31% of Qatar’s residents skip breakfast: study
Some 31% of Qatar residents do not consider breakfast as an important meal of the day, a new study has found.
An independent study on the health and fitness trends conducted by Zarca Interactive, a leading provider of online survey solutions, across 300 respondents has identified interesting health and fitness trends amongst the residents of Qatar.
The findings of the maiden survey for Qatar revealed that 31% respondents do not consider breakfast as an important meal of the day of which cent percent respondents quoted lack of time as the only reason for not consuming breakfast.
Zarca Interactive’s health and fitness study for Qatar vindicates the World Health Organisation reports highlighted during the meeting at the WHO Eastern Mediterranean region in Egypt which alerted that the increasing use of television and computers was leading to sedentary lifestyles.
As per the study, 70% of the respondents from Qatar resorted to television and Internet to relieve their stress instead of indulging in any physical activity. Further complementing the trend for lack of movement is the increased intake of fried foods by the residents of Qatar. The study reveals that 61% respondents from Qatar consume fried foods at least twice a week.
According to the survey, which comprised of over 76% males, a combination of toast and coffee is the preferred breakfast option for 68% of the respondents, closely followed by cereals and eggs. The water intake levels witnessed a healthy trend with over 60% respondents confirming an intake of at least 1.5 liters of water everyday.
The intake of multivitamins as a regular diet met with skepticism, with over 35% respondents considering them expensive and a waste of money. Some 10% respondents, however, continued with their multivitamin doses as prescribed by the doctor. While the intake percentage of multivitamins might be low, more than 86% respondents were found to be highly aware about verifying the manufacturing and expiry dates for various products.
An indication towards an increase in the sleeping disorder cases in Qatar is one of the key highlights of the Zarca health and fitness survey.
The study reveals that sleeping disorders are on a rise amongst Qatar residents, with only 32% respondents confirming that they were able to manage an eight hour sleep on a daily basis, with over 16% admitting that they could never manage a comfortable sleep.
Following a similar trend, the survey revealed that 57% of respondents from Qatar did not know how to calculate their body mass index (BMI), which leads to the discovery of the fact that 72% of the respondents found themselves slightly overweight or obese.
The first survey implemented by Zarca Interactive in Qatar witnessed the participation of 300 respondents. The respondent base for the health and fitness survey primarily comprised of Qatar nationals, followed closely by Asian and Arab expatriates.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
NEW STADIUMS IN QATAR
QATAR’S PROPOSED 2022 STADIUMS
AL-GHARAFA STADIUM
• Al-Gharafa is an existing
stadium in a suburb of Doha that will be expanded for the FIFA World Cup.
• The façade will be made up of the colours of the teams playing in the 2022 FIFA World Cup, representing the values of the global football community.
• During the FIFA World Cup™ the stadium will hold 44,740 fans. The existing lower tier has 21,175 seats while a modular upper tier will have 23,565 seats. Roofing elements will be added so that all seats are covered.
• Fans will be able to arrive by train and car.
Al-KHOR STADIUM
• Al-Khor is a brand new stadium that will be built in the city of Al-Khor, 50 kilometres north of Doha.
• The stadium takes its design cues from the seashell.
• During the FIFA World Cup the stadium will hold 45,330 fans. A permanent lower tier will have 25,500 seats while a modular upper tier will have 19,830 seats.
• All seats will be covered, and some will have stunning views of the Arabian Sea.
• Fans will be able to arrive by water taxi, train and car.
AL-RAYYAN STADIUM
• Al-Rayyan is an existing stadium in a Doha suburb that will be expanded for the FIFA World Cup.
• The stadium includes a “media façade” with the capacity to project other football matches, news and advertisements onto the outside of the stadium.
• During the FIFA World Cup the stadium will hold 44,740 fans. The existing lower tier has 21,282 seats while a modular upper tier will have 23,458 seats. Roofing elements will be added so that all seats are covered.
• Fans will be able to arrive by train and car.
AL-SHAMAL STADIUM
• Al-Shamal is a brand new stadium that will be built in western Qatar.
• The stadium takes its design cues from the dhow, the traditional fishing vessel in the Arabian Gulf.
• During the FIFA World Cup the stadium will hold 45,330 fans. A permanent lower tier will have 25,500 seats while a modular upper tier will have 19,830 seats.
• Fans will be able to arrive by water taxi, train and car. It will be easily accessible from the Qatar-Bahrain Friendship Bridge, and we expect that at least 10% of fans will arrive from Bahrain.
AL-WAKRAH STADIUM
• Al-Wakrah is a brand new
stadium that will be built in
Al-Wakrah, a city 20 kilometres south of Doha.
• The stadium and surrounding sports complex are designed to represent an oasis.
The sporting complex will include an aquatic centre and other sporting facilities, along with a spa and retail space.
• During the FIFA World Cup the stadium will hold 45,120 fans. A permanent lower tier will have 25,500 seats while a modular upper tier will have 19,620 seats.
• Fans will be able to arrive by train or by using the new Doha Expressway
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Imams are asked to keep the ritual short on Eid
DOHA: The Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs has asked all imams who will be leading Eid prayers at mosques and prayer grounds across the country to keep the rituals short in view of the hot weather.
The imams have been asked to perform all the rituals, including the sermon that follows the prayers, within 15 minutes. The Mosques Committee at the ministry has already sent messages to all imams in this regard.
Apart from the imams who lead the Friday prayers in mosques, a number of prominent Islamic scholars have been assigned to lead the special morning prayers on the first day of Eid Al Fitr.
After many years Ramadan and Eid have fallen during the summer months, forcing the ministry to limit the duration of the prayers, arguably for the first time in the country. The high temperatures and humidity prevailing since June are expected to continue until mid-September.
A senior official of the Mosques Committee told Al Sharq that the decision was taken in the interest of the worshippers, who will be gathering in large numbers for the Eid prayers.
The Eid prayers would be held at around 5.30am, about one and half hours after the Fajr (dawn) prayers. The weather is expected to be hot by that time, particularly in the prayer grounds.
Normally, the entire proceedings take 20 to 30 minutes depending on how long the sermon is. However, the imams leading the prayers have been asked to keep their speech short and finish the prayers in 15 minutes.
The ministry has made arrangements at 214 mosques and prayer grounds across the country for offering of the Eid prayers. Of these, 24 venues will have special facilities for women.
Eid Al Fitr will fall on the coming Thursday or Friday, marking the culmination of the holy month of Ramadan. If the crescent moon is sighted on Wednesday, Eid will fall on Thursday, otherwise on Friday, after a full 30 days of the fasting month.
The Minister of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs, H E Dr Gheith bin Mubarak Al Kuwari, has urged all Muslims to look for the crescent moon on Wednesday. Anyone who sights the moon has been advised to report to the Moon Sighting Committee at the ministry and give testimony before the panel at its office in the Al Sadd area
The imams have been asked to perform all the rituals, including the sermon that follows the prayers, within 15 minutes. The Mosques Committee at the ministry has already sent messages to all imams in this regard.
Apart from the imams who lead the Friday prayers in mosques, a number of prominent Islamic scholars have been assigned to lead the special morning prayers on the first day of Eid Al Fitr.
After many years Ramadan and Eid have fallen during the summer months, forcing the ministry to limit the duration of the prayers, arguably for the first time in the country. The high temperatures and humidity prevailing since June are expected to continue until mid-September.
A senior official of the Mosques Committee told Al Sharq that the decision was taken in the interest of the worshippers, who will be gathering in large numbers for the Eid prayers.
The Eid prayers would be held at around 5.30am, about one and half hours after the Fajr (dawn) prayers. The weather is expected to be hot by that time, particularly in the prayer grounds.
Normally, the entire proceedings take 20 to 30 minutes depending on how long the sermon is. However, the imams leading the prayers have been asked to keep their speech short and finish the prayers in 15 minutes.
The ministry has made arrangements at 214 mosques and prayer grounds across the country for offering of the Eid prayers. Of these, 24 venues will have special facilities for women.
Eid Al Fitr will fall on the coming Thursday or Friday, marking the culmination of the holy month of Ramadan. If the crescent moon is sighted on Wednesday, Eid will fall on Thursday, otherwise on Friday, after a full 30 days of the fasting month.
The Minister of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs, H E Dr Gheith bin Mubarak Al Kuwari, has urged all Muslims to look for the crescent moon on Wednesday. Anyone who sights the moon has been advised to report to the Moon Sighting Committee at the ministry and give testimony before the panel at its office in the Al Sadd area
Monday, April 19, 2010
Want high GPA
Over the last 50 years, college grade-point averages have risen about 0.1 points per decade, with private schools fueling the most grade inflation, a recent study finds.
More from NYTimes.com:
• Apple Delays Global Release of iPad
• Google Takes Printing to the Cloud
• Q.&A.: Removing a Bad Add-On in Firefox
The study, by Stuart Rojstaczer and Christopher Healy, uses historical data from 80 four-year colleges and universities. It finds that G.P.A.'s have risen from a national average of 2.52 in the 1950s to about 3.11 by the middle of the last decade.
For the first half of the 20th century, grading at private schools and public schools rose more or less in tandem. But starting in the 1950s, grading at public and private schools began to diverge. Students at private schools started receiving significantly higher grades than those received by their equally-qualified peers -- based on SAT scores and other measures -- at public schools.
In other words, both categories of schools inflated their grades, but private schools inflated their grades more.
Based on contemporary grading data the authors collected from 160 schools, the average G.P.A. at private colleges and universities today is 3.3. At public schools, it is 3.0.
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The authors suggest that these laxer grading standards may help explain why private school students are over-represented in top medical, business and law schools and certain Ph.D. programs: Admissions officers are fooled by private school students' especially inflated grades.
Additionally, the study found, science departments today grade on average 0.4 points lower than humanities departments, and 0.2 points lower than social science departments. Such harsher grading for the sciences appears to have existed for at least 40 years, and perhaps much longer.
Relatively lower grades in the sciences discourage American students from studying such disciplines, the authors argue.
"Partly because of our current ad hoc grading system, it is not surprising that
the U.S. has to rely heavily upon foreign-born graduate students for technical fields of research and upon foreign-born employees in its technology firms," they write.
These overall trends, if not the specific numbers, are no surprise to anyone who has followed the debates about grade inflation. But so long as schools believe that granting higher grades advantages their alumni, there will be little or no incentive to impose stricter grading standards unilaterally.
More from NYTimes.com:
• Apple Delays Global Release of iPad
• Google Takes Printing to the Cloud
• Q.&A.: Removing a Bad Add-On in Firefox
The study, by Stuart Rojstaczer and Christopher Healy, uses historical data from 80 four-year colleges and universities. It finds that G.P.A.'s have risen from a national average of 2.52 in the 1950s to about 3.11 by the middle of the last decade.
For the first half of the 20th century, grading at private schools and public schools rose more or less in tandem. But starting in the 1950s, grading at public and private schools began to diverge. Students at private schools started receiving significantly higher grades than those received by their equally-qualified peers -- based on SAT scores and other measures -- at public schools.
In other words, both categories of schools inflated their grades, but private schools inflated their grades more.
Based on contemporary grading data the authors collected from 160 schools, the average G.P.A. at private colleges and universities today is 3.3. At public schools, it is 3.0.
Popular Stories on Yahoo!:
• Businesses Built on Fear
• Poll: Nearly 80% Distrust U.S. Government
• 8 Ways to Supersize Your Salary
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
More from Yahoo! Finance
The authors suggest that these laxer grading standards may help explain why private school students are over-represented in top medical, business and law schools and certain Ph.D. programs: Admissions officers are fooled by private school students' especially inflated grades.
