Campaign</span></p><br /><p>The first mules tended to be new entrants to the UK, processing funds generated by crime within their own communities in London and other major cities.</p><br /><p>But the power of the internet has allowed the perpetrators to start targeting other groups, including students desperate to earn some extra cash.</p><br /><p>Financial Fraud Action commissioned ICM to question 2,000 adults along with separate groups exclusively made up of students, jobseekers and new entrants to the UK.</p><br /><p>Around 15% had received the suspect job offers. Overall 6% of those who had been approached accepted the offers, rising to 13% of the unemployed, 19% of students and 20% of new entrants.</p><br /><p>Crimestoppers is running a campaign in universities across the UK to warn students not to be fooled into becoming involved, telling them: “Don’t be a mule!”.</p><br /><p><span class="cross-head">‘Colossal risk’</span></p><br /><p>Megan Owen, who is studying criminology, volunteered to help at one recent event in Birmingham City University.</p><br /><p>“Lots of students we approached said they’d been affected or their friends had been affected,” she said.</p><br /><p>Extrapolating from its survey, Financial Fraud Action concludes that 380,000 people could have become unwitting money mules.</p><br /><p>The figure is a stab in the dark, but it is clear that the problem is becoming worse and that few of those who become involved understand the risks they are running.</p><br /><p>Their bank accounts could be frozen. If prosecuted, they could be sent to prison for up to 10 years.</p><br /><p>“It’s a colossal risk,” warns DCI Carter. “In fact you are taking almost all the risk on behalf of the criminal. That’s why they ask – the money mules are the ones most likely to be caught.”</p><br /><p>BBC News – Business</p><br /><div><br /><div itemscope="" itemtype="http://data-vocabulary.org/Review-aggregate"><br /><div><br />Title Post: <span itemprop="itemreviewed"><strong>Warning about student ‘money mules’</strong></span><br />Url Post: <strong>http://www.news.fluser.com/warning-about-student-money-mules/</strong><br />Link To Post : <strong>Warning about student ‘money mules’</strong><br />Rating: <span itemprop="rating" itemscope="" itemtype="http://data-vocabulary.org/Rating"><br /><span itemprop="average">100%</span><br /></span><br />based on <span itemprop="votes">99998</span> ratings.<br /><span itemprop="count">5</span> user reviews.<br />Author: <b><span class="vcard author"><span class="fn">Fluser SeoLink</span></span></b><br />Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment</div><br /></div><br /></div><br /><br />News Satu Untuk Semuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12431820897146969246noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4286961009692149001.post-47158498262951969272013-02-27T10:10:00.001-08:002013-02-27T10:10:18.807-08:00Community college grads out-earn bachelor’s degree holders<br /><div class="home-content-ad"><br /><div class="ad-code"><br /><br /></div></div><br /><p>Berevan Omer graduated on a Friday in February with an associate’s degree from Nashville State Community College and started work the following Monday as a computer-networking engineer at a local television station, making about $ 50,000 a year.</p><br /><p>That’s 15% higher than the average starting salary for graduates — not only from community colleges, but for bachelor’s degree holders from four-year universities.</p><div class="home-content-ad"><br /><div class="ad-code"><br /><br /></div></div><br /><br /><p>“I have a buddy who got a four-year bachelor’s degree in accounting who’s making $ 10 an hour,” Omer says. “I’m making two and a-half times more than he is.”</p><br /><p>Omer, who is 24, is one of many newly minted graduates of community colleges defying history and stereotypes by proving that a bachelor’s degree is not, as widely believed, the only ticket to a middle-class income.</p><br /><p>Nearly 30% of Americans with associate’s degrees now make more than those with bachelor’s degrees, according to Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce. In fact, other recent research in several states shows that, on average, community college graduates right out of school make more than graduates of four-year universities.</p><br /><p>The average wage for graduates of community colleges in Tennessee, for instance, is $ 38,948 — more than $ 1,300 higher than the average salaries for graduates of the state’s four-year institutions.</p><br /><p>In Virginia, recent graduates of occupational and technical degree programs at its community colleges make an average of $ 40,000. That’s almost $ 2,500 more than recent bachelor’s degree recipients.</p><br /><p>“There is that perception that the bachelor’s degree is the default, and, quite frankly, before we started this work showing the value of a technical associate’s degree, I would have said that, too,” says Mark Schneider, vice president of the American Institutes for Research, which helped collect the earning numbers for some states.</p><br /><p>And while by mid-career, many bachelor’s degree recipients have caught up in earnings to community college grads, “the other factor that has to be taken into account is that getting a four-year degree can be much more expensive than getting a two-year degree,” Schneider says.</p><br /><p>A two-year community college degree, at present full rates, costs about $ 6,262, according to the College Board. A bachelor’s degree from a four-year, private residential university goes for $ 158,072.</p><br /><p>The increase in wages for community college grads is being driven by a high demand for people with so-called “middle-skills” that often require no more than an associate’s degree, such as lab technicians, teachers in early childhood programs, computer engineers, draftsmen, radiation therapists, paralegals, and machinists.</p><br /><p>With a two-year community college degree, air traffic controllers can make $ 113,547, radiation therapists $ 76,627, dental hygienists $ 70,408, nuclear medicine technologists $ 69,638, nuclear technicians $ 68,037, registered nurses $ 65,853, and fashion designers $ 63,170, CareerBuilder.com reported in January.</p><br /><p>“You come out with skills that people want immediately and not just theory,” Omer says.</p><br /><p>The Georgetown center estimates that 29 million jobs paying middle class wages today require only an associate’s, and not a bachelor’s, degree.