If college looks like a pie in the sky due to all the responsibilities and shortage of finances, think about continuing the education online. Today, universities and colleges provide a multitude of college courses and degree programs online. Community colleges provide certificates as well as technical training for a career. Whether you want a 4-year college degree, PH.D, a master’s degree, or training certificate, the desicion to continue your education on the Web is easy and manageable. Also, online education brings job training and college courses into your home. Just imagine sitting at the PC with a cup of tea, in pajamas, on a weekend morning studying towards a certificate or degree.

Online education makes it possible and a lot of students are benefiting from the freedom that online learning brings. Besides, online education signifies never commuting to and from college, worrying about being overdue for class, staying too late to meet with your teacher in order to discuss issues as well as leaving work early to make it for class. Moreover, there is no necessity to shell out an income to complete college or attempt to find a position to fit around the school schedule. Online learning brings freedom as well as scheduling flexibility. Finding accessible online programs and classes is easy with a fast internet search. Actually, there are many online education directories putting all the required info you wish at your fingertips. Also, you can find whether a college offers your chosen area of study, the degree that you need plus any extra certifications.

Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – The number of jobless Americans filing first time claims for unemployment compensation benefits fell by 6,000 to 388,000 for the week ending March 26, the Labor Department said Thursday.

While the weekly number fell, the four-week moving average rose slightly by 3,250 claimants to 394,250, from the previous week’s revised average of 391,000. The jobless rate bounces around slightly from week-to-week, but it has generally been trending downward since the beginning of the year.

The percentage of unemployed Americans covered by unemployment compensation insurance remained stable at 3 percent for the week ending March 19, unchanged from the previous week.

The number of people filing ongoing claims for jobless benefits dropped by a modest 51,000 claims to 3,714,000 during the week ending March 19, the most recent week that data is available.

A total of 8,770,443 Americans claimed benefits in all jobless programs for the week ending March 12, the latest week for which such data is available.

In addition, extended benefits were available in 35 states and the District of Columbia for the week ending March 12. That number has remained stable since last year.

Those states were Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

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Madison, WI, United States (AHN) – A newly-released study finds that teenage fatherhood tends to stunt educational development.

Researchers studied 362 men younger than 18 years old beginning in 1994 and 1995. The study compared young men whose partners were pregnant and suffered a miscarriage and those whose partners gave birth.

The researchers said that only 64 percent of all study participants received a high school diploma and 16 percent received a GED. But fatherhood reduced the chances of graduating high school by 15 percentage points and increased the chances of receiving a GED by 11 percentage points.

Teenage fatherhood also increased the likelihood of early marriage and cohabitation. Out of the participants, 26 percent were married and 62 percent were living with their partners.

The researchers also said that the negative effects of teenage fatherhood may also limit the men’s children.

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London, Ontario, Canada (AHN) – Even identical twins do not have the same genes, according to a University of Western Ontario research. The basis of the conclusion is a research on the genetic sequencing of schizophrenia, which studied identical or monzygotic twins.

Identical twins develop from a single fertilized egg that split in two.

The study, headed by molecular geneticist Shiva Singh of the university’s Faculty of Science, compared one million markers of identical twins and their two parents, in which one twin had schizophrenia, which is often genetic.

Singh explained that often the risk of developing schizophrenia is much higher if someone else in the immediate family has the disease. Based on the belief the monzygotic twins have identical genes, the risk of one twin being afflicted with schizophrenia should be 100 percent if the other twin has the genes.

But Singh said studies indicate that the risk of the disease in both twins is only 50 percent. Singh pointed out 12 percent of DNA could vary across individuals. He said in a statement, “Cells are dividing as we develop and differentiate. More importantly, these cells may lose or acquire additional DNA. The genome is not static.”

Singh’s study was published in the March issue of the university’s PLoS ONE magazine.

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In Accounting Courses, we can study of all phases of accounting i.e. cost accounting, auditing, both corporate as well as individual taxation. Furthermore, these courses also include instruction about the usage of accounting information systems. If you are considering to build your career in this field, you must earn a professional degree in order to become an accountant.