Additionally, the study found, science departments today grade on average 0.4 points lower than humanities departments, and 0.2 points lower than social science departments. Such harsher grading for the sciences appears to have existed for at least 40 years, and perhaps much longer.
Relatively lower grades in the sciences discourage American students from studying such disciplines, the authors argue.
"Partly because of our current ad hoc grading system, it is not surprising that
the U.S. has to rely heavily upon foreign-born graduate students for technical fields of research and upon foreign-born employees in its technology firms," they write.
These overall trends, if not the specific numbers, are no surprise to anyone who has followed the debates about grade inflation. But so long as schools believe that granting higher grades advantages their alumni, there will be little or no incentive to impose stricter grading standards unilaterally.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Good sleep
There’s a lot of advice out there about getting good sleep; here are tips that work for me:
Good habits for good sleep:
1. Exercise most days, even if it’s just to take a walk.
2. No caffeine after 7:00 p.m.
3. An hour before bedtime, avoid doing any kind of work that takes alert thinking. Addressing envelopes—okay. Analyzing an article—nope.
4. Adjust your bedroom temperature to be slightly chilly.
5. Keep your bedroom dark. Studies show that even the tiny light from a digital alarm clock can disrupt a sleep cycle. We have about six devices in our room that glow bright green; it’s like sleeping in a mad scientist’s lab. The Big Man's new pet, a Roomba (yes, he loves his robot vacuum), gives out so much light that I have to cover it with a pillow before bed.
6. Keep the bedroom as tidy as possible. It’s not restful to fight through chaos into bed.
If sleep won’t come:
1. Breathe deeply and slowly until you can’t stand it anymore.
2. If your mind is racing (you’re planning a trip, a move, Christmas shopping; you’re worried about a medical diagnosis), write down what’s on your mind. This technique really works for me.
3. Slather yourself with body lotion. It feels good and also, if you’re having trouble sleeping because you’re hot, it cools you down.
4. If your feet are cold, put on socks.
5. Stretch your whole body.
6. Have a warm drink. Some people claim that warm milk contains melatonin and trytophan and so helps induce sleep, but in fact, a glass of milk doesn’t contain enough to have any effect. But it’s still a soothing drink. My nighttime favorite: 1/3 mug of milk, add boiling water, one packet of Equal, and a dash of vanilla. A real nursery treat.
7. Yawn.
8. Stretch your toes up and down several times.
9. Tell yourself, “I have to get up now.” Imagine that you just hit the snooze alarm and in a minute, you’re going to be marching through the morning routine. Often this is an exhausting enough prospect to make me fall asleep.
Re-frame:
Re-frame your sleeplessness as a welcome opportunity to snatch some extra time out of your day. I get up and tackle mundane chores, like paying bills, organizing books, or tidying up. Then I start the day with a wonderful feeling of having accomplished something even before 6:45 am.
Good habits for good sleep:
1. Exercise most days, even if it’s just to take a walk.
2. No caffeine after 7:00 p.m.
3. An hour before bedtime, avoid doing any kind of work that takes alert thinking. Addressing envelopes—okay. Analyzing an article—nope.
4. Adjust your bedroom temperature to be slightly chilly.
5. Keep your bedroom dark. Studies show that even the tiny light from a digital alarm clock can disrupt a sleep cycle. We have about six devices in our room that glow bright green; it’s like sleeping in a mad scientist’s lab. The Big Man's new pet, a Roomba (yes, he loves his robot vacuum), gives out so much light that I have to cover it with a pillow before bed.
6. Keep the bedroom as tidy as possible. It’s not restful to fight through chaos into bed.
If sleep won’t come:
1. Breathe deeply and slowly until you can’t stand it anymore.
2. If your mind is racing (you’re planning a trip, a move, Christmas shopping; you’re worried about a medical diagnosis), write down what’s on your mind. This technique really works for me.
3. Slather yourself with body lotion. It feels good and also, if you’re having trouble sleeping because you’re hot, it cools you down.
4. If your feet are cold, put on socks.
5. Stretch your whole body.
6. Have a warm drink. Some people claim that warm milk contains melatonin and trytophan and so helps induce sleep, but in fact, a glass of milk doesn’t contain enough to have any effect. But it’s still a soothing drink. My nighttime favorite: 1/3 mug of milk, add boiling water, one packet of Equal, and a dash of vanilla. A real nursery treat.
7. Yawn.
8. Stretch your toes up and down several times.
9. Tell yourself, “I have to get up now.” Imagine that you just hit the snooze alarm and in a minute, you’re going to be marching through the morning routine. Often this is an exhausting enough prospect to make me fall asleep.
Re-frame:
Re-frame your sleeplessness as a welcome opportunity to snatch some extra time out of your day. I get up and tackle mundane chores, like paying bills, organizing books, or tidying up. Then I start the day with a wonderful feeling of having accomplished something even before 6:45 am.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Islamic financing
The Qatar Faculty of Islamic Studies (QFIS), a member of Qatar Foundation (QF), is launching the second series of its executive training courses for 2009-10.
The five-day course on ‘Fundamentals of Islamic Banking and Finance Course’ is organised in association with the Qatar Finance and Business Academy, a specialised educational institution jointly instituted by QF and the Qatar Financial Centre.
A maximum of 20-24 candidates will be permitted and at the end of training, they will be offered international accreditation.
The course, which will start on March 28 and concludes on April 1, will focus on the principles of Islamic finance, foundations of Islamic securitisation, Islamic funds and their potentials. It is presented by Monzer Kahf, a professor of Islamic Finance at the QFIS.
Kahf holds a doctorate in economics from the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, US and has authored 28 books and more than 83 articles on Awqaf, Zakat, Islamic Finance and banking and other areas of Islamic economics.
Seats will be reserved on a first registered basis and fee should be paid in advance.
The five-day course on ‘Fundamentals of Islamic Banking and Finance Course’ is organised in association with the Qatar Finance and Business Academy, a specialised educational institution jointly instituted by QF and the Qatar Financial Centre.
A maximum of 20-24 candidates will be permitted and at the end of training, they will be offered international accreditation.
The course, which will start on March 28 and concludes on April 1, will focus on the principles of Islamic finance, foundations of Islamic securitisation, Islamic funds and their potentials. It is presented by Monzer Kahf, a professor of Islamic Finance at the QFIS.
Kahf holds a doctorate in economics from the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, US and has authored 28 books and more than 83 articles on Awqaf, Zakat, Islamic Finance and banking and other areas of Islamic economics.
Seats will be reserved on a first registered basis and fee should be paid in advance.
ROTA conference
Qatar-based charity Reach Out To Asia (Rota) will hold its annual youth conference promoting leadership, service learning and global citizenship “Empower 2010” from April 1-3 at the La Cigale hotel, it was announced yesterday.
The conference, which is being held for the second consecutive year by Rota, is open to young people aged 14-24 years, teachers, lecturers, educators and student affairs officers and they can register online via Rota’s website www.reachouttoasia.org.
“Empower 2010 is spearheaded by Rota’s Qatar-based programme named ROTAQ and it is being held in line with our strategic objectives of promoting education and making it accessible to less fortunate in the society,” Rota’s community development manager Reem al-Daghma said at a press conference yesterday.
Around 250 participants and 15 observers are expected at the conference, which will focus on leadership training, debating skills and advocacy strategies.
The conference built on three themes will also feature keynote speeches, workshops, debates, and off-site projects.
The activities throughout the event will be conducted by Qatar University students belonging to the campus political society club while Qatar Today and Qatar Debate experts will moderate and judge respectively.
“The themes of this conference are personal leadership, service learning and global citizenship to create awareness of global issues among participants as well as empower them to develop not just their skills and knowledge but also the right mindset and attitudes to take on leadership roles,” learning and capacity building co-ordinator Vivien Looi explained.
She said the conference would further create an environment for youth to discover their voice and realise their potential to make a positive contribution in their communities and facilitate a forum for exchange of ideas, projects and reflections that address local needs and global issues.
Also speaking, Rota’s Abdallah Diwan explained the activities of the off-site projects under each theme.
“There will be four off-site activities relating to healthy lifestyle, waste management, reading session and environmental activities all to be co-ordinated by students from different clubs in different schools across the country,” he said.
Other off-site projects to be showcased at the meet include music composition for change in society, advocacy challenge and blogging to empower, he added
The conference, which is being held for the second consecutive year by Rota, is open to young people aged 14-24 years, teachers, lecturers, educators and student affairs officers and they can register online via Rota’s website www.reachouttoasia.org.
“Empower 2010 is spearheaded by Rota’s Qatar-based programme named ROTAQ and it is being held in line with our strategic objectives of promoting education and making it accessible to less fortunate in the society,” Rota’s community development manager Reem al-Daghma said at a press conference yesterday.
Around 250 participants and 15 observers are expected at the conference, which will focus on leadership training, debating skills and advocacy strategies.
The conference built on three themes will also feature keynote speeches, workshops, debates, and off-site projects.
The activities throughout the event will be conducted by Qatar University students belonging to the campus political society club while Qatar Today and Qatar Debate experts will moderate and judge respectively.
“The themes of this conference are personal leadership, service learning and global citizenship to create awareness of global issues among participants as well as empower them to develop not just their skills and knowledge but also the right mindset and attitudes to take on leadership roles,” learning and capacity building co-ordinator Vivien Looi explained.
She said the conference would further create an environment for youth to discover their voice and realise their potential to make a positive contribution in their communities and facilitate a forum for exchange of ideas, projects and reflections that address local needs and global issues.
Also speaking, Rota’s Abdallah Diwan explained the activities of the off-site projects under each theme.
“There will be four off-site activities relating to healthy lifestyle, waste management, reading session and environmental activities all to be co-ordinated by students from different clubs in different schools across the country,” he said.
Other off-site projects to be showcased at the meet include music composition for change in society, advocacy challenge and blogging to empower, he added
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Job applicants continue to throng career fair
Job-seekers continued to throng the Qatar Career Fair 2010 being held at the Doha Exhibition Centre on the second day yesterday, as company officials manning the pavilions called for a more “streamlined process to eliminate unqualified candidates”.
RasGas business support manager Abdullah Mohamed al-Mahmoud told Gulf Times that the company was looking to recruit mainly locals for engineering and administrative jobs.
He said that most of the locals who had submitted CVs were high school and college graduates seeking jobs and scholarships.
“However, we are looking for people with higher qualifications”, he stated, adding: “They will be subject to training and development of their skills”.
Meanwhile, the RasGas human resources department has started to interview applicants, at their two-storey pavilion.
The official said that the company staff explain the work environment at RasGas and the different types of jobs available to visitors.
He said that 32% of the company’s workforce were Qataris, which was an accomplishment. “This is contradictory to the belief of many Qataris, who say that the chances of foreigners recruitment are higher.”
Al-Mahmoud observed that the company accepted CVs from non-Qataris only online.
Qatar Armed Forces’ human resources official Hassan Yusuf al-Mulla said that the forces pavilion had already received many applications, “most of them looking to enlist in the army”, he added.
He pointed out that the armed forces’ vacancies included post in the departments of administration, accounting, legal affairs, and engineering.
“We target Qatari nationals, however, foreigners with certain specialisations will be considered as well”, he stated.
General Retirement and Social Insurance Authority’s head of human resources and training Fatima al-Dosari said that 66 vacancies were available at the Authority.
She said that the Authority had accepted low skilled job-seekers, at the career fair last year.
“However, this year, we are accepting CVs from individuals with high qualifications”, she said.
Al-Dosari explained that many of the applicants were still in school.“I am telling such youths to finish school before trying to apply for jobs, and reject their CVs, but they are not very happy with it.”