</p><br /><p>“I would not suggest anyone look down their nose at the associate’s degree,” says Jeff Strohl, director of research at the Georgetown center.</p><br /><p>“People see those programs as tracking into something that’s dead end,” Strohl says. “It’s very clear that that perception does not hold up.”</p><br /><p>The bad news is that not enough associate’s degree holders are being produced.</p><br /><p>Only 10% of American workers have the sub-baccalaureate degrees needed for middle-skills jobs, compared with 24% of Canadians and 19% of Japanese, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development reports.</p><br /><p>Over the last 20 years, the number of graduates with associate’s degrees in the United States has increased by barely 3%. And while the Obama administration has pushed community colleges to increase their numbers, enrollment at these schools fell 3.1% this year, the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center reports. Graduation rates also remain abysmally low.</p><br /><p>Meanwhile, many people with bachelor’s degrees are working in fields other than the ones in which they majored, according to a new report by the Center for College Affordability and Productivity.</p><br /><p>“We have a lot of bartenders and taxi drivers with bachelor’s degrees,” says Christopher Denhart, one of the report’s coauthors.</p><br /><p>Still, the salary advantage for associate’s degree holders narrows over time, as bachelor’s degree recipients eventually catch up, says Schneider.</p><br /><p>Although these figures vary widely by profession, associate’s degree recipients, on average, end up making about $ 500,000 more over their careers than people with only high school diplomas, but $ 500,000 less than people with bachelor’s degrees, the Georgetown center calculates.</p><br /><p>As for Omer, he’s already working toward a bachelor’s degree.</p><br /><p>“Down the road a little further, I may want to become a director or a manager,” he says. “A bachelor’s degree will get me to that point.”</p><br /><p>This story was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, nonpartisan education-news outlet based at Teachers College, Columbia University. It’s one of a series of reports about workforce development and higher education.</p><br /><p>View this article on CNNMoney</p><br /><p><strong>More From CNNMoney.com</strong><br /></p><br /><p>Yahoo! Finance – Personal Finance</p><br /><div><br /><div itemscope="" itemtype="http://data-vocabulary.org/Review-aggregate"><br /><div><br />Title Post: <span itemprop="itemreviewed"><strong>Community college grads out-earn bachelor’s degree holders</strong></span><br />Url Post: <strong>http://www.news.fluser.com/community-college-grads-out-earn-bachelors-degree-holders/</strong><br />Link To Post : <strong>Community college grads out-earn bachelor’s degree holders</strong><br />Rating: <span itemprop="rating" itemscope="" itemtype="http://data-vocabulary.org/Rating"><br /><span itemprop="average">100%</span><br /></span><br />based on <span itemprop="votes">99998</span> ratings.<br /><span itemprop="count">5</span> user reviews.<br />Author: <b><span class="vcard author"><span class="fn">Fluser SeoLink</span></span></b><br />Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment</div><br /></div><br /></div><br /><br />News Satu Untuk Semuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12431820897146969246noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4286961009692149001.post-39676549500677809012013-02-27T10:06:00.001-08:002013-02-27T10:06:10.880-08:00Pistorius representatives name substance found<br /><p class="first">JOHANNESBURG (AP) — <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1361985847852_1">Oscar Pistorius</span>' representatives have named the substance found in his bedroom after the shooting death of his girlfriend as Testis compositum and said Wednesday it is an herbal remedy used "in aid of muscle recovery."</p><br /><p>A product called Testis compositum is also marketed as a sexual enhancer, good for lack of stamina. Some online retailers advertise oral and injectable forms as <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1361985847852_2">testosterone boosters</span> and say it can aid sexual performance.</p><br /><p>South African police said during <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1361985847852_4">Pistorius</span>' bail hearing that they found needles in Pistorius' bedroom along with the substance, which they initially named as testosterone. Prosecutors later withdrew that statement identifying the substance and said it had been sent for laboratory tests and couldn't be named until those tests were completed.</p><br /><p>Pistorius family spokesperson <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1361985847852_6">Lunice Johnston</span> said in an email to The Associated Press on Wednesday that the athlete's lawyers had confirmed that the substance is Testis compositum. In court last week, Pistorius' defense lawyer <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1361985847852_5">Barry Roux</span> said the substance was not banned by sports authorities, but it had been unclear what it was and what the exact name was.</p><br /><p>A product called <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1361985847852_3">Testis Compositum</span> is made by Biologische Heilmittel Heel GmbH, based in Baden-Baden, Germany. The company website says it is one of the world's leading makers of homeopathic combination medications.</p><br /><p>A U.S. subsidiary, Heel USA Inc., markets the product in tablet form only and spokeswoman Joan Sullivan said she didn't know if injectable versions are sold in other countries. Heel USA's website says the product provides temporary relief for men's "sexual weakness" and lack of stamina.</p><br /><p>The U.S.-sold tablets contain 23 ingredients, including pig testicles, pig heart, pig embryo and pig adrenal gland, cortisone, ginseng and other botanicals. It also contains several minerals, according to a list Sullivan provided.</p><br /><p>Charles Yesalis, a Penn State professor emeritus and expert on steroid use in sports, said animal steroids likely wouldn't have an athletic performance-enhancing effect unless taken in huge quantities. Even so, he said many elite athletes would be wary of using such supplements because they can be laced with banned substances and few would want to risk it.</p><br /><p>The company website listed a South African subsidiary as ModHomCo (Pty) Ltd., based in Centurion, near Pretoria. That company couldn't immediately be reached for comment.