On the Internet, there are so many Online Colleges and universities that offer innovative accounting courses. One of the most popular accounting courses in this field is bookkeeping. The course includes how to maintain various financial records, debiting and crediting of accounts and refreshing the company’s general ledger. This is a fundamental function that ensures the trial balance document balances along with the component debit and credit balance accounts.

Another most famous course is Financial Accounting that is a specialized branch of accounting. This course teaches how to maintain the financial transactions of a company. These transactions are further summarized and used as financial statements which are generally published on a set schedule. With these statements, the interested parties can evaluate the worth of a company. Except from these courses, online colleges also offer many accounting courses such as managerial accounting, cost accounting, payroll accounting, budgeting, CFA program and much more.

Classontheweb, an online classroom, has also introduced many accounting courses like understanding financial statements, management accounting, financial accounting, financial risk manager, chartered financial analyst and much more. These courses are very useful for everybody who wants to make his bright future in the area of accounting. This online education portal also provides International certification from Towson University which is one of the topmost public colleges and universities in the United States. Main benefit of these courses is that a student can access them from any part of all over the world.

About Author
Anupam Kapil is a webmaster of classontheweb.com which is an Online Learning solution that offers many career enhancement programs, professional certificate programs in collaboration with Towson University. Apart from this, it also provides Online Education content in the premium section.

Kathmandu, Nepal (AHN) – More than 82,000 former bonded laborers, called Haliya locally, are living in miserable conditions in mid- and far-western Nepal as successive governments have repeatedly failed to end labor exploitation and oppression the workers face, fueling anxieties about their future.

In a landmark decision, the former government led by the Maoist party in September 2008 outlawed the Haliya (slavery) tradition and liberated Haliyas, who are mostly Dalits, one of the lowest social classes in the country. The Maoists also decided to pay back the loans the laborers had borrowed from landlords and moneylenders. Under this century-old system, poor and economically vulnerable families are forced to plow farmlands owned by landlords and the rich until they repay the debt.

“Their (Haliyas) condition is worsening day by day after governments couldn’t rehabilitate them properly. They are yet to be rehabilitated in the society and are forced to live in a pitiable situation with basic human needs even being a far cry,” says Hari Shripali, a Maoist lawmaker who was involved in collecting data on Haliyas and a member of a sub-committee formed to study problems of Haliya under the Women, Children and Social Welfare Committee of the Parliament. Currently, he is visiting to western Nepal to assess the situation of freed Haliyas as he prepares a final report.

“They are facing social blockade and stigma without access to education and health facility and are deprived of income-generating opportunities,” he says, revealing the report in Dhangadi, a western city where a majority of freed Haliyas live.

Freed Haliyas face a tough struggle every day to secure a livelihood in the face of adverse social and economic circumstances. Some still continue to till land for peanuts. “The money that my landlord gives to me for tilling his land does not feed my family throughout the year,” says Gangaram Lohar, a freed Haliya living in the Bajura district. The likes of Lohar are many in the midwestern parts of Nepal. Despite their year-round efforts to feed themselves and their families by either tilling other people’s land or being daily-wagers, former Haliyas today are happy that they are no longer slaves following their emancipation. “Our lives have become easier,” says Lohar.

The government doesn’t have any official data on the exact number of freed Haliyas. However, Dalit organizations and activists do have estimates. Shripali, the legislator, says 20,048 households of freed Haliyas are living in the far-and mid-western regions with a total population over 82,000 in 12 districts. More than 97 percent of them are Dalits, according to Bhakta Bishowkarma, chairman of the Nepal National Dalit Social Welfare Organization, a local NGO fighting for the cause of minority people, including freed Haliyas. Dalit activists say the freed Haliyas have not received anything from the state. “Though they were freed, the government snubbed our call to provide them compensation on the basis of the data provided by us and non-governmental organizations,” says Bishowkarma.

While the government has decided to collect their own data, no report has been made public, even though two years have passed since the government’s decision. “The previous governments failed to come up with any data. Now since a new government is in place we are hopeful to see a report,” says Bishowkarma.

The day the Haliya system was outlawed, Haliyas forwarded an 11-point charter of demands to the government, demanding rights to education, health and employment, income-generation programs, peace and security, land for farming and other livelihood options. They also demanded cash for immediate relief. “But none of these demands were fulfilled,” says lawmaker Shripali.