The official observed that the Authority was granting scholarships only for those who wanted to study statistics here and abroad.
A spokesman for the Supreme Council of Information and Communication Technology (ictQATAR) said the council was seeking talented and motivated individuals “who can help it achieve its mission of connecting people to the technologies that can enrich their lives” at the career fair
RasGas business support manager Abdullah Mohamed al-Mahmoud told Gulf Times that the company was looking to recruit mainly locals for engineering and administrative jobs.
He said that most of the locals who had submitted CVs were high school and college graduates seeking jobs and scholarships.
“However, we are looking for people with higher qualifications”, he stated, adding: “They will be subject to training and development of their skills”.
Meanwhile, the RasGas human resources department has started to interview applicants, at their two-storey pavilion.
The official said that the company staff explain the work environment at RasGas and the different types of jobs available to visitors.
He said that 32% of the company’s workforce were Qataris, which was an accomplishment. “This is contradictory to the belief of many Qataris, who say that the chances of foreigners recruitment are higher.”
Al-Mahmoud observed that the company accepted CVs from non-Qataris only online.
Qatar Armed Forces’ human resources official Hassan Yusuf al-Mulla said that the forces pavilion had already received many applications, “most of them looking to enlist in the army”, he added.
He pointed out that the armed forces’ vacancies included post in the departments of administration, accounting, legal affairs, and engineering.
“We target Qatari nationals, however, foreigners with certain specialisations will be considered as well”, he stated.
General Retirement and Social Insurance Authority’s head of human resources and training Fatima al-Dosari said that 66 vacancies were available at the Authority.
She said that the Authority had accepted low skilled job-seekers, at the career fair last year.
“However, this year, we are accepting CVs from individuals with high qualifications”, she said.
Al-Dosari explained that many of the applicants were still in school.“I am telling such youths to finish school before trying to apply for jobs, and reject their CVs, but they are not very happy with it.”
The official observed that the Authority was granting scholarships only for those who wanted to study statistics here and abroad.
A spokesman for the Supreme Council of Information and Communication Technology (ictQATAR) said the council was seeking talented and motivated individuals “who can help it achieve its mission of connecting people to the technologies that can enrich their lives” at the career fair
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
IIA seminars
The level of IT security awareness is rising in the Qatar market and is promising a change in the way organisations will operate and protect their IT assets in the near future.
“Many organisations are now taking a more holistic view of security and focusing on the overall health of their information security programs,” Rubayat M Zahir, Doha senior manager (advisory services), Ernst & Young has stated.
He was giving a presentation at a seminar hosted by the Institute of Internal Auditors in Qatar, in association with Qatar University’s Scientific Accounting Association.
Elaborating on the findings of Ernst & Young’s Global Information Security Survey of 2009, the speaker observed that a lack of adequate budget and resources continues to be a significant challenge for many organisations.
In addition, the current environment is also producing a rise in both internal and external threats.
“The survey participants reveal a growing concern with reprisals from recently separated employees as well as noting an increase in external attacks on their company websites and networks,” Zahir said.
Regulatory compliance is also top of mind for information security leaders, and the survey confirms that it continues to be an important driver of information security improvements.
Several industries and countries are moving towards more regulation, primarily related to data protection and privacy. Correspondingly, companies are reporting an increase in the cost of compliance.
The survey also highlighted that there has been an unprecedented adoption and implementation of new technologies in the Qatari market. “However, this has not been always supplemented with a robust information security program which addresses data protection and privacy issues, protection from internal and external vulnerabilities and IT security threats, inappropriate access to IT assets and lastly, improvement of training and awareness,” the speaker said.
Earlier, seminar committee chairman Girish Jain opened the meeting and IIA Qatar Chapter president Assaad Kanaan gave the introduction. Vice-president Robert Abboud proposed a vote of thanks
Monday, March 1, 2010
Which college have the best paid
Have you ever wondered if Stanford grads really do make the big bucks, or if a "party school" degree can still land you a high-paying job?
Online salary database PayScale.com put together a 2009 College Salary Report that highlights which college graduates make the highest and lowest salaries right out of college and how that changes 10 years post-graduation.
While it may be no surprise that social work came in as the least well-paid major overall in PayScale's report, you may not know that Dartmouth's grads fare better financially 10 years after college than Harvard's.
Whether you went to a small, liberal arts college or graduated from an Ivy League school, take a look at the list below to see if your alma mater made a top 10 earners list.
School Name / Starting Median Salary / Mid-Career Median Salary
1. Dartmouth College: $58,200 / $129,000
2. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT): $71,100 / $126,000
3. Harvard University: $60,000 / $126,000
4. Harvey Mudd College: $71,000 / $125,000
5. Stanford University: $67,500 / $124,000
6. Princeton University: $65,000 / $124,000
7. Colgate University: $51,900 / $122,000
8. University of Notre Dame: $55,300 / $121,000
9. Yale University: $56,000 / $120,000
10. University of Pennsylvania: $60,400 / $118,000
Maybe you didn't get to attend one of these top schools, but there's another factor that may contribute to a higher paycheck: your major.
According to Al Lee, PayScale's director of quantitative analysis, "Even more than where you go to school, the degree you get is a bigger influencer of your pay for the vast majority of Americans." Lee says that an English major from Harvard may end up making six figures, but that person is an exception among English majors.
Which degrees bring home the most bacon? "Ones involving numbers," says Lee. Seven of the 10 highest-earning undergraduate degrees in the report are in engineering, with economics, physics, and computer science filling out the rest.
Undergraduate Degree / Starting Median Salary / Mid-Career Median Salary
1. Aerospace Engineering: $59,600 / $109,000
2. Chemical Engineering: $65,700 / $107,000
3. Computer Engineering: $61,700 / $105,000
4. Electrical Engineering: $60,200 / $102,000
5. Economics: $50,200 / $101,000
6. Physics: $51,100 / $98,800
7. Mechanical Engineering: $58,900 / $98,300
8. Computer Science: $56,400 / $97,400
9. Industrial Engineering: $57,100 / $95,000
10. Environmental Engineering: $53,400 / $94,500
What other interesting facts did PayScale discover?
Philosophy majors earn more 10 years after college than business administration and nursing majors.
Two of the 10 most popular jobs held by Harvard University grads are executive director of a nonprofit organization and high school teacher.
Loma Linda University graduates have the highest median starting salaries at $71,400 per year. That's over $6,000 more per year than a Princeton grad.
The top paid English majors are technical writers.
The top paid political science majors are intelligence analysts.
From night owl to early bird in 8 painless steps
There's nothing intrinsically wrong with being a night owl -- you're looking at one, after all -- but the trouble arises when you have to abide by the schedule of the rest of the world. You know, the one that gets up early for their morning commute and snatches that proverbial worm. Here are eight painless ways to join the early bird ranks.
Make a nighttime routine. Half the battle of getting up earlier is falling to sleep at a reasonable hour. Start a nighttime routine that gets your body ready to relax, and put your routine in motion at least 8 hours before your alarm is going to go off in the morning. Maybe this includes taking a warm bath, having a cup of chamomile tea, deep breathing, or getting under the sheets and reading or writing in your journal. Create a ritual that will really get you to slow down and welcome an early bed time with open arms.
Turn off the TV and the computer. Television and the internet are too stimulating for pre-bedtime behavior. Don't watch TV in bed and stop surfing the internet long before your nighttime routine.
Lay off the caffeine. Nineteen cups of coffee during the day may be what's making you a night owl. Switch to decaf at 4pm at the latest, preferably earlier.
Have a light supper. Those cheesy chicken enchiladas don't just make you feel sluggish right after dinner. A heavy meal right before bed can disturb your sleep and make it harder for you to wake up in the morning. Stick to lighter nighttime meals for awhile, like soups, vegetarian stews, and hearty dinner salads.
Open the curtains. "Here comes the sun, little darling," and what a way it is to wake up. Excuse the corniness, but there's something life-affirming about greeting the day with the sun streaming into your bedroom. And then there's the practical reason -- it's hard to sleep with the sun in your eyes.
Know your motivation. If you want to wake up earlier just because you feel like a loser when you sleep in, that's not exactly what psychologists would call a positive motivator. You need a reason to do something to be successful, not just a reason not to do something else. Do you want to get to work before your boss so she can see you looking productive as soon as she walks in? Do you want to have time to write in the morning before the kids get up? Think about what's motivating you to become an early bird in the first place and write down all the reasons. Keep them next to your alarm clock as a motivating reminder when you want to hit snooze.
Make morning appointments. Schedule early morning meetings, workout sessions at the gym with a friend, and teeth cleanings. Make your obligation to wake up earlier not just to yourself but to someone else. You'll hold yourself more accountable if you know your bestie is waiting for you on the elliptical machine.
Give yourself an incentive. If you're the type who responds to rewards for a job well done, this tip is especially important. It can be as simple as a cup of coffee at your favorite cafe or 15 minutes of blog reading before you hop in the shower, but once you've done the hard work of getting out of that big, cozy bed, give yourself a little reward.
Make a nighttime routine. Half the battle of getting up earlier is falling to sleep at a reasonable hour. Start a nighttime routine that gets your body ready to relax, and put your routine in motion at least 8 hours before your alarm is going to go off in the morning. Maybe this includes taking a warm bath, having a cup of chamomile tea, deep breathing, or getting under the sheets and reading or writing in your journal. Create a ritual that will really get you to slow down and welcome an early bed time with open arms.
Turn off the TV and the computer. Television and the internet are too stimulating for pre-bedtime behavior. Don't watch TV in bed and stop surfing the internet long before your nighttime routine.
Lay off the caffeine. Nineteen cups of coffee during the day may be what's making you a night owl. Switch to decaf at 4pm at the latest, preferably earlier.
Have a light supper. Those cheesy chicken enchiladas don't just make you feel sluggish right after dinner. A heavy meal right before bed can disturb your sleep and make it harder for you to wake up in the morning. Stick to lighter nighttime meals for awhile, like soups, vegetarian stews, and hearty dinner salads.
Open the curtains. "Here comes the sun, little darling," and what a way it is to wake up. Excuse the corniness, but there's something life-affirming about greeting the day with the sun streaming into your bedroom. And then there's the practical reason -- it's hard to sleep with the sun in your eyes.
Know your motivation. If you want to wake up earlier just because you feel like a loser when you sleep in, that's not exactly what psychologists would call a positive motivator. You need a reason to do something to be successful, not just a reason not to do something else. Do you want to get to work before your boss so she can see you looking productive as soon as she walks in? Do you want to have time to write in the morning before the kids get up? Think about what's motivating you to become an early bird in the first place and write down all the reasons. Keep them next to your alarm clock as a motivating reminder when you want to hit snooze.
Make morning appointments. Schedule early morning meetings, workout sessions at the gym with a friend, and teeth cleanings. Make your obligation to wake up earlier not just to yourself but to someone else. You'll hold yourself more accountable if you know your bestie is waiting for you on the elliptical machine.
Give yourself an incentive. If you're the type who responds to rewards for a job well done, this tip is especially important. It can be as simple as a cup of coffee at your favorite cafe or 15 minutes of blog reading before you hop in the shower, but once you've done the hard work of getting out of that big, cozy bed, give yourself a little reward.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
How to make 1 million dollar before graduating
How to Make $1 Million Before You Graduate
Helen Coster and Melanie Lindner
Saturday, February 20, 2010 Buzz up!47 votes
More from
In Pictures: How to Make $1 Million Before Graduation
at Forbes.com
Millionaire High School Dropouts
at Forbes.com
Meet Seven Grade School Entrepreneurs
at Forbes.com
This article is part of a series related to being Financially Fit
Valuable lessons from preternatural wealth builders.