</p><br /><p>Pistorius was charged with premeditated murder in the Feb. 14 shooting death of girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. He says he shot her by accident after mistaking her for an intruder in his home. Prosecutors allege he intended to kill her.</p><br /><p>___</p><br /><p>AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner in Chicago contributed to this report.</p><br />News Satu Untuk Semuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12431820897146969246noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4286961009692149001.post-51994265574559137792013-02-27T10:04:00.001-08:002013-02-27T10:04:14.619-08:00Benedict: Pope aware of his flaws?<br /><!--startclickprintexclude--><br /><br /><div class="cnn_stryimg640caption" readability="8"><p>Pope Benedict XVI delivers his last Angelus Blessing to thousands of pilgrims gathered in Saint Peter's Square on February 24.</p></div><br /><br /><div class="cnn_strylftcntnt"><div class="cnn_strylctcntr"><br /><p><strong>STORY HIGHLIGHTS</strong></p><br /><ul class="cnn_bulletbin cnnStryHghLght"><!--google_ad_section_start--><li>Sister Mary Ann Walsh: Pope Benedict acknowledged that he made mistakes</li><br /><li>Walsh: In firestorm over scholarly quotes about Islam, he went to great lengths to atone</li><br /><li>Walsh: Similarly, he quickly reversed a decision that had angered Jews and repaired ties</li><br /><li>Even his stepping down is a nod to his humanity and his love of the church, she says</li><br /><!--google_ad_section_end--><br /></ul></div></div><br /><!--endclickprintexclude--><!--google_ad_section_start--><!--startclickprintinclude--><br /><p class="cnnEditorialNote"><em><strong>Editor's note:</strong> Sister Mary Ann Walsh is director of media relations for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and a member of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas Northeast Regional Community. She is a former foreign correspondent at Catholic News Service (CNS) in Rome and the editor of "John Paul II: A Light for the World," "Benedict XVI: Essays and Reflections on his Papacy," and "From Pope John Paul II to Benedict XVI." </em></p><br /><p><strong>(CNN)</strong> -- One of the Bible's paradoxical statements comes from St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians: "Power is made perfect in infirmity."</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph2">The poetic statement proclaims that when we are weak, we are strong. Pope Benedict XVI's stepping down from what many consider one of the most powerful positions in the world proves it. In a position associated with infallibility -- though that refers to formal proclamations on faith and morals -- the pope declares his weakness.</p><br /><div class="cnn_strylftcntnt"><div class="cnn_strylctcntr cnn_strylccimg214"><br /><img src="http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/dam/assets/130225155656-sister-mary-ann-walsh-left-tease.jpg" alt="Sister Mary Ann Walsh" border="0" class="box-image" height="122" width="214"/><p>Sister Mary Ann Walsh</p><br /></div></div><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph3">His acceptance of frailty speaks realistically about humanity: We grow old, weaken, and eventually die. A job, even one guided by the Holy Spirit, as we Roman Catholics believe, can become too much for us.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph4">Acceptance of human frailty has marked this papacy. We all make mistakes, but the pope makes them on a huge stage.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph5">He was barely into his papacy, for example, when he visited Regensburg, Germany, where he once taught theology. Like many a professor, he offered a provocative statement to get the conversation going. To introduce the theme of his lecture, the pope quoted from an account of a dialogue between the Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologus and an unnamed Muslim scholar, sometime near the end of the 14th century -- a quote that was misinterpreted by some as a condemnation of Mohammed and Islam.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph6">Opinion: 'Gay lobby' behind pope's resignation? Not likely</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph7">Twice, the pope emphasized that he was quoting someone else's words. Unfortunately, the statement about Islam was taken as insult, not a discussion opener, and sparked rage throughout the Muslim world.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph8">The startled pope had to explain himself. He apologized and traveled two months later to Istanbul's Blue Mosque, where he stood shoeless in prayer beside the Grand Mufti of Istanbul. Later he hosted Muslim leaders at the Vatican at the start of a Catholic-Muslim forum for dialogue. It was a human moment -- a mistake, an apology and atonement -- all round.</p><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph9">A similar controversy erupted when he tried to bring the schismatic Society of St. Pius X back into the Roman Catholic fold.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph10">In a grand gesture toward reconciliation, he lifted the excommunication of four of its bishops, unaware that one, Richard Williamson, was a Holocaust denier. This outraged many Jews. Subsequently the Vatican said the bishop had not been vetted, and in a bow to modernity said officials at least should have looked him up on the Internet.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph11">In humble response, Benedict reiterated his condemnation of anti-Semitism and told Williamson that he must recant his Holocaust views to be fully reinstated. Again, his admission of a mistake and an effort to mend fences.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph12">News: Scandal threatens to overshadow pope's final days</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph13">Pope Benedict XVI came from a Catholic Bavarian town. Childhood family jaunts included trips to the shrine of the Black Madonna, Our Lady of Altotting. He entered the seminary at the age of 13. He became a priest, scholar and theologian. He lived his life in service to the church. Even in resigning from the papacy, he embraces the monastic life to pray for a church he has ever loved.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph14">With hindsight, his visit to the tomb of 13th century Pope Celestine V, a Benedictine monk who resigned from the papacy eight centuries before, becomes poignant.