False Promise

According to Shripali, the former government had formed a seven-member committee to resolve the Haliya issue and he was one of the members. “Besides fulfilling the 11-point demands, we had urged the government to immediately allocate Rs. 100,000 to each freed Haliya as compensation in a rehabilitation package. It is unfortunate that none of these demands have been met as of now,” he says. The former government and freed Haliya had clinched a five-point understanding in September 2008.

Despite the agreement, government officials slightly disagree with the modality prepared for the rehabilitation of freed Haliyas. “It took two years to collect the data and whether or not all of them are genuine is yet to be verified. We have received a data claiming that 20,048 families are genuine Haliyas. First, we will verify the decoded data and categorize them as genuine, highly deprived and less affected. And then we will classify them and provide identity cards,” says Laxman Kumar Hamal, member secretary of the Freed Kamaiya Rehabilitation Execution Committee under the Ministry of Land Reform.

The Nepal government has prepared a law regarding rehabilitation of freed Haliays, which is yet to be introduced in the Parliament. Every year the Land Reform Ministry receives a budget to redress the woes of freed Haliyas but a large chunk of the money returns to the Ministry of Finance at the end of each fiscal year.

Officials claim that due to the tough geographical terrain of western Nepal, unstable political conditions and bureaucratic hurdles, the population of freed Haliyas can’t be ascertained. “We do not have enough land to distribute to them if all the claimants turn out to be genuine Haliyas,” says Hamal.

Nepal has a bad history of dealing with bonded laborers. A similar announcement was made 10 years ago when the government declared some 30,000 Kamaiyas to be free. However, they are yet be properly rehabilitated.

Concerned over the problems faced by freed Haliyas, national and international agencies have warned the government to address the issue. In September, three international organizations—The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Nepal (OHCHR-Nepal), International Labor Organization (ILO) and National Dalit Commission (NDC)—issued a statement urging the government to implement the five-point agreement signed with the Haliya community.

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Los Angeles, CA, United States (AHN) – According to reports, just a few weeks after the Los Angeles Unified School District sent out thousands of pink slips for employees, incoming superintendent John Deasy has requested a personal pay decrease. The annual salary for the superintendent position is $330,000, but Deasy sent a letter to the district requesting he keep his current salary of $275,000, reports from the teachers union stated.

The district is dealing with budget shortfalls, and approved the layoffs of more than 5,000 teachers, and health and human services personnel.

The teachers union applauds Deasy’s decision.

Deasy, who was appointed to superintendent in January, will begin his new job on April 15.

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ISIOLO, Kenya (IRIN) – Media images of men in northern Kenya washing condoms for re-use have underscored the need to improve HIV communication and close gaps in the supply of condoms in rural areas.

Local TV channels recently showed images of men in Isiolo, in rural northern Kenya, washing condoms and hanging them out to dry; the men said the price of condoms meant they could not afford to use them just once. Other men in the village said when they had no access to condoms, they used polythene bags and even cloth rags when having sex.

Male condoms are intended for single use; washing and re-using them weakens the latex, increasing the chances of breakage and in turn, the risk of unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, including HIV. Washing condoms in dirty water may also carry additional disease risk.

Condoms are free at government health centres, but in rural Kenya these are few and far between and supplies unreliable.

“Many rural areas in the country are inaccessible due to the poor road network and this makes distribution of condoms difficult and challenging,” said Peter Cherutich, head of prevention of the National AIDS and Sexually transmitted infections Control Programme, NASCOP. “Because government condoms are mostly made available at health facilities and there are not many in rural areas, this creates another challenge in distribution.”

Cherutich said condom re-use showed that the government had to be more creative in raising awareness about their proper use.

Hosea Motoro, 37, knows he risks infecting his wife of seven years with HIV if he does not use a condom. “I know I am positive but I don’t want to give my wife HIV and I know if I use a condom, she is safe. We also don’t want any children because we already have five and that is enough for us,” he said.

Motoro usually walks the 5km to his nearest health centre for condoms, but on occasion finds them out of stock.