American philosopher Eric Hoffer said, "If a society is to preserve stability and a degree of continuity, it must know how to keep its adolescents from imposing their tastes, attitudes, values and fantasies on everyday life." Too bad Hoffer never met Jamie Murray Wells.
In 2004 while studying for final exams at University of the West of England, Wells, then age 21, went shopping for a pair of prescription glasses. Nonplussed by the $150 pound ($300) price tag, Wells decided to funnel his $2,000 student loan into what would become Glasses Direct, a London-based online retailer that now generates $5 million in annual revenue.
Wells is part of an elite club of preternatural wealth builders who managed to cobble million-dollar enterprises before they graduated from college. The "million-dollar" measure refers to either total revenue generated or the value of the enterprise built (as opposed to the size of the total profit pile). That's no mean feat for any entrepreneur, let alone one who can barely buy a drink legally in the States.
The nine entrepreneurs featured in our slideshow -- six from the U.S. and three from the U.K. -- started launching businesses by the tender age of 15, and one before he broke double-digits. Some of these wunderkinds, like Wells, identified problems and created companies to solve them; others turned their hobbies into money-making ventures. Some teamed up with friends, siblings and mentors; others plowed ahead on their own. Their common thread: singular focus, preternatural financial savvy and the optimism and confidence to wrest financing from seasoned investors.
Here's a look at how a few of them pulled it off.
Smelling Opportunity: Jamie Murray Wells
When Wells was bemoaning the price of his lenses, four retailers dominated the U.K. prescription glasses market; all relied on pricey retail stores to move their merchandise.
Wells figured he could move the entire purchasing process online. All he needed was a factory to make the lenses, assemble them with frames and package them. He would then ship them to shoppers, who would simply e-mail or mail in their prescriptions and pay for their glasses online. Without the costly infrastructure, Wells could sell glasses for about one-tenth the price of the established brick-and-mortar players.
Getting Started
A nifty new business model isn't nearly enough to launch a thriving company, let alone when you're 21 and have no track record. "I was knocking on the door of an industry, saying, 'The way that you're selling glasses is wrong, and I've got a better idea,'" says Wells.
Luckily he had friends and family members who agreed to put up a few thousand pounds to help him get started. Wells didn't disappoint: In the first year, Glasses Direct's revenue topped $2 million. And unlike many zealous entrepreneurs, Wells figured out how to manage his cash flow to bootstrap the business. The company took credit card payments upfront but didn't pay suppliers for another month. Wells used part of the float to hire a public relations firm to hype his low-cost strategy.
The next year Wells turned to professional angel investors. "With some investors, I simply walked in to a meeting with a sales graph and let that speak for itself," says Wells. As demand grew, Wells raised $34 million in venture capital from the likes of Highland Capital, Index Ventures, and Munich-based Acton Capital Partners. That should tide Wells over until he turns his first profit.
Asking for Help
Wells believes his age and inexperience helped him. "Having a young founder helps to add a lot of personality to a business," he says. Still, you can't cover payroll with personality.
Recognizing his limitations (yet another challenge for many entrepreneurs), Wells sought out mentors, including ophthalmologist Dr. David Spalton, and David Magliana, a marketing guru who helped bag the 2012 summer Olympic games for London. While Spalton lent credibility with the eye-care community, Magliana worked with Wells on getting the word out about Glasses Direct.
"As an entrepreneur, it's a lot easier than you'd think to reach out to people," says Wells. On the flipside, "entrepreneurs love to be written to and asked for their advice," he adds. "If your question is appropriate for them and they're emotionally interested in you, you will get a letter back, and you will get to meet them for coffee."
Running on Empty: Michael Furdyk
In 1996, as the dot-com boom started to simmer, Michael Furdyk started a Web site, called MyDesktop.com, an online computer magazine, in the basement of his parents' home in suburban Toronto. Furdyk was 16 and a bona fide computer geek. His site was filled with tips and advice Furdyk gleaned in online chat rooms, where he also came across fellow teenager Michael Hayman in Australia. The twosome figured they could turn their passion for technology into a paying business. Hayman was so convinced that he moved to Toronto to get things started.
Just one problem: Their only source of income was Furdyk's paper route. Solution: barter. In exchange for Web site storage space, they ran their host's ads on MyDesktop.com. They negotiated cheap rent on their modest office by designing their landlord's Web site.
Soon MyDesktop.com was bringing in $60,000 a month in advertising revenue from blue-chip clients like Microsoft and IBM. Furdyk and Hayman used some of their excess cash to scoop up smaller technology sites for $5,000 to $10,000 apiece. By 1999 the company was attracting 1 million unique visitors a month (serious numbers back then). Furdyk, Hayman and a third partner sold the company to Internet.com for "over $1 million," says Furdyk.
Absorbing the Blows
As part of the MyDesktop sale, Furdyk and company received a small amount of venture capital funding for their next project, a product review site called Buybuddy.com. They raised an additional $5 million and brought on an outside management team. But the good times were short-lived. In 2001 the tech bubble burst; Buybuddy suffered and shut down within three years.
Furdyk hasn't soured on entrepreneurship; indeed, he is promoting it via TakingITglobal.com, a nonprofit social networking site he launched for youngsters and educators interested in using technology to solve global problems. "Never be afraid of failure," says Furdyk. "Just learn from it. When you're young you have even less to lose."
Going With the Flow: Fraser Doherty
While his fellow mini-moguls were making a mint on the Internet, Fraser Doherty was doing things the old-fashioned way. In 2002 at the age of 14, Doherty started making jams from his grandmother's recipes in his parents' kitchen in Edinburgh, Scotland. Neighbors and church friends loved them. As word spread Doherty received orders faster than he could fill them, so he leased space at a 200-person food processing factory several days a month.
By age 16 Doherty left school to work on his jams full time. In early 2007 Waitrose, a high-end supermarket in the U.K., came knocking, and within months there were SuperJam jars on the shelves of 184 Waitrose stores. Doherty borrowed $10,000 from a bank to cover general expenses and more factory time to produce three flavors: Blueberry & Black Currant, Rhubarb & Ginger and Cranberry & Raspberry.
Spreading the Word
Last year Doherty ramped up the company's marketing efforts, printing 50 million coupons in newspapers across the U.K. He also ran a promotion in the Sun newspaper offering readers a free jar of jam. Good moves: SuperJam's revenue hit $1.2 million in 2009, flat from the prior year. Doherty's retailers now include U.K. chains Asda Wal-Mart, Morrisons and Tesco. This year he plans to introduce three new flavors.
Doherty remains the company's only full-time employee, although he hired three part-time staffers to hand out samples in grocery stores. Within the next four months, he hopes to produce mini jars for airlines, hotels and gift boxes. Based on a reasonable valuation multiple of one time revenue (jelly maker J.M. Smucker generally trades between 1 and 1.5 times revenue), Doherty's debt-free stake is worth between $1 million and $2 million.
As for taking SuperJam up a notch, Doherty asserts that his supply chain and operations can safely scale to meet heavier demand. "We're sticking with what works," says the entrepreneur, now a seasoned 21 years old.
MyYearbook.com: Catherine Cook
In 2005 Catherine Cook, 15, and her brother Dave, 17, were flipping through their high school yearbook and came up with the idea to develop a free interactive version online. The Cooks soon merged their social networking site with Zenhex.com, an ad-supported site where users post homemade quizzes, more than doubling traffic to their site. By 2006 MyYearbook had raised $4.1 million from the likes of U.S. Venture Partners and First Round Capital. The business attracted advertisers such as Neutrogena, Disney and ABC, grew to 3 million members worldwide and raked in annual sales in the "seven figures," says Catherine.
Whateverlife.com: Ashley Qualls
Conceived by 14-year-old Detroit native Ashley Qualls as a personal portfolio with pictures and graphics, the ad-supported site evolved to offer free MySpace layouts and tutorials for teens who wanted to learn how to do their own graphic designs and coding. Whateverlife.com, which Qualls owns outright, claims to nab 7 million unique visitors a month and counts Verizon Communications as an advertiser. In March 2006 Qualls reportedly received an offer (from an undisclosed buyer) for $1.5 million, but turned it down.
Helen Coster and Melanie Lindner
Saturday, February 20, 2010 Buzz up!47 votes
More from
In Pictures: How to Make $1 Million Before Graduation
at Forbes.com
Millionaire High School Dropouts
at Forbes.com
Meet Seven Grade School Entrepreneurs
at Forbes.com
This article is part of a series related to being Financially Fit
Valuable lessons from preternatural wealth builders.
American philosopher Eric Hoffer said, "If a society is to preserve stability and a degree of continuity, it must know how to keep its adolescents from imposing their tastes, attitudes, values and fantasies on everyday life." Too bad Hoffer never met Jamie Murray Wells.
In 2004 while studying for final exams at University of the West of England, Wells, then age 21, went shopping for a pair of prescription glasses. Nonplussed by the $150 pound ($300) price tag, Wells decided to funnel his $2,000 student loan into what would become Glasses Direct, a London-based online retailer that now generates $5 million in annual revenue.
Wells is part of an elite club of preternatural wealth builders who managed to cobble million-dollar enterprises before they graduated from college. The "million-dollar" measure refers to either total revenue generated or the value of the enterprise built (as opposed to the size of the total profit pile). That's no mean feat for any entrepreneur, let alone one who can barely buy a drink legally in the States.
The nine entrepreneurs featured in our slideshow -- six from the U.S. and three from the U.K. -- started launching businesses by the tender age of 15, and one before he broke double-digits. Some of these wunderkinds, like Wells, identified problems and created companies to solve them; others turned their hobbies into money-making ventures. Some teamed up with friends, siblings and mentors; others plowed ahead on their own. Their common thread: singular focus, preternatural financial savvy and the optimism and confidence to wrest financing from seasoned investors.
Here's a look at how a few of them pulled it off.
Smelling Opportunity: Jamie Murray Wells
When Wells was bemoaning the price of his lenses, four retailers dominated the U.K. prescription glasses market; all relied on pricey retail stores to move their merchandise.
Wells figured he could move the entire purchasing process online. All he needed was a factory to make the lenses, assemble them with frames and package them. He would then ship them to shoppers, who would simply e-mail or mail in their prescriptions and pay for their glasses online. Without the costly infrastructure, Wells could sell glasses for about one-tenth the price of the established brick-and-mortar players.
Getting Started
A nifty new business model isn't nearly enough to launch a thriving company, let alone when you're 21 and have no track record. "I was knocking on the door of an industry, saying, 'The way that you're selling glasses is wrong, and I've got a better idea,'" says Wells.
Luckily he had friends and family members who agreed to put up a few thousand pounds to help him get started. Wells didn't disappoint: In the first year, Glasses Direct's revenue topped $2 million. And unlike many zealous entrepreneurs, Wells figured out how to manage his cash flow to bootstrap the business. The company took credit card payments upfront but didn't pay suppliers for another month. Wells used part of the float to hire a public relations firm to hype his low-cost strategy.
The next year Wells turned to professional angel investors. "With some investors, I simply walked in to a meeting with a sales graph and let that speak for itself," says Wells. As demand grew, Wells raised $34 million in venture capital from the likes of Highland Capital, Index Ventures, and Munich-based Acton Capital Partners. That should tide Wells over until he turns his first profit.
Asking for Help
Wells believes his age and inexperience helped him. "Having a young founder helps to add a lot of personality to a business," he says. Still, you can't cover payroll with personality.