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph15">In 2009, on a visit to Aquila, Italy, Benedict left at Celestine's tomb the pallium, a stole-like vestment that signifies episcopal authority, that Benedict had worn for his installation as pope. The gesture takes on more meaning as the monkish Benedict steps down.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph16">We expect the pope to be perfect. Catholics hold him to be the vicar of Christ on earth. He stands as a spiritual leader for much of the world. Statesmen visit him from around the globe. He lives among splendid architecture, in the shadow of the domed St. Peter's Basilica. All testify to an almost surreal omnipotence.</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph17">Complete coverage of the pope's resignation</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph18">In this world, however, walked a vulnerable, human person. And in a paradox of life, his most human moment -- giving up the power of office -- may prove to be his most potent, delivering a message that, as St. Paul noted many centuries ago, "Power is made perfect in infirmity."</p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph20"><i>Follow </i><i>@CNNOpinion on Twitter.</i></p><br /><p class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph21"><i>Join us at Facebook/CNNOpinion.</i></p><br /><p class="cnn_strycbftrtxt">The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Mary Ann Walsh.</p><br /><!--endclickprintinclude--><!--google_ad_section_end--><br /><!--no partner--><br /><br /><br />News Satu Untuk Semuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12431820897146969246noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4286961009692149001.post-21888997163253945872013-02-27T10:02:00.001-08:002013-02-27T10:02:16.042-08:00Cellar victim Kampusch raped, starved in film of ordeal<br /><div class="home-content-ad"><br /><div class="ad-code"><br /><br /></div></div><br /><p class="first">VIENNA (Reuters) – A new film based on the story of Austrian kidnap victim <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1361825469398_1">Natascha Kampusch</span> shows her being repeatedly raped by the captor who beat and starved her during the eight-and-a-half years that he kept her in a cellar beneath his house.</p><br /><p><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1361825469398_3">Kampusch</span> was snatched on her way to school at the age of 10 by <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1361825469398_2">Wolfgang Priklopil</span> and held in a windowless cell under his garage near Vienna until she escaped in 2006, causing a sensation in Austria and abroad. Priklopil committed suicide.</p><div class="home-content-ad"><br /><div class="ad-code"><br /><br /></div></div><br /><br /><p>Kampusch had always refused to respond to claims that she had had sex with <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1361825469398_4">Priklopil</span>, but in a German television interview on her 25th birthday last week said she had decided to reveal the truth because it had leaked out from police files.</p><br /><p>The film, “3,096 Days” – based on Kampusch’s autobiography of the same name – soberly portrays her captivity in a windowless cellar less than 6 square metres (65 square feet) in area, often deprived of food for days at a time.</p><br /><p>The emaciated Kampusch – who weighed just 38 kg (84 pounds) at one point in 2004 – keeps a diary written on toilet paper concealed in a box.</p><br /><p>One entry reads: “At least 60 blows in the face. Ten to 15 nausea-inducing fist blows to the head. One strike with the fist with full weight to my right ear.”</p><br /><p>The movie shows occasional moments that approach tenderness, such as when Priklopil presents her with a cake for her 18th birthday or buys her a dress as a gift – but then immediately goes on to chide her for not knowing how to waltz with him.</p><br /><p>GREY AREAS</p><br /><p>Antonia Campbell-Hughes, who plays the teenaged Kampusch, said she had tried to portray “the strength of someone’s soul, the ability of people to survive… but also the grey areas within a relationship that people don’t necessarily understand.”</p><br /><p>The British actress said she had not met Kampusch during the making of the film or since. “It was a very isolated time, it was a bubble of time, and I wanted to keep that very focused,” she told journalists as she arrived for the Vienna premiere.</p><br /><p>Kampusch herself attended the premiere, looking composed as she posed for pictures but declining to give interviews.</p><br /><p>In an interview with Germany’s Bild Zeitung last week, she said: “Yes, I did recognize myself, although the reality was even worse. But one can’t really show that in the cinema, since it wasn’t supposed to be a horror film.”</p><br /><p>The movie, made at the Constantin Film studios in Bavaria, Germany, also stars Amy Pidgeon as the 10-year-old Kampusch and Danish actor Thure Lindhardt as Priklopil.</p><br /><p>“I focused mainly on playing the human being because… we have to remember it was a human being. Monsters do not exist, they’re only in cartoons,” Lindhart said.</p><br /><p>“It became clear to me that it’s a story about survival, and it’s a story about surviving eight years of hell. If that story can be told then I can also play the bad guy.”</p><br /><p>The director was German-American Sherry Hormann, who made her English-language debut with the 2009 move “Desert Flower”, an adaptation of the autobiography of Somali-born model and anti-female circumcision activist Waris Dirie.</p><br /><p>“I’m a mother and I wonder at the strength of this child, and it was important for me to tell this story from a different perspective, to tell how this child using her own strength could survive this atrocious martyrdom,” Hormann said.</p><br /><p>The Kampusch case was followed two years later by that of Josef Fritzl, an Austrian who held his daughter captive in a cellar for 24 years and fathered seven children with her.</p><br /><p>The crimes prompted soul-searching about the Austrian psyche, and questions as to how the authorities and neighbors could have let such crimes go undetected for so long.</p><br /><p>The film goes on general release on Thursday.