“When you go and you are lucky to get [condoms], you use, then you wash and use another time,” he added. “But the washed one is very difficult to put on and I don’t know if it protects like the new one.”

His wife Josephine says sex with a used condom is unpleasant, but believes it is better than no condom at all. “It feels rough but what do you do when you know he is positive – you don’t want to get HIV and you also have to give him sex,” she said.

Condom shortage

The Ministry of Health recently said the country faced an acute, nationwide shortage of condoms; it has appealed to the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, PEPFAR, to supply 45 million condoms.

According to Shahnaaz Sharif, director of public health at the Ministry of Health, the ongoing condom shortage can be blamed partly on procurement bottlenecks.

“We seriously need to improve the procurement of health commodities such as condoms to reduce cases of shortages that put people’s lives at risk,” he said. “We have started to strengthen procurement systems and put in place commodity projection plans to stem unnecessary shortages.”

Julia Naselenko, coordinator of the Pastoralist Communities Network, a community-based organization in Isiolo, says the recycling of condoms shows how desperate people are to have safer sex. She said the government needed to be innovative in getting condoms to the most remote villages.

“Buying vehicles might not help because there are [areas] that even vehicles cannot access,” she said. “I wish they could use bicycles to distribute condoms, and then there are respected community leaders whose homes could be used as points of distribution and access.”

Demand for condoms has more than doubled over the past seven years from eight million to 20 million per month, the Ministry of Health reports. However, estimates from the Kenya Modes of Transmission Analysis 2008 show that in 2006 and 2007, about seven million condoms were distributed monthly, reaching 10 million or more in only six of the 24 months.

Under the Kenya National AIDS Strategic Plan 2009-2013, the government aims to reach a distribution target of 28 million condoms per month by 2013.

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This online learning is a type of distance learning which uses the virtual learning environment and here the online tutors often determine the tone of their teaching. Since the beginning of the concept of online tutoring, the researchers had discovered that there is an important role of the tutors to play in this type of learning system which includes an educational, managerial, a social support and a development role apart from the technical support role.

A tutor in an Online Tutoring environment may be an academic, a professor or a lecturer having the responsibility of providing quality teaching to the students who are in a process of pursuing a degree or a diploma in universities or educational institutes. In the environment of distance learning, the online tutors are employed for providing their teaching and other types of study related support to the students while tutoring them online. In this type of environment, the tutors must have good communication skills apart from their expertise in the required subject. They must also be able to provide guidance to the online learners without having face-to-face interaction.

Online tutors are categorized in two types – first type belongs to the tactical tutors who respond to the queries by the students in a tactical manner and at the critical moments so that if something goes wrong the tutor has the skills to display sensitivity and recover during the interaction. The second types of online tutors are strategic tutors who plan in advance including the determination the tutee group size. The smaller the student size the greater the trust but the smaller size students offer less variety and the cultural mix which is also important in the area of online tutoring.

The online tutors need to know the different stages a student reaches while studying. Online Tutoring gives a great scope to the people wanting to share the knowledge and expertise they possess to a larger group of people and make a good earning in this process.

London, United Kingdom (AHN) – The largest protest in London since the beginning of the invasion of Iraq in 2003 turned violent Saturday when anarchists attacked what they considered symbols of capitalism, including shops and a luxury hotel.

Hundreds of thousands of mostly peaceful demonstrators converged on Hyde Park to protest major budget cuts that could result in about 300,000 public sector jobs lost by 2015. The protests were organized by the Trade Union Congress.

But while the demonstrators marched, hundreds of anarchists with their faces covered went on the offensive, smashing store windows, clashing with police and taking over the tony department store Fortnum and Mason near Piccadilly Circus.

The Daily Mirror reported that up to 300 people were in Trafalgar Square late into Saturday night. Some were throwing objects at the 2012 Olympic countdown clock.

Others defaced statues with spray paint. Police were attacked with objects including paint containers and light bulbs filled with ammonia. More than 80 people were injured during the riots, including about 31 police officers.

Other significant targets of the anarchists were the Ritz Carlton Hotel, which was attacked with paint and smoke bombs, and a Porsche showroom, according to several media reports.

The Trade Union Congress condemned the violence and said it hoped it did not detract from the legitimate protests of the day.

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