Recognizing his limitations (yet another challenge for many entrepreneurs), Wells sought out mentors, including ophthalmologist Dr. David Spalton, and David Magliana, a marketing guru who helped bag the 2012 summer Olympic games for London. While Spalton lent credibility with the eye-care community, Magliana worked with Wells on getting the word out about Glasses Direct.
"As an entrepreneur, it's a lot easier than you'd think to reach out to people," says Wells. On the flipside, "entrepreneurs love to be written to and asked for their advice," he adds. "If your question is appropriate for them and they're emotionally interested in you, you will get a letter back, and you will get to meet them for coffee."
Running on Empty: Michael Furdyk
In 1996, as the dot-com boom started to simmer, Michael Furdyk started a Web site, called MyDesktop.com, an online computer magazine, in the basement of his parents' home in suburban Toronto. Furdyk was 16 and a bona fide computer geek. His site was filled with tips and advice Furdyk gleaned in online chat rooms, where he also came across fellow teenager Michael Hayman in Australia. The twosome figured they could turn their passion for technology into a paying business. Hayman was so convinced that he moved to Toronto to get things started.
Just one problem: Their only source of income was Furdyk's paper route. Solution: barter. In exchange for Web site storage space, they ran their host's ads on MyDesktop.com. They negotiated cheap rent on their modest office by designing their landlord's Web site.
Soon MyDesktop.com was bringing in $60,000 a month in advertising revenue from blue-chip clients like Microsoft and IBM. Furdyk and Hayman used some of their excess cash to scoop up smaller technology sites for $5,000 to $10,000 apiece. By 1999 the company was attracting 1 million unique visitors a month (serious numbers back then). Furdyk, Hayman and a third partner sold the company to Internet.com for "over $1 million," says Furdyk.
Absorbing the Blows
As part of the MyDesktop sale, Furdyk and company received a small amount of venture capital funding for their next project, a product review site called Buybuddy.com. They raised an additional $5 million and brought on an outside management team. But the good times were short-lived. In 2001 the tech bubble burst; Buybuddy suffered and shut down within three years.
Furdyk hasn't soured on entrepreneurship; indeed, he is promoting it via TakingITglobal.com, a nonprofit social networking site he launched for youngsters and educators interested in using technology to solve global problems. "Never be afraid of failure," says Furdyk. "Just learn from it. When you're young you have even less to lose."
Going With the Flow: Fraser Doherty
While his fellow mini-moguls were making a mint on the Internet, Fraser Doherty was doing things the old-fashioned way. In 2002 at the age of 14, Doherty started making jams from his grandmother's recipes in his parents' kitchen in Edinburgh, Scotland. Neighbors and church friends loved them. As word spread Doherty received orders faster than he could fill them, so he leased space at a 200-person food processing factory several days a month.
By age 16 Doherty left school to work on his jams full time. In early 2007 Waitrose, a high-end supermarket in the U.K., came knocking, and within months there were SuperJam jars on the shelves of 184 Waitrose stores. Doherty borrowed $10,000 from a bank to cover general expenses and more factory time to produce three flavors: Blueberry & Black Currant, Rhubarb & Ginger and Cranberry & Raspberry.
Spreading the Word
Last year Doherty ramped up the company's marketing efforts, printing 50 million coupons in newspapers across the U.K. He also ran a promotion in the Sun newspaper offering readers a free jar of jam. Good moves: SuperJam's revenue hit $1.2 million in 2009, flat from the prior year. Doherty's retailers now include U.K. chains Asda Wal-Mart, Morrisons and Tesco. This year he plans to introduce three new flavors.
Doherty remains the company's only full-time employee, although he hired three part-time staffers to hand out samples in grocery stores. Within the next four months, he hopes to produce mini jars for airlines, hotels and gift boxes. Based on a reasonable valuation multiple of one time revenue (jelly maker J.M. Smucker generally trades between 1 and 1.5 times revenue), Doherty's debt-free stake is worth between $1 million and $2 million.
As for taking SuperJam up a notch, Doherty asserts that his supply chain and operations can safely scale to meet heavier demand. "We're sticking with what works," says the entrepreneur, now a seasoned 21 years old.
MyYearbook.com: Catherine Cook
In 2005 Catherine Cook, 15, and her brother Dave, 17, were flipping through their high school yearbook and came up with the idea to develop a free interactive version online. The Cooks soon merged their social networking site with Zenhex.com, an ad-supported site where users post homemade quizzes, more than doubling traffic to their site. By 2006 MyYearbook had raised $4.1 million from the likes of U.S. Venture Partners and First Round Capital. The business attracted advertisers such as Neutrogena, Disney and ABC, grew to 3 million members worldwide and raked in annual sales in the "seven figures," says Catherine.
Whateverlife.com: Ashley Qualls
Conceived by 14-year-old Detroit native Ashley Qualls as a personal portfolio with pictures and graphics, the ad-supported site evolved to offer free MySpace layouts and tutorials for teens who wanted to learn how to do their own graphic designs and coding. Whateverlife.com, which Qualls owns outright, claims to nab 7 million unique visitors a month and counts Verizon Communications as an advertiser. In March 2006 Qualls reportedly received an offer (from an undisclosed buyer) for $1.5 million, but turned it down.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
MES
Top CBSE officials visit MES, outline new exam policy
Web posted at: 2/18/2010 6:22:9
Source ::: The Peninsula
Doha: The Chairman of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) in New Delhi, Vineet Joshi addressing the teaching faculty at the MES Indian School yesterday said ‘examinations go proxy’ to various attributes right from the fervour with which students prepare themselves for the exam, burning midnight oil in a frenzy manner to take up a three-hour exam
Joshi, along with two senior education officers from the board Dr Sadana Parashar and Dr Srijata Das are on a three-day visit to MES Indian School. Joshi outlined the shortcomings of the existing examination system and the objectives of the new policies.
“The present system of examinations, to a greater extent promotes and patronises only the rote memory among the students. Scoring good marks has become a proxy to whether teaching or studying was done well,” Joshi said.
Stressing the need for reforms in the examination system Joshi also said exams have become a management exercise of three hours and if the teachers know the technique of the trade, scoring would be easy. Moreover disparity has been becoming all the more glaring in terms of standard and performance of students especially between those who hail from the family of highly placed, second or third generation learners and those from the first generation learners.
Thus the examinations have become not so a ‘level playing field’ and so discriminating.”
Joshi also said that the present system aims at developing the child in a holistic approach, in the area of life skills comprising communication, creative thinking, stress management, emotional balance etc where every child’s positive attributes are recognised and developed.
Continuous and comprehensive Evaluation (CCF) system does not compromise on academic quality, instead, all measures are being adopted to make the assessment as unbiased and holistic as possible.
“In the wake of the recent reforms in the class IX and X Examination system introduced by the CBSE, the visit by the top officials from the Board will help the students, parents and teachers to get over their apprehensions and uncertainties on the issue and realise the real merits of the system,” said Principal of MES Indian school A P Sasidharan in his welcome address.
The guests were earlier accorded a warm welcome by the school officials and principals of Indian schools in Qatar accompanied by school scouts, guides and bands.
A welcome song by the school choir, composed by P J Beilbey, a solo song by Jemy Jacob, a classical dance by Sreelakshmi and classical fusion dance by MES student artistes and choreographed by Seema and Shiva Gouri, A Skit on life skills, directed by Rajendran, all made the function colourful.
Sanjeev Kohli, Minister from the Embassy of India, M R Qureshi, Second Secretary, M K Abdul Rahman, President of school governing body, K P Abdul Aziz, General Secretary, principals and vice principals of Indian schools in Qatar, the teaching faculty of MES and other schools took part in the formal function and workshop on “Exam Reforms and CCE.”
The sessions will resume today and continue till 1.30pm. An interactive session for parents in the current class 8 and 9 is scheduled tomorrow between 9 am and 11 am.
Web posted at: 2/18/2010 6:22:9
Source ::: The Peninsula
Doha: The Chairman of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) in New Delhi, Vineet Joshi addressing the teaching faculty at the MES Indian School yesterday said ‘examinations go proxy’ to various attributes right from the fervour with which students prepare themselves for the exam, burning midnight oil in a frenzy manner to take up a three-hour exam
Joshi, along with two senior education officers from the board Dr Sadana Parashar and Dr Srijata Das are on a three-day visit to MES Indian School. Joshi outlined the shortcomings of the existing examination system and the objectives of the new policies.
“The present system of examinations, to a greater extent promotes and patronises only the rote memory among the students. Scoring good marks has become a proxy to whether teaching or studying was done well,” Joshi said.
Stressing the need for reforms in the examination system Joshi also said exams have become a management exercise of three hours and if the teachers know the technique of the trade, scoring would be easy. Moreover disparity has been becoming all the more glaring in terms of standard and performance of students especially between those who hail from the family of highly placed, second or third generation learners and those from the first generation learners.
Thus the examinations have become not so a ‘level playing field’ and so discriminating.”
Joshi also said that the present system aims at developing the child in a holistic approach, in the area of life skills comprising communication, creative thinking, stress management, emotional balance etc where every child’s positive attributes are recognised and developed.
Continuous and comprehensive Evaluation (CCF) system does not compromise on academic quality, instead, all measures are being adopted to make the assessment as unbiased and holistic as possible.
“In the wake of the recent reforms in the class IX and X Examination system introduced by the CBSE, the visit by the top officials from the Board will help the students, parents and teachers to get over their apprehensions and uncertainties on the issue and realise the real merits of the system,” said Principal of MES Indian school A P Sasidharan in his welcome address.
The guests were earlier accorded a warm welcome by the school officials and principals of Indian schools in Qatar accompanied by school scouts, guides and bands.
A welcome song by the school choir, composed by P J Beilbey, a solo song by Jemy Jacob, a classical dance by Sreelakshmi and classical fusion dance by MES student artistes and choreographed by Seema and Shiva Gouri, A Skit on life skills, directed by Rajendran, all made the function colourful.
Sanjeev Kohli, Minister from the Embassy of India, M R Qureshi, Second Secretary, M K Abdul Rahman, President of school governing body, K P Abdul Aziz, General Secretary, principals and vice principals of Indian schools in Qatar, the teaching faculty of MES and other schools took part in the formal function and workshop on “Exam Reforms and CCE.”
The sessions will resume today and continue till 1.30pm. An interactive session for parents in the current class 8 and 9 is scheduled tomorrow between 9 am and 11 am.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
student loan exceeds
The $555,000 Student-Loan Burden
by Mary Pilon
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
provided by
When Michelle Bisutti, a 41-year-old family practitioner in Columbus, Ohio, finished medical school in 2003, her student-loan debt amounted to roughly $250,000. Since then, it has ballooned to $555,000.
Andrew Spear for The Wall Street Journal
Michelle Bisutti borrowed $250,000 to pay for medical school. The debt has since ballooned to $555,000.
It is the result of her deferring loan payments while she completed her residency, default charges and relentlessly compounding interest rates. Among the charges: a single $53,870 fee for when her loan was turned over to a collection agency.
"Maybe half of it was my fault because I didn't look at the fine print," Dr. Bisutti says. "But this is just outrageous now."
To be sure, Dr. Bisutti's case is extreme, and lenders say student-loan terms are clear and that they try to work with borrowers who get in trouble.
But as tuitions rise, many people are borrowing heavily to pay their bills. Some no doubt view it as "good debt," because an education can lead to a higher salary. But in practice, student loans are one of the most toxic debts, requiring extreme consumer caution and, as Dr. Bisutti learned, responsibility.
Unlike other kinds of debt, student loans can be particularly hard to wriggle out of. Homeowners who can't make their mortgage payments can hand over the keys to their house to their lender. Credit-card and even gambling debts can be discharged in bankruptcy. But ditching a student loan is virtually impossible, especially once a collection agency gets involved. Although lenders may trim payments, getting fees or principals waived seldom happens.