</p><br /><p>(Reporting by Georgina Prodhan, Editing by Paul Casciato)</p><br /><p>Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News</p><br /><div><br /><div itemscope="" itemtype="http://data-vocabulary.org/Review-aggregate"><br /><div><br />Title Post: <span itemprop="itemreviewed"><strong>Cellar victim Kampusch raped, starved in film of ordeal</strong></span><br />Url Post: <strong>http://www.news.fluser.com/cellar-victim-kampusch-raped-starved-in-film-of-ordeal/</strong><br />Link To Post : <strong>Cellar victim Kampusch raped, starved in film of ordeal</strong><br />Rating: <span itemprop="rating" itemscope="" itemtype="http://data-vocabulary.org/Rating"><br /><span itemprop="average">100%</span><br /></span><br />based on <span itemprop="votes">99998</span> ratings.<br /><span itemprop="count">5</span> user reviews.<br />Author: <b><span class="vcard author"><span class="fn">Fluser SeoLink</span></span></b><br />Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment</div><br /></div><br /></div><br /><br />News Satu Untuk Semuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12431820897146969246noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4286961009692149001.post-5596855194546025142013-02-26T10:12:00.001-08:002013-02-26T10:12:10.828-08:00Warning about student ‘money mules’<br /><div class="home-content-ad"><br /><div class="ad-code"><br /><br /></div></div><br /><p><span class="story-date"><span class="date">25 February 2013</span> <span class="time-text">Last updated at</span> <span class="time">19:03 ET</span></span></p><br /><p><span class="byline"><span class="byline-name">By Simon Gompertz</span> <span class="byline-title">Personal finance correspondent, BBC News</span></span></p><div class="home-content-ad"><br /><div class="ad-code"><br /><br /></div></div><br /><br /><p class="introduction" id="story_continues_1">Fraud experts are warning that hundreds of thousands of people are in danger of being duped into laundering money for fraudsters.</p><br /><p>They are being recruited as unwitting “money mules” who allow their own bank accounts to be used to disguise the proceeds of crime.</p><br /><p>The study was carried out by Financial Fraud Action, which tackles fraud on behalf of banks.</p><br /><p>It said that students and jobseekers could be especially vulnerable.</p><br /><p>Some 19% of students who had been approached had agreed to become money mules.</p><br /><p>“It’s a very serious problem,” warns DCI Dave Carter, an investigator from Financial Fraud Action.</p><br /><p>“Almost every single criminal transaction that goes on depends on money mules, to turn the money from crime into something the criminals can spend themselves.”</p><br /><p><span class="cross-head">How it works</span></p><br /><div class="story-feature narrow" readability="24.462585034">Continue reading the main story<br /><blockquote readability="5"><br /><p class="first-child">It just makes you feel sick. I don’t want it to happen again.”</p><br /></blockquote><br /><p><span class="endquote">End Quote</span> <span class="quote-credit">Kayleigh Rance</span> <span class="quote-credit-title">job-seeker</span></p></div><br /><p id="story_continues_2">The fraudsters contact likely targets by sending out mass emails offering employment, or after sifting through CVs posted by job seekers on employment websites.</p><br /><p>Then they offer jobs as “money transfer agents”, “payment processing agents” or “administration assistants” for salaries of hundreds of pounds a week.</p><br /><p>It looks like a proper job offer, but the real purpose is to channel cash from criminal activity through a person’s own bank account, making them the fraudster’s money mule.</p><br /><p>Kayleigh Rance has been hunting for work for a year. She was taken in and even signed a contract. Then, luckily, she pulled out.</p><br /><p>“It just makes you feel a bit sick,” she complains, “I feel like I’ve got to go through all the websites now and take my CV off because I don’t want it to happen again.”</p><br /><p>The dirty cash comes from credit card fraud, money stolen from bank accounts and other rip-offs.</p><br /><p>Paying it into the money mule’s account disguises where it comes from. The mule transfers it to an account in an overseas bank, controlled by the fraudster. It is classic money laundering.</p><br /><p>Some money mules are paid by a straightforward cut of the cash being handled. A typical share would be 8%.</p><br /><p><span class="cross-head">Campaign</span></p><br /><p>The first mules tended to be new entrants to the UK, processing funds generated by crime within their own communities in London and other major cities.</p><br /><p>But the power of the internet has allowed the perpetrators to start targeting other groups, including students desperate to earn some extra cash.</p><br /><p>Financial Fraud Action commissioned ICM to question 2,000 adults along with separate groups exclusively made up of students, jobseekers and new entrants to the UK.</p><br /><p>Around 15% had received the suspect job offers. Overall 6% of those who had been approached accepted the offers, rising to 13% of the unemployed, 19% of students and 20% of new entrants.</p><br /><p>Crimestoppers is running a campaign in universities across the UK to warn students not to be fooled into becoming involved, telling them: “Don’t be a mule!”.</p><br /><p><span class="cross-head">‘Colossal risk’</span></p><br /><p>Megan Owen, who is studying criminology, volunteered to help at one recent event in Birmingham City University.</p><br /><p>“Lots of students we approached said they’d been affected or their friends had been affected,” she said.</p><br /><p>Extrapolating from its survey, Financial Fraud Action concludes that 380,000 people could have become unwitting money mules.</p><br /><p>The figure is a stab in the dark, but it is clear that the problem is becoming worse and that few of those who become involved understand the risks they are running.</p><br /><p>Their bank accounts could be frozen. If prosecuted, they could be sent to prison for up to 10 years.</p><br /><p>“It’s a colossal risk,” warns DCI Carter. “In fact you are taking almost all the risk on behalf of the criminal. That’s why they ask – the money mules are the ones most likely to be caught.”</p><br /><p>BBC News – Business</p><br /><div><br /><div itemscope="" itemtype="http://data-vocabulary.org/Review-aggregate"><br /><div><br />Title Post: <span itemprop="itemreviewed"><strong>Warning about student ‘money mules’</strong></span><br />Url Post: <strong>http://www.news.fluser.com/warning-about-student-money-mules/</strong><br />Link To Post : <strong>Warning about student ‘money mules’</strong><br />Rating: <span itemprop="rating" itemscope="" itemtype="http://data-vocabulary.org/Rating"><br /><span itemprop="average">100%</span><br /></span><br />based on <span itemprop="votes">99998</span> ratings.