Atlantic International Partnership Headlines: Free financial advice to help break debt burden
Author: Atlantic International Partnership News, August 20, 2011, 4 Comments
http://www.wyndhamweekly.com.au/news/local/news/general/free-financial-advice-to-help-break-debt-burden/2239481.aspx
MORE households are struggling to pay their utility bills as power and water prices continue to soar.As reported in the Weekly last month, Wyndham City Salvation Army community support services manager Sue Brookshaw said a growing number of residents were being trapped in a debt spiral with little means of escape.
Werribee Support and Housing chief executive Carol Muir has previously stated rising cost of living pressures had forced more families to seek handouts.
To help those struggling to manage their budgets, a free financial counselling and legal advice will be offered to residents as part of a ‘Bring Your Bills Day’ on August 4.
Organised by the Wyndham Legal Service, Sunshine Mission and Footscray Community Legal Centre, the event will be held at Crossroads Uniting Church, corner Duncans Road and Synnot Street, Werribee from 11am to 3pm. Representatives from City West Water, Consumer Affairs Victoria, the Energy and Water Ombudsman Victoria, Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman and other bodies will provide assistance. No appointments are necessary.
Wyndham Legal Service community development lawyer Shorna Moore said the centre had dealt with many clients from refugee backgrounds in the Werribee area who had been pressured into switching their electricity or gas companies without realising by salespeople purporting to be from the the government.
“Another tactic used by the retailers is to tell people to show them their bills so that they can show them how to save money. The retailers then take the details from the accounts and transfer them. People are receiving bills they don’t understand.”
Altlantic International Partnership Headlines: Province sees dollars and ‘sense’ in partnerships with China
Author: Atlantic International Partnership News, August 10, 2011, 8 CommentsBy TARA CHISLETT
http://dailygleaner.canadaeast.com/front/article/1430315
Education Minister Jody Carr says appointing Dennis Cochrane as president of Atlantic Education International for the next two years will help the company grow educational partnerships on the international stage.
Cochrane, a former educator, provincial Progressive Conservative leader and interim president at St. Thomas University, has already started the part-time position that pays $30,000 annually.
“There’s a lot of growth potential for AEI, but growth needs to be done strategically and with a co-ordinated approach,” Carr said in an email.
“Dennis Cochrane’s experience, knowledge and proven track record make him well suited to oversee the execution of AEI’s mandate and the development of a business and expansion strategy for international education in New Brunswick.”
In addition to the N.B. International Student Program and a teaching abroad initiative, Atlantic Education International oversees operations at the Confucius Institute in New Brunswick and maintains partnerships with schools in China that use New Brunswick curriculum.
The first partnership was put in place in 1998 under the Liberal government. Since then, five schools have started teaching New Brunswick curriculum, including one that opened in July with a capacity for 3,000 students.
But while department officials say Cochrane’s appointment will be good for Atlantic Education International, one man said he wonders what selling educational services to countries such as China means for the integrity of the New Brunswick curriculum.
Charles Burton, a professor at Brock University in St. Catherines, Ont., has had two postings in China as a diplomat.
In the past, Burton has spoken about the curriculum compromises made at the New Brunswick Confucius Institute, a program that teaches New Brunswick students the Chinese language and culture, but under the terms of the Chinese Ministry of Education.
He’s never taught at a school that buys New Brunswick curriculum, but Burton said the unified nature of Chinese education would mean even though Chinese students walk away with a New Brunswick diploma, that doesn’t mean they’re educated the same way as New Brunswick students.
“Anyone who has gone through the schools you’re talking about has to have had the Chinese curriculum, and that includes a few things like the politics and that interpretation of history that the Chinese government requires the children learn,” he said in an interview with The Daily Gleaner.
“There’s no question about it, it is a bit problematic that they’re not getting the same education as New Brunswick students get in New Brunswick because New Brunswick students in New Brunswick are not learning the things about how the Communist party saved China from Western colonialism and that kind of thing. And certainly free democracy is not going to be taught. The civics content is not going to be the same.
“There’s no way that they would allow that aspect of the curriculum to be dominant in the education of the Chinese children in China.”
Christina Windsor, communications director for the Department of Education, said students at the Concord colleges in China are required to take a number of courses in English, including social studies, as part of their New Brunswick diploma requirements.
But speaking on behalf of Atlantic Education International, Windsor said the goal of the courses is to focus on meeting New Brunswick curriculum outcomes – that means the student’s ability to learn what the course is designed to teach.
“Course content is a vehicle for reaching the curriculum outcomes, therefore many of the materials used can be adapted to suit the interests and needs of the students,” she said.