More from WSJ.com:
• Investors Should Act Their Age
• Questions to Ask After 'I Will' but Before 'I Do'
• The Price of Safety Just Went Up
Yet many former students are trying. There is an estimated $730 billion in outstanding federal and private student-loan debt, says Mark Kantrowitz of FinAid.org, a Web site that tracks financial-aid issues -- and only 40% of that debt is actively being repaid. The rest is in default, or in deferment, which means that payments and interest are halted, or in "forbearance," which means payments are halted while interest accrues.
Although Dr. Bisutti's debt load is unusual, her experience having problems repaying isn't. Emmanuel Tellez's mother is a laid-off factory worker, and $120 from her $300 unemployment checks is garnished to pay the federal PLUS student loan she took out for her son.
By the time Mr. Tellez graduated in 2008, he had $50,000 of his own debt in loans issued by SLM Corp., known as Sallie Mae, the largest private student lender. In December, he was laid off from his $29,000-a-year job in Boston and defaulted. Mr. Tellez says that when he signed up, the loan wasn't explained to him well, though he concedes he missed the fine print.
Loan terms, including interest rates, are disclosed "multiple times and in multiple ways," says Martha Holler, a spokeswoman for Sallie Mae, who says the company can't comment on individual accounts. Repayment tools and account information are accessible on Sallie Mae's Web site as well, she says.
Many borrowers say they are experiencing difficulties working out repayment and modification terms on their loans. Ms. Holler says that Sallie Mae works with borrowers individually to revamp loans. Although the U.S. Department of Education has expanded programs like income-based repayment, which effectively caps repayments for some borrowers, others might not qualify.
Heather Ehmke of Oakland, Calif., renegotiated the terms of her subprime mortgage after her home was foreclosed. But even after filing for bankruptcy, she says she couldn't get Sallie Mae, one of her lenders, to adjust the terms on her student loan. After 14 years with patches of deferment and forbearance, the loan has increased from $28,000 to more than $90,000. Her monthly payments jumped from $230 to $816. Last month, her petition for undue hardship on the loans was dismissed.
Sallie Mae supports reforms that would allow student loans to be dischargeable in bankruptcy for those who have made a good-faith effort to repay them, says Ms. Holler.
Dr. Bisutti says she loves her work, but regrets taking out so many student loans. She admits that she made mistakes in missing payments, deferring her loans and not being completely thorough with some of the paperwork, but was surprised at how quickly the debt spiraled.
More from Yahoo! Finance:
• Do Elite Colleges Produce the Best-Paid Graduates?
• MBA Pay: Riches for Some, Not All
• How to Improve American Education
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Visit the College & Education Center
She says she knew when she started medical school in 1999 that she would have to borrow heavily. But she reasoned that her future income as a doctor would make paying off the loans easy. While in school, her loans racked up interest with variable rates ranging from 3% to 11%.
She maxed out on federal loans, borrowing $152,000 over four years, and sought private loans from Sallie Mae to help make up the difference. She also took out two loans from Wells Fargo & Co. for $20,000 each. Each had a $2,000 origination fee. The total amount she borrowed at the time: $250,000.
In 2005, the bill for the Wells Fargo loans came due. Representatives from the bank called her father, Michael Bisutti, every day for two months demanding payment. Mr. Bisutti, who had co-signed on the loans, finally decided to cover the $550 monthly payments for a year.
Wells Fargo says it will stop calling consumers if they request it, says senior vice president Glen Herrick, who adds that the bank no longer imposes origination fees on its private loans.
Sallie Mae, meanwhile, called Mr. Bisutti's neighbor. The neighbor told Mr. Bisutti about the call. "Now they know [my dad's] daughter the doctor defaulted on her loans," Dr. Bisutti says.
Ms. Holler, the Sallie Mae spokeswoman, says that the company may contact a neighbor to verify an individual's address. But in those cases, she says, the details of the debt obligation aren't discussed.
Dr. Bisutti declined to authorize Sallie Mae to comment specifically on her case. "The overwhelming majority of medical-school graduates successfully repay their student loans," Ms. Holler says.
After completing her fellowship in 2007, Dr. Bisutti juggled other debts, including her credit-card balance, and was having trouble making her $1,000-a-month student-loan payments. That year, she defaulted on both her federal and private loans. That is when the "collection cost" fee of $53,870 was added on to her private loan.
Meanwhile, the variable interest rates continue to compound on her balance and fees. She recently applied for income-based repayment, but she still isn't sure if she will qualify. She makes $550-a-month payments to Wells Fargo for the two loans she hasn't defaulted on. By the time she is done, she will have paid the bank $128,000 -- over three times the $36,000 she received.
She recently entered a rehabilitation agreement on her defaulted federal loans, which now carry an additional $31,942 collection cost. She makes monthly payments on those loans -- now $209,399 -- for $990 a month, with only $100 of it going toward her original balance. The entire balance of her federal loans will be paid off in 351 months. Dr. Bisutti will be 70 years old.
The debt load keeps her up at night. Her damaged credit has prevented her from buying a home or a new car. She says she and her boyfriend of three years have put off marriage and having children because of the debt.
Dr. Bisutti told her 17-year-old niece the story of her debt as a cautionary tale "so the next generation of kids who want to get a higher education knows what they're getting into," she says. "I will likely have to deal with this debt for the rest of my life."
by Mary Pilon
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
provided by
When Michelle Bisutti, a 41-year-old family practitioner in Columbus, Ohio, finished medical school in 2003, her student-loan debt amounted to roughly $250,000. Since then, it has ballooned to $555,000.
Andrew Spear for The Wall Street Journal
Michelle Bisutti borrowed $250,000 to pay for medical school. The debt has since ballooned to $555,000.
It is the result of her deferring loan payments while she completed her residency, default charges and relentlessly compounding interest rates. Among the charges: a single $53,870 fee for when her loan was turned over to a collection agency.
"Maybe half of it was my fault because I didn't look at the fine print," Dr. Bisutti says. "But this is just outrageous now."
To be sure, Dr. Bisutti's case is extreme, and lenders say student-loan terms are clear and that they try to work with borrowers who get in trouble.
But as tuitions rise, many people are borrowing heavily to pay their bills. Some no doubt view it as "good debt," because an education can lead to a higher salary. But in practice, student loans are one of the most toxic debts, requiring extreme consumer caution and, as Dr. Bisutti learned, responsibility.
Unlike other kinds of debt, student loans can be particularly hard to wriggle out of. Homeowners who can't make their mortgage payments can hand over the keys to their house to their lender. Credit-card and even gambling debts can be discharged in bankruptcy. But ditching a student loan is virtually impossible, especially once a collection agency gets involved. Although lenders may trim payments, getting fees or principals waived seldom happens.
More from WSJ.com:
• Investors Should Act Their Age
• Questions to Ask After 'I Will' but Before 'I Do'
• The Price of Safety Just Went Up
Yet many former students are trying. There is an estimated $730 billion in outstanding federal and private student-loan debt, says Mark Kantrowitz of FinAid.org, a Web site that tracks financial-aid issues -- and only 40% of that debt is actively being repaid. The rest is in default, or in deferment, which means that payments and interest are halted, or in "forbearance," which means payments are halted while interest accrues.
Although Dr. Bisutti's debt load is unusual, her experience having problems repaying isn't. Emmanuel Tellez's mother is a laid-off factory worker, and $120 from her $300 unemployment checks is garnished to pay the federal PLUS student loan she took out for her son.
By the time Mr. Tellez graduated in 2008, he had $50,000 of his own debt in loans issued by SLM Corp., known as Sallie Mae, the largest private student lender. In December, he was laid off from his $29,000-a-year job in Boston and defaulted. Mr. Tellez says that when he signed up, the loan wasn't explained to him well, though he concedes he missed the fine print.
Loan terms, including interest rates, are disclosed "multiple times and in multiple ways," says Martha Holler, a spokeswoman for Sallie Mae, who says the company can't comment on individual accounts. Repayment tools and account information are accessible on Sallie Mae's Web site as well, she says.
Many borrowers say they are experiencing difficulties working out repayment and modification terms on their loans. Ms. Holler says that Sallie Mae works with borrowers individually to revamp loans. Although the U.S. Department of Education has expanded programs like income-based repayment, which effectively caps repayments for some borrowers, others might not qualify.
Heather Ehmke of Oakland, Calif., renegotiated the terms of her subprime mortgage after her home was foreclosed. But even after filing for bankruptcy, she says she couldn't get Sallie Mae, one of her lenders, to adjust the terms on her student loan. After 14 years with patches of deferment and forbearance, the loan has increased from $28,000 to more than $90,000. Her monthly payments jumped from $230 to $816. Last month, her petition for undue hardship on the loans was dismissed.
Sallie Mae supports reforms that would allow student loans to be dischargeable in bankruptcy for those who have made a good-faith effort to repay them, says Ms. Holler.
Dr. Bisutti says she loves her work, but regrets taking out so many student loans. She admits that she made mistakes in missing payments, deferring her loans and not being completely thorough with some of the paperwork, but was surprised at how quickly the debt spiraled.
More from Yahoo! Finance:
• Do Elite Colleges Produce the Best-Paid Graduates?
• MBA Pay: Riches for Some, Not All
• How to Improve American Education
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Visit the College & Education Center
She says she knew when she started medical school in 1999 that she would have to borrow heavily. But she reasoned that her future income as a doctor would make paying off the loans easy. While in school, her loans racked up interest with variable rates ranging from 3% to 11%.
She maxed out on federal loans, borrowing $152,000 over four years, and sought private loans from Sallie Mae to help make up the difference. She also took out two loans from Wells Fargo & Co. for $20,000 each. Each had a $2,000 origination fee. The total amount she borrowed at the time: $250,000.
In 2005, the bill for the Wells Fargo loans came due. Representatives from the bank called her father, Michael Bisutti, every day for two months demanding payment. Mr. Bisutti, who had co-signed on the loans, finally decided to cover the $550 monthly payments for a year.
Wells Fargo says it will stop calling consumers if they request it, says senior vice president Glen Herrick, who adds that the bank no longer imposes origination fees on its private loans.
Sallie Mae, meanwhile, called Mr. Bisutti's neighbor. The neighbor told Mr. Bisutti about the call. "Now they know [my dad's] daughter the doctor defaulted on her loans," Dr. Bisutti says.
Ms. Holler, the Sallie Mae spokeswoman, says that the company may contact a neighbor to verify an individual's address. But in those cases, she says, the details of the debt obligation aren't discussed.
Dr. Bisutti declined to authorize Sallie Mae to comment specifically on her case. "The overwhelming majority of medical-school graduates successfully repay their student loans," Ms. Holler says.
After completing her fellowship in 2007, Dr. Bisutti juggled other debts, including her credit-card balance, and was having trouble making her $1,000-a-month student-loan payments. That year, she defaulted on both her federal and private loans. That is when the "collection cost" fee of $53,870 was added on to her private loan.
Meanwhile, the variable interest rates continue to compound on her balance and fees. She recently applied for income-based repayment, but she still isn't sure if she will qualify. She makes $550-a-month payments to Wells Fargo for the two loans she hasn't defaulted on. By the time she is done, she will have paid the bank $128,000 -- over three times the $36,000 she received.
She recently entered a rehabilitation agreement on her defaulted federal loans, which now carry an additional $31,942 collection cost. She makes monthly payments on those loans -- now $209,399 -- for $990 a month, with only $100 of it going toward her original balance. The entire balance of her federal loans will be paid off in 351 months. Dr. Bisutti will be 70 years old.