<br /><span itemprop="count">5</span> user reviews.<br />Author: <b><span class="vcard author"><span class="fn">Fluser SeoLink</span></span></b><br />Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment</div><br /></div><br /></div><br /><br />News Satu Untuk Semuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12431820897146969246noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4286961009692149001.post-67787640474631144082013-02-26T10:10:00.001-08:002013-02-26T10:10:20.130-08:00Community college grads out-earn bachelor’s degree holders<br /><div class="home-content-ad"><br /><div class="ad-code"><br /><br /></div></div><br /><p>Berevan Omer graduated on a Friday in February with an associate’s degree from Nashville State Community College and started work the following Monday as a computer-networking engineer at a local television station, making about $ 50,000 a year.</p><br /><p>That’s 15% higher than the average starting salary for graduates — not only from community colleges, but for bachelor’s degree holders from four-year universities.</p><div class="home-content-ad"><br /><div class="ad-code"><br /><br /></div></div><br /><br /><p>“I have a buddy who got a four-year bachelor’s degree in accounting who’s making $ 10 an hour,” Omer says. “I’m making two and a-half times more than he is.”</p><br /><p>Omer, who is 24, is one of many newly minted graduates of community colleges defying history and stereotypes by proving that a bachelor’s degree is not, as widely believed, the only ticket to a middle-class income.</p><br /><p>Nearly 30% of Americans with associate’s degrees now make more than those with bachelor’s degrees, according to Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce. In fact, other recent research in several states shows that, on average, community college graduates right out of school make more than graduates of four-year universities.</p><br /><p>The average wage for graduates of community colleges in Tennessee, for instance, is $ 38,948 — more than $ 1,300 higher than the average salaries for graduates of the state’s four-year institutions.</p><br /><p>In Virginia, recent graduates of occupational and technical degree programs at its community colleges make an average of $ 40,000. That’s almost $ 2,500 more than recent bachelor’s degree recipients.</p><br /><p>“There is that perception that the bachelor’s degree is the default, and, quite frankly, before we started this work showing the value of a technical associate’s degree, I would have said that, too,” says Mark Schneider, vice president of the American Institutes for Research, which helped collect the earning numbers for some states.</p><br /><p>And while by mid-career, many bachelor’s degree recipients have caught up in earnings to community college grads, “the other factor that has to be taken into account is that getting a four-year degree can be much more expensive than getting a two-year degree,” Schneider says.</p><br /><p>A two-year community college degree, at present full rates, costs about $ 6,262, according to the College Board. A bachelor’s degree from a four-year, private residential university goes for $ 158,072.</p><br /><p>The increase in wages for community college grads is being driven by a high demand for people with so-called “middle-skills” that often require no more than an associate’s degree, such as lab technicians, teachers in early childhood programs, computer engineers, draftsmen, radiation therapists, paralegals, and machinists.</p><br /><p>With a two-year community college degree, air traffic controllers can make $ 113,547, radiation therapists $ 76,627, dental hygienists $ 70,408, nuclear medicine technologists $ 69,638, nuclear technicians $ 68,037, registered nurses $ 65,853, and fashion designers $ 63,170, CareerBuilder.com reported in January.</p><br /><p>“You come out with skills that people want immediately and not just theory,” Omer says.</p><br /><p>The Georgetown center estimates that 29 million jobs paying middle class wages today require only an associate’s, and not a bachelor’s, degree.</p><br /><p>“I would not suggest anyone look down their nose at the associate’s degree,” says Jeff Strohl, director of research at the Georgetown center.</p><br /><p>“People see those programs as tracking into something that’s dead end,” Strohl says. “It’s very clear that that perception does not hold up.”</p><br /><p>The bad news is that not enough associate’s degree holders are being produced.</p><br /><p>Only 10% of American workers have the sub-baccalaureate degrees needed for middle-skills jobs, compared with 24% of Canadians and 19% of Japanese, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development reports.</p><br /><p>Over the last 20 years, the number of graduates with associate’s degrees in the United States has increased by barely 3%. And while the Obama administration has pushed community colleges to increase their numbers, enrollment at these schools fell 3.1% this year, the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center reports. Graduation rates also remain abysmally low.</p><br /><p>Meanwhile, many people with bachelor’s degrees are working in fields other than the ones in which they majored, according to a new report by the Center for College Affordability and Productivity.</p><br /><p>“We have a lot of bartenders and taxi drivers with bachelor’s degrees,” says Christopher Denhart, one of the report’s coauthors.</p><br /><p>Still, the salary advantage for associate’s degree holders narrows over time, as bachelor’s degree recipients eventually catch up, says Schneider.</p><br /><p>Although these figures vary widely by profession, associate’s degree recipients, on average, end up making about $ 500,000 more over their careers than people with only high school diplomas, but $ 500,000 less than people with bachelor’s degrees, the Georgetown center calculates.</p><br /><p>As for Omer, he’s already working toward a bachelor’s degree.</p><br /><p>“Down the road a little further, I may want to become a director or a manager,” he says. “A bachelor’s degree will get me to that point.”</p><br /><p>This story was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, nonpartisan education-news outlet based at Teachers College, Columbia University. It’s one of a series of reports about workforce development and higher education.