Windsor said in addition to receiving positive feedback from teachers and students who have participated in the China experience, the provincial government also made $3 million in revenue last year.
Upon returning from a trip to China in July, Carr said $3 million isn’t a lot of money but it’s some.
Carr said he expects to see more revenue from the partnership as a result of his visit, where he officially opened the fifth school and attended meetings about potential future partnerships.
“But (South Korea is) interested in having us partner with them in teacher training. Teacher training and culture experience. So they would like to send some of their teachers in South Korea to our schools here in New Brunswick.”
Carr said he also met with representatives from Cambodia who are interested in buying N.B. curriculum.
But while Burton sees benefits to the partnership, he questions leaving out the less favourable elements of Chinese history but still giving students a New Brunswick diploma.
“It does give students a New Brunswick diploma who are not getting the same education as in New Brunswick,” he said.
Atlantic International Partnership Headlines: Tea Party Showdown
Author: Atlantic International Partnership News, August 5, 2011, 10 Commentshttp://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/07/31/reid-support-emerging-compromise-but-will-tea-party.html
Harry Reid said he would support the emerging compromise, but will it get liberals’ and the Tea Party’s support? Jill Lawrence reports on the deal’s detractors.
After months of congressional bickering and gridlock that brought America to the brink of default, signs of a breakthrough emerged late Sunday when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid endorsed a bipartisan plan to cut up to $3 trillion in federal spending over the next decade and raise the debt limit so the country can pay its bills through 2012.
“Senator Reid has signed off on the debt-ceiling agreement pending caucus approval,” Reid spokesman Adam Jentleson said in an email Sunday evening, as Asian markets were due to open.
There were no details of the agreement, and Republican aides on Capitol Hill said it was still being worked out. But the aides said it was possible that House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell could sign off on something by night’s end, adding to the sense of momentum as a Tuesday deadline loomed.
The national debt was closing in on $14.6 trillion on Sunday night. The Obama administration has said America will run out of money to pay its obligations on Tuesday.
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said she would meet with her members Monday to discuss the compromise plan. “We all may not be able to support it, or none of us may be able to support it,” she said.
First reaction from liberals was negative. This deal trades people’s livelihoods for the votes of a few unappeasable right-wing radicals, and I will not support it,” said Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona, chairman of the House Progressive Caucus.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who caucuses with Democrats, didn’t even support a more Democratic-friendly Reid debt proposal that the Senate rejected in a rare Sunday vote. Sanders said that the Reid plan, due to pressure from Republicans, did not ask “the rich and large corporations” to contribute a cent to deficit reduction in the form of more taxes.
“I cannot support legislation like the Reid proposal which balances the budget on the backs of struggling Americans while not requiring one penny of sacrifice from the wealthiest people in our country,” Sanders said.
The emerging compromise plan would cut spending and raise the debt limit in two phases. A second stage of debt reduction would hinge on a special bipartisan committee of senators and House members that could consider both spending cuts and additional tax revenues.
Another key element: it would ensure the debt limit is high enough to get the country past the 2012 election without another high-stakes showdown and the threat of default. That’s been a top priority for President Barack Obama and is viewed by some financial analysts as the only way to prevent a downgrade of the United States’ AAA credit rating.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid speaks with reporters about the conflicting plans to deal with the debt crisis, J. Scott Applewhite / AP Photo“I’m very close to being able to recommend to my members that we have an agreement here that I hope they will consider supporting,” McConnell said Sunday morning on CNN’s State of the Union. McConnell, who emerged as a key player in 11th-hour negotiations, said he can “pretty confidently” say that “we’ll avoid default.”
Vice President Joe Biden has been the main emissary in the talks, according to a Democratic aide on Capitol Hill. Other participants were Reid, McConnell, Boehner, and Pelosi. The proposal was being “shopped around” to members Sunday, the aide said, even as some issues remained unresolved. The big questions that remained were how many Democrats would stick with their president and party, and whether there would be enough of them to offset potential no votes by Tea Party–aligned lawmakers and fiscal conservatives inside the GOP. They forced the debate to the brink of a deadline by demanding concessions and may not be satisfied with the latest terms.
One fiscal conservative, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., remained uncommitted as the first details emerged. Graham told ABC’s This Week the new deal was a partial victory for Republicans by paying future debt increases with spending cuts but added, “from a big picture, I’m not ready to vote for this.”
The plan under discussion would boost the debt limit now and then again in six months. Congress could try to block the second increase, but Obama could veto a “resolution of disapproval” that crosses his desk.
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