The debt load keeps her up at night. Her damaged credit has prevented her from buying a home or a new car. She says she and her boyfriend of three years have put off marriage and having children because of the debt.
Dr. Bisutti told her 17-year-old niece the story of her debt as a cautionary tale "so the next generation of kids who want to get a higher education knows what they're getting into," she says. "I will likely have to deal with this debt for the rest of my life."
Monday, February 8, 2010
CBSE exams
CBSE launches tele-counselling for students in Qatar
Web posted at: 2/8/2010 5:0:25
Source ::: THE PENINSULA
DOHA: As India’s Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) examination of Class 10 and 12 fast approaching, the Board has launched tele-counselling in Qatar to help the parents and students beat the exam worries. The Indian Board has also set up two similar facilities in Dubai and Kuwait.
Dr Mohamed Aejaz, Principal of Ideal Indian School, who has been appointed as the Tele-Counsellor of Qatar said he has been receiving a lot of calls from the worried parents and children ever since the helpline was launched last week.
The tele-counselling will be available for all the students and their parents appearing for the Class 10 and 12 exams on 4684849 on all working days from 7am to 1pm and 5pm to 7pm.
“Parents want to know how their children can score maximum marks and how many hours the students must learn during the study holidays and lot more queries. The number of callers would go up when the exam days get closer,” he said.
Dr Aejaz said the board’s decision to replace the mark system with the grading from this year has created a lot of confusion among the parents. This is one of the major worries of the callers. An estimated 2000 students from different Indian Schools in Doha are appearing for the Class 10 and 12 examinations this time. The exams are starting on March 3, 2010
In India, where an estimated hundred thousands of students appear for exam every year, 52 principals trained counsellors from CBSE-affiliated government and private schools, psychologist and social scientists are operating help lines from Indian local time 8 am to midnight. Weighed down by the examination pressures, an increasing number of parents and children are ending their lives. This has forced the Indian government to introduce the tele-counselling facilities a few years ago.
To ease the exam worries further, the Indian Government has recently issued an order making the grade 10 board exams optional from academic year 2010-2011, facilitating the students who want to go for pre-university course, he\she can appear for 10th board exam. But in case of a student pursuing the course in the same school, he/she need not appear in the class-10 exam for promotion to Class-11, based on an internal evaluation.
Web posted at: 2/8/2010 5:0:25
Source ::: THE PENINSULA
DOHA: As India’s Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) examination of Class 10 and 12 fast approaching, the Board has launched tele-counselling in Qatar to help the parents and students beat the exam worries. The Indian Board has also set up two similar facilities in Dubai and Kuwait.
Dr Mohamed Aejaz, Principal of Ideal Indian School, who has been appointed as the Tele-Counsellor of Qatar said he has been receiving a lot of calls from the worried parents and children ever since the helpline was launched last week.
The tele-counselling will be available for all the students and their parents appearing for the Class 10 and 12 exams on 4684849 on all working days from 7am to 1pm and 5pm to 7pm.
“Parents want to know how their children can score maximum marks and how many hours the students must learn during the study holidays and lot more queries. The number of callers would go up when the exam days get closer,” he said.
Dr Aejaz said the board’s decision to replace the mark system with the grading from this year has created a lot of confusion among the parents. This is one of the major worries of the callers. An estimated 2000 students from different Indian Schools in Doha are appearing for the Class 10 and 12 examinations this time. The exams are starting on March 3, 2010
In India, where an estimated hundred thousands of students appear for exam every year, 52 principals trained counsellors from CBSE-affiliated government and private schools, psychologist and social scientists are operating help lines from Indian local time 8 am to midnight. Weighed down by the examination pressures, an increasing number of parents and children are ending their lives. This has forced the Indian government to introduce the tele-counselling facilities a few years ago.
To ease the exam worries further, the Indian Government has recently issued an order making the grade 10 board exams optional from academic year 2010-2011, facilitating the students who want to go for pre-university course, he\she can appear for 10th board exam. But in case of a student pursuing the course in the same school, he/she need not appear in the class-10 exam for promotion to Class-11, based on an internal evaluation.
QIB issue bond
QIB ‘plans $500mn bond issue’
Qatar Islamic Bank (QIB), Qatar’s second-largest lender by value, is preparing to tap the global debt markets with a bond issue worth at least $500mn, according to sources.
“They’ve mandated three banks and are pretty much ready to go,” one person with knowledge of the Islamic bank’s plans told the Zawya Dow Jones news agency yesterday.
Credit Suisse Group, HSBC Holding and QInvest, the Doha-based investment bank, are advising on the deal, sources said.
QIB didn’t respond to questions about the bonds.
The bank, which posted a 24% drop in fourth-quarter 2009 net profit last month, is looking to raise money to improve its debt to equity ratio as the company eyes growth and exposure to international investors. Shares in QIB closed down 1.58% yesterday at QR74.80 in a negative market.
There is growing investor appetite for exposure to Qatar, whose economy is expected to grow 16% in 2010 on the back of ballooning revenues from liquefied natural gas exports. Qatar is the world’s largest exporter of LNG by far.
In November Qatar sold $7bn of bonds on the global capital markets, the largest-ever sovereign debt issue in the Middle East.
Commercialbank of Qatar in the same month completed the largest-ever bond issue in the region by a non-government related entity in a two-part $1.6bn sale.
People familiar with QIB’s plans said any issue would most likely be open to investors in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, but not the US.
Another person familiar with the lender’s plans said the bank had been planning to tap the debt markets since the end of last year.
“They’ve looked at the debt markets on and off over the past few years. This has been in progress since the end of last year,” said the person who declined to be identified. Zawya Dow Jones
Qatar Islamic Bank (QIB), Qatar’s second-largest lender by value, is preparing to tap the global debt markets with a bond issue worth at least $500mn, according to sources.
“They’ve mandated three banks and are pretty much ready to go,” one person with knowledge of the Islamic bank’s plans told the Zawya Dow Jones news agency yesterday.
Credit Suisse Group, HSBC Holding and QInvest, the Doha-based investment bank, are advising on the deal, sources said.
QIB didn’t respond to questions about the bonds.
The bank, which posted a 24% drop in fourth-quarter 2009 net profit last month, is looking to raise money to improve its debt to equity ratio as the company eyes growth and exposure to international investors. Shares in QIB closed down 1.58% yesterday at QR74.80 in a negative market.
There is growing investor appetite for exposure to Qatar, whose economy is expected to grow 16% in 2010 on the back of ballooning revenues from liquefied natural gas exports. Qatar is the world’s largest exporter of LNG by far.
In November Qatar sold $7bn of bonds on the global capital markets, the largest-ever sovereign debt issue in the Middle East.
Commercialbank of Qatar in the same month completed the largest-ever bond issue in the region by a non-government related entity in a two-part $1.6bn sale.
People familiar with QIB’s plans said any issue would most likely be open to investors in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, but not the US.
Another person familiar with the lender’s plans said the bank had been planning to tap the debt markets since the end of last year.
“They’ve looked at the debt markets on and off over the past few years. This has been in progress since the end of last year,” said the person who declined to be identified. Zawya Dow Jones
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
items
Are you infuriated every time you open your cell phone bill? Livid when you buy a snack at the movies? These are some of the rawest deals around.
©John R. Coughlin
Text Messages -- 6,500% Markup
Text messages are short, quick and cheap to transmit. So why are they adding so much to your wireless bill?
The messages are such a tiny piece of data that they cost carriers only about one-third of a cent to deliver, according to computer scientist Srinivasan Keshav, who testified before U.S. senators on the issue last summer.
More from CNNMoney.com:
• More America's Biggest Ripoffs: Premium Gasoline
• More America's Biggest Ripoffs: Hotel Mini-Bars
• More America's Biggest Ripoffs: In-Room Movies
But on a pay-per-text plan, the 160-character messages typically cost 20 cents outgoing and 10 cents incoming. That's a markup of as much as 6,500%. OMG!
"It's pretty much pure profit," Keshav says. "Carriers would argue they put that money toward investing in new technology."
Even if customers sign up for an unlimited texting plan for, say, $10 a month, carriers are still cashing in considering that their overhead is basically $0. That's a lot to pay for a few LOLs.
©Jupiter Images
Movie Theater Popcorn -- 900% Markup
A medium bag of popcorn costs just 60 cents to make but retails for $6, a whopping 900% markup. That's enough to make "Avatar" fans turn blue.
Richard McKenzie, an economics professor at University of California-Irvine, says theater owners mark up the snack so much because they don't make a profit elsewhere.
McKenzie, author of the 2008 book "Why Popcorn Costs So Much at the Movies: And Other Pricing Puzzles," says that out of your $10 movie ticket, only a tiny percentage goes to the theater's profits.
"Popcorn is what pays for a lot of stuff in the movie theater," McKenzie says. "A lot of theater owners tell me, 'I consider myself working in concessions, not movies.'"
©Neil Harris / CNNMoney.com
'Free' Credit Reports That'll Cost You
There's nothing free about forking over $179 a year for information at Freecreditreport.com.
Instead you can go to AnnualCreditReport.com, which is run by the Federal Trade Commission, and get a truly free report once a year from each of the credit agencies: Equifax, Experian and TransUnion.
Freecreditreport.com's catchy ditties can get stuck in your head for days -- but subscribing to the service will haunt your credit card bill for a year. When you sign up, you're asked for your credit card number. Then the site automatically enrolls you in its "Triple Advantage credit monitoring," which pledges to continuously track your credit status for $14.99 per month.
A rep for Experian, which owns Freecreditreport.com, says: "We do realize there are a very small percentage of consumers who genuinely do not understand they have signed up for a credit monitoring service. We work to resolve issues with these consumers on a case by case basis."
Popular Stories on Yahoo!:
• Battle Over e-Book Pricing Begins
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Technically, you have nine days to cancel the credit monitoring service before being charged, but many consumers have felt duped. The Better Business Bureau has received more than 11,000 complaints, and the site recently made its policy more prominent on its Web pages.
©John R. Coughlin / CNNMoney.com
Name-Brand Painkillers -- 60% Markup
Is Advil's sleek design worth 160% more than the same medicine in a plain package?
A 50-count bottle of 200 mg Advil tablets costs $8.49, versus just $5.29 for the exact same bottle of generic ibuprofen at a Duane Reade drug store in New York.
Brand names may give us more peace of mind, but the cheaper stuff works just as well, and in exactly the same way. It's required to, by law.
The Food and Drug Administration mandates that generic drugs must be as safe and effective as brand names. Generics have to use the same active ingredients, however they may contain different inactive ingredients like coloring or flavor agents. For its part, the company says it "stand[s] firmly behind the value Advil brings to consumers."
But at a time when many of us are already feeling the pinch financially, a fancy package just doesn't seem worth the headache.
©John R. Coughlin
Text Messages -- 6,500% Markup
Text messages are short, quick and cheap to transmit. So why are they adding so much to your wireless bill?
The messages are such a tiny piece of data that they cost carriers only about one-third of a cent to deliver, according to computer scientist Srinivasan Keshav, who testified before U.S. senators on the issue last summer.
More from CNNMoney.com:
• More America's Biggest Ripoffs: Premium Gasoline
• More America's Biggest Ripoffs: Hotel Mini-Bars
• More America's Biggest Ripoffs: In-Room Movies
But on a pay-per-text plan, the 160-character messages typically cost 20 cents outgoing and 10 cents incoming. That's a markup of as much as 6,500%. OMG!
"It's pretty much pure profit," Keshav says. "Carriers would argue they put that money toward investing in new technology."