</p><br /><p>View this article on CNNMoney</p><br /><p><strong>More From CNNMoney.com</strong><br /></p><br /><p>Yahoo! Finance – Personal Finance</p><br /><div><br /><div itemscope="" itemtype="http://data-vocabulary.org/Review-aggregate"><br /><div><br />Title Post: <span itemprop="itemreviewed"><strong>Community college grads out-earn bachelor’s degree holders</strong></span><br />Url Post: <strong>http://www.news.fluser.com/community-college-grads-out-earn-bachelors-degree-holders/</strong><br />Link To Post : <strong>Community college grads out-earn bachelor’s degree holders</strong><br />Rating: <span itemprop="rating" itemscope="" itemtype="http://data-vocabulary.org/Rating"><br /><span itemprop="average">100%</span><br /></span><br />based on <span itemprop="votes">99998</span> ratings.<br /><span itemprop="count">5</span> user reviews.<br />Author: <b><span class="vcard author"><span class="fn">Fluser SeoLink</span></span></b><br />Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment</div><br /></div><br /></div><br /><br />News Satu Untuk Semuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12431820897146969246noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4286961009692149001.post-71749470255645073902013-02-26T10:08:00.001-08:002013-02-26T10:08:13.066-08:00Dow, S&P rise as Bernanke defends policy, warns on cuts<p class="first">NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks mostly rose on Tuesday after <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1361899626975_2">Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke</span> defended the Fed's bond-buying stimulus before Congress, but warned forced spending cuts that could be triggered this week represented a headwind for the economy.</p><br /><p> Gains in homebuilders and other consumer stocks, following strong economic data, kept the <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1361899626975_5">S&P 500</span> nearly unchanged, while a 5 percent jump in <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1361899626975_1">Home Depot</span> <hd.n> lifted the <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1361899626975_3">Dow</span> industrials. The PHLX housing sector index <.hgx> rose 2 percent.</.hgx></hd.n></p><br /><p> Stocks hit session highs shortly after Bernanke, in testimony before the <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1361899626975_4">Senate Banking Committee</span>, strongly defended the Fed's bond-buying stimulus program that has been essential for the <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1361899626975_7">stock market</span>'s recovery.</p><br /><p> However, he also urged lawmakers to avoid sharp spending cuts set to go into effect on Friday, which he warned could combine with earlier tax increases to create a "significant headwind" for the economic recovery.</p><br /><p> "He really came down foursquare on the bearish camp with respect to the potential economic impact of these cuts. That's a surprise, and that's probably why the market's a little nervous right now," said Michael Jones, chief investment officer of <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1361899626975_6">Riverfront Investment Group</span> in Richmond, Virginia.</p><br /><p> The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> rose 74.64 points or 0.54 percent to 13,858.81. The S&P 500 <.spx> gained 1.78 points or 0.12 percent to 1,489.63. The Nasdaq Composite <.ixic> dropped 5.84 points or 0.19 percent to 3,110.41.</.ixic></.spx></.dji></p><br /><p> The S&P 500 failed to move above 1,500, a closely watched level that was technical support until recently, but could now become a hurdle.</p><br /><p> Cable network AMC Networks was the Nasdaq's biggest percentage decliner after the home of popular shows such as "The Walking Dead" and "Mad Men" reported a quarterly profit way below analysts' estimates. Its stock fell 7.4 percent to $53.77.</p><br /><p> Equities continued to be weighed by concerns about a stalemate in Italy after a general election failed to give any party a parliamentary majority, posing the threat of prolonged instability and European financial crisis.</p><br /><p> The FTSEurofirst-300 index of top European shares <.fteu3> unofficially closed down 1.3 percent at 1,150.58. The benchmark Italian index <.ftmib> tumbled 4.9 percent.</.ftmib></.fteu3></p><br /><p> Dow component Home Depot Inc <hd.n> was the top gainer in both the Dow and the S&P 500 after the world's largest home improvement chain reported adjusted earnings and sales that beat expectations. Home Depot's shares jumped 5.5 percent to $67.46.</hd.n></p><br /><p> Macy's Inc <m.n> shares climbed 2.8 percent to $39.60 after the department-store chain stated it expects full-year earnings to be above analysts' forecasts because of strong holiday sales.</m.n></p><br /><p> Economic reports that showed strength in housing and consumer confidence also supported stocks.</p><br /><p> U.S. home prices rose more than expected in December, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller index. Consumer confidence rebounded in February, jumping more than expected, and new-home sales rose to their highest in 4-1/2 years.</p><br /><p> (Reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Additional reporting by Sam Forgione; Editing by Jan Paschal)</p><br /><br />News Satu Untuk Semuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12431820897146969246noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4286961009692149001.post-91247657087052629712013-02-26T10:06:00.001-08:002013-02-26T10:06:16.209-08:00Experts: Pistorius violated basic firearms rules<br /><p class="first">JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Even if <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1361901847556_1">Oscar Pistorius</span> is acquitted of murder, firearms and legal experts in <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1361901847556_2">South Africa</span> believe that, by his own account, the star athlete violated basic gun-handling regulations and exposed himself to a homicide charge by shooting into a <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1361901847556_7">closed door</span> without knowing who was behind it.</p><br /><p>Particularly jarring for firearms instructors and <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1361901847556_9">legal experts</span> is that <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1361901847556_5">Pistorius</span> testified that he shot at a closed toilet door, fearing but not knowing for certain that a nighttime intruder was on the other side. Instead of an intruder, Pistorius' girlfriend <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1361901847556_4">Reeva Steenkamp</span> was in the toilet cubicle. Struck by three of four shots that Pistorius fired from a 9 mm pistol, she died within minutes. Prosecutors charged Pistorius with premeditated murder, saying the shooting followed an argument between the two. Pistorius said it was an accident.</p><br /><p>South Africa has stringent laws regulating the use of lethal force for self-protection. In order to get a permit to own a firearm, applicants must not only know those rules but must demonstrate proficiency with the weapon and knowledge of its safe handling, making it far tougher to legally own a gun in South Africa than many other countries where a mere background check suffices.</p><br /><p>Pistorius took such a competency test for his 9 mm pistol and passed it, according to the <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1361901847556_8">South African Police Service</span>'s National Firearms Center. Pistorius' license for the 9 mm pistol was issued in September 2010. The Olympic athlete and Paralympic medalist should have known that firing blindly, instead of at a clearly identified target, violates basic gun-handling rules, firearms and legal experts said.</p><br /><p>"You can't shoot through a closed door," said Andre Pretorius, president of the Professional Firearm Trainers Council, a regulatory body for South African firearms instructors. "People who own guns and have been through the training, they know that shooting through a door is not going to go through <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1361901847556_6">South African</span> law as an accident."</p><br /><p>"There is no situation in South Africa that allows a person to shoot at a threat that is not identified," Pretorius added. "Firing multiple shots, it makes it that much worse. ...It could have been a minor — a 15-year-old kid, a 12-year-old kid — breaking in to get food."</p><br /><p>The Pistorius family, through <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1361901847556_3">Arnold Pistorius</span>, uncle of the runner, has said it is confident that the evidence will prove that Steenkamp's death in the predawn hours of Feb. 14 was "a terrible and tragic accident."</p><br /><p>In an affidavit to the magistrate who last Friday freed him on bail, Pistorius said he believed an intruder or intruders had gotten into his US$560,000 (€430,000) two-story house, in a guarded and gated community with walls topped by electrified fencing east of the capital, Pretoria, and were inside the toilet cubicle in his bathroom. Believing he and Steenkamp "would be in grave danger" if they came out, "I fired shots at the toilet door" with the pistol that he slept with under his bed, he testified.</p><br /><p>Criminal law experts said that even if the prosecution fails to prove premeditated murder, firing several shots through a closed door could bring a conviction for the lesser but still serious charge of culpable homicide, a South African equivalent of manslaughter covering unintentional deaths through negligence.</p><br /><p>Johannesburg attorney Martin Hood, who specializes in firearm law, said South African legislation allows gun owners to use lethal force only if they believe they are facing an immediate, serious and direct attack or threat of attack that could either be deadly or cause grievous injury.</p><br /><p>According to Pistorius' own sworn statement read in court, he "did not meet those criteria," said Hood, who is also the spokesman for the South African Gun Owners' Association.</p><br /><p>"If he fired through a closed door, there was no threat to him. It's as simple as that," he added. "He can't prove an attack on his life ... In my opinion, at the very least, he is guilty of culpable homicide."</p><br /><p>The Associated Press emailed a request for comment to Vuma, a South African reputation management firm hired by the Pistorius family to handle media questions about the shooting.</p><br /><p>The firm replied: "Due to the legal sensitivities around the matter, we cannot at this stage answer any of your questions as it might have legal implications for a case that still has to be tried in a court of law." Vuma said on Monday it referred the AP's questions to Pistorius' legal team, which by Tuesday had not replied.</p><br /><p>Culpable homicide covers unintentional deaths ranging from accidents with no negligence, like a motorist whose brakes fail, killing another road user, "to where it verges on murder or where it almost becomes intentional," said Hood. Sentences — ranging from fines to prison — are left to courts to determine and are not set by fixed guidelines.</p><br /><p>The tough standards for legally acquiring a gun were instituted in part because of a wave of weapons purchases after the end of racist white rule in 1994, said Rick De Caris, a former legal director in the South African police. Under South Africa's white-minority apartheid regime, gun owners often learned how to handle firearms during military service. Many of the new gun owners had little or no firearms training, which brought tragic results, De Caris said.</p><br /><p>"People were literally shooting themselves when cleaning a firearm," said De Caris, who helped draft the Firearms Control Act of 2000.</p><br /><p>Prospective gun owners must now take written exams that include questions on the law, have to show they can safely handle and shoot a gun and are required to hit a target the size of a glossy magazine in 10 of 10 shots from seven meters (23 feet), said Pretorius of the Professional Firearm Trainers Council.</p><br /><p>In his affidavit, Pistorius said he wasn't wearing his prosthetic limbs "and felt extremely vulnerable" after hearing noise from the toilet.</p><br /><p>"I grabbed my 9 mm pistol from underneath my bed. On my way to the bathroom, I screamed words to the effect for him/them to get out of my house and for Reeva to phone the police. It was pitch-dark in the bedroom and I thought Reeva was in bed," he testified.</p><br /><p>Legal experts said they are puzzled why Pistorius apparently didn't first fire a warning shot to show the supposed intruder he was armed. Also unanswered is why, after he heard noise in his bathroom that includes the toilet cubicle, Pistorius still went toward the bathroom — toward the perceived danger — rather than retreat back into his bedroom.</p><br /><p>"He should have tried to get out of the situation," said Hood, the attorney.</p><br />News Satu Untuk Semuahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12431820897146969246noreply@blogger.com