Even if customers sign up for an unlimited texting plan for, say, $10 a month, carriers are still cashing in considering that their overhead is basically $0. That's a lot to pay for a few LOLs.
©Jupiter Images
Movie Theater Popcorn -- 900% Markup
A medium bag of popcorn costs just 60 cents to make but retails for $6, a whopping 900% markup. That's enough to make "Avatar" fans turn blue.
Richard McKenzie, an economics professor at University of California-Irvine, says theater owners mark up the snack so much because they don't make a profit elsewhere.
McKenzie, author of the 2008 book "Why Popcorn Costs So Much at the Movies: And Other Pricing Puzzles," says that out of your $10 movie ticket, only a tiny percentage goes to the theater's profits.
"Popcorn is what pays for a lot of stuff in the movie theater," McKenzie says. "A lot of theater owners tell me, 'I consider myself working in concessions, not movies.'"
©Neil Harris / CNNMoney.com
'Free' Credit Reports That'll Cost You
There's nothing free about forking over $179 a year for information at Freecreditreport.com.
Instead you can go to AnnualCreditReport.com, which is run by the Federal Trade Commission, and get a truly free report once a year from each of the credit agencies: Equifax, Experian and TransUnion.
Freecreditreport.com's catchy ditties can get stuck in your head for days -- but subscribing to the service will haunt your credit card bill for a year. When you sign up, you're asked for your credit card number. Then the site automatically enrolls you in its "Triple Advantage credit monitoring," which pledges to continuously track your credit status for $14.99 per month.
A rep for Experian, which owns Freecreditreport.com, says: "We do realize there are a very small percentage of consumers who genuinely do not understand they have signed up for a credit monitoring service. We work to resolve issues with these consumers on a case by case basis."
Popular Stories on Yahoo!:
• Battle Over e-Book Pricing Begins
• 10 Things Retailers Won't Tell You
• Toyota's Slow Response Raises Questions
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
More From Yahoo! Finance
Technically, you have nine days to cancel the credit monitoring service before being charged, but many consumers have felt duped. The Better Business Bureau has received more than 11,000 complaints, and the site recently made its policy more prominent on its Web pages.
©John R. Coughlin / CNNMoney.com
Name-Brand Painkillers -- 60% Markup
Is Advil's sleek design worth 160% more than the same medicine in a plain package?
A 50-count bottle of 200 mg Advil tablets costs $8.49, versus just $5.29 for the exact same bottle of generic ibuprofen at a Duane Reade drug store in New York.
Brand names may give us more peace of mind, but the cheaper stuff works just as well, and in exactly the same way. It's required to, by law.
The Food and Drug Administration mandates that generic drugs must be as safe and effective as brand names. Generics have to use the same active ingredients, however they may contain different inactive ingredients like coloring or flavor agents. For its part, the company says it "stand[s] firmly behind the value Advil brings to consumers."
But at a time when many of us are already feeling the pinch financially, a fancy package just doesn't seem worth the headache.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Innovative car washing
An innovative water-free car wash service is slowly catching on in Doha. The convenient spray-and-wipe system cleans a car in just 15 minutes.
Launched recently, the waterless wax car wash, the first of its kind in the country, uses a natural product as against the chemicals and large quantity of water used by traditional car wash centres.
The “All Without Water Mobile Car Wash & Wax Service”, introduced by “Hi Wash Company”, is currently being offered in various malls, including Villaggio and Hyatt Plaza, besides LuLu Hypermarket. The company also offers its services on call at the location required by the customer.
Going by the traditional calculations of green groups, washing a vehicle with a standard garden hose can use up to 100 gallons of water in 10 minutes. Thus the new system saves a huge quantity of water. The service is expected to get a big boost in view of the Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation’s (Kahramaa) standing orders prohibiting washing of vehicles at home using a hose.
“The immediate response to our service was really exciting. As of now, we have 500 permanent members and we get nearly 2,000 orders on a daily basis. We have also reputed corporate members like Qtel”, said Vincent Achimobosi, the mark-
eting executive of the company.
Achimobosi said the membership numbers is going up daily. The company charges QR15 for a single body wash. For the members, the service is offered for QR120 for two washes a week totalling eight washes a month.
The hard yellow-brown wax used by Hi Wash comes from the carnauba palm tree (Copernicea cerifera), which is found only in the northeast of Brazil in the states of Rio Grande do Nortem, Ceara and Piaui.
The wax is obtained from the film that coats the tree’s sword-shaped leaves to protect them from the severe climate of that region. The protective compounds in the wax bond to the car’s painted surface to create a high-gloss finish that protects the surface from sunlight, acid rain, bird droppings, grime and other environmental contaminants, Achimobosi said.
“The waterless wax washing gives your car natural shine and helps to protect the paint from the harsh environment. When applied, the wax forms a thin transparent layer over the car paint. This layer covers minor scratches, stone chips and other damage, making them less visible”, claimed Achimobosi.
Launched recently, the waterless wax car wash, the first of its kind in the country, uses a natural product as against the chemicals and large quantity of water used by traditional car wash centres.
The “All Without Water Mobile Car Wash & Wax Service”, introduced by “Hi Wash Company”, is currently being offered in various malls, including Villaggio and Hyatt Plaza, besides LuLu Hypermarket. The company also offers its services on call at the location required by the customer.
Going by the traditional calculations of green groups, washing a vehicle with a standard garden hose can use up to 100 gallons of water in 10 minutes. Thus the new system saves a huge quantity of water. The service is expected to get a big boost in view of the Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation’s (Kahramaa) standing orders prohibiting washing of vehicles at home using a hose.
“The immediate response to our service was really exciting. As of now, we have 500 permanent members and we get nearly 2,000 orders on a daily basis. We have also reputed corporate members like Qtel”, said Vincent Achimobosi, the mark-
eting executive of the company.
Achimobosi said the membership numbers is going up daily. The company charges QR15 for a single body wash. For the members, the service is offered for QR120 for two washes a week totalling eight washes a month.
The hard yellow-brown wax used by Hi Wash comes from the carnauba palm tree (Copernicea cerifera), which is found only in the northeast of Brazil in the states of Rio Grande do Nortem, Ceara and Piaui.
The wax is obtained from the film that coats the tree’s sword-shaped leaves to protect them from the severe climate of that region. The protective compounds in the wax bond to the car’s painted surface to create a high-gloss finish that protects the surface from sunlight, acid rain, bird droppings, grime and other environmental contaminants, Achimobosi said.
“The waterless wax washing gives your car natural shine and helps to protect the paint from the harsh environment. When applied, the wax forms a thin transparent layer over the car paint. This layer covers minor scratches, stone chips and other damage, making them less visible”, claimed Achimobosi.
New internet routers
Qtel has introduced a new wireless router - B560 3G, which enables multiple users to access high-speed Internet in homes and small offices.
Each device is encoded with a unique wireless ID and wireless password, to ensure security and a sense of comfort when surfing the web. It is also capable of utilising Qatar’s advanced HSDPA/HSUPA network, offering speeds of up to 7.2 Mbps download with diversity and 2 Mbps upload.
Qtel continues to add new broadband services and products to its portfolio as part of the ‘broadband nation’ strategy, which aims to make Qatar one of the most connected countries in the region, and ultimately the world.
The new wireless router is in addition to a range of USB modems, special broadband tariffs and ‘NetBook’ devices available from Qtel.
The Qtel B560 3G Wireless Router is available for QR899, and works best with the service provider’s ‘unlimited’ mobile broadband service, which provides unlimited access to the Internet for QR400 a month.
Strong demand is anticipated from home users and small businesses, particularly since the solution enables companies to add new desks to their offices, or encourage employees to work across different locations, through an easily-managed, highly-scalable solution.
Top IT honour for two Qatar residents
Two Qatar residents have been named to a list of the 10 most outstanding Information Technology managers in the region in 2009, for a second consecutive year.
Qatar University’s Information Technology Services director Mohamed Javeed and United Development Company’s ICT general manager G V Rao have been honoured by Arabian Computer News (ACN).
The selection was based on a range of criteria, including the overall impact the achievers have had on the regional IT community, as well as taking into account their experience with their organisations. The main criterion was their ability to align business and IT needs perfectly.
“In the middle of a global financial meltdown, they have defied conventional wisdom by maintaining considerable investment in technology,” ACN announced on www.arabianbusiness.com.
The top 10 IT managers have been credited with pursuing innovation, creating new means of working where possible and finding better ways of adapting the old technology.
Some have worked hard to bring the technology community closer together; others have taken age-old institutions and given them new life.
“Given that Qatar University is a publicly-funded institution, the challenges facing Javeed were enormous, but he’s proved himself up to the task at hand,” commended ACN, a leading technology and business magazine in the Middle East.
He replaced virtually every cable in the university campus with state-of-the-art technology and a 100% wireless network.
When Javeed joined QU in 2004, the IT department had less than 10 staff. Today, he runs a handpicked team of more than 75 professionals to handle the extensive needs of the school, all while successfully resisting the call to cut costs by outsourcing core functions.
“I try to make sure that my staff understands that it is in their best interest to improve their skills in order to be competitive in the market,” he said.
Now Javeed is preparing to roll out Windows 7 to the hundreds of desktops at QU.
Rao, the first-ever recipient of ACN’s Editor’s Award for Outstanding Achievement, is described as outspoken almost to a fault, frequently calling out his fellow CIOs for their lack of vision.
“He’s not afraid to work on projects that are notoriously difficult to pull off successfully such as Enterprise Resource Planning and indeed has become a well-known expert on the latter,” ACN has said.
At United Development Company Rao is engaged in building the network infrastructure for The Pearl Qatar’s mega-construction project.
He is highly experienced in different geographies having worked across the GCC in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, among others.
Commenting on his achievement, Javeed said that the honour reflects on the vision of Qatar University to provide state-of-the art facilities and products to its faculty, staff and students.
Campus safety
The Clery annual report makes Qatar Foundation’s Education City the world’s safest place to seek higher education
By Sarmad Qazi
Staff Reporter
Judging by the recently released figures on campus safety, Qatar Foundation’s Education City could very well be the world’s safest place to seek higher education.
US colleges and universities (including the offshore ones) are required to publish an annual report containing information about campus crime and security policies as part of the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act (Clery Act).
US universities at the Education City, Virginia Commonwealth University, Weill Cornell Medical College, Texas A&M, Carnegie Mellon University, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, and Northwestern University treat the 25,000-hectare gated Education City as one campus and figures are shared.
Other colleges and academic institutions at the Education City do not require such a disclosure.
The standard chart includes such offences as murder/non-negligent homicide, negligent manslaughter, sex offences (forcible and non-forcible), robbery, aggravated assault, burglary of structure, motor vehicle theft, arson, hate crimes, illegal weapons possession; violations referred for disciplinary action, drug law arrest; drug law violations referred for disciplinary action, liquor law arrests, and liquor law violations resulting in disciplinary action.
The crimes are listed under On-Campus Property, Residential Facilities, Non-Campus Property, and Public Property.
The 2008 figures, the latest available, show only one offence; burglary of a structure, under the Non-Campus Property category.
During the previous year (2007), there was one incident of illegal weapons possession leading to arrest (On-Campus), while another of liquor law arrest and two liquor law violations that were referred for disciplinary action, also under the On-Campus Property category.
An official at the Qatar Foundation’s Health, Safety and Environment Directorate yesterday said: “I document these incidents and include them in the Clery chart. Other than what is reported in the mandatory Clery annual report, there are only very minor incidents that do not require disclosure.”
By Sarmad Qazi
Staff Reporter
Judging by the recently released figures on campus safety, Qatar Foundation’s Education City could very well be the world’s safest place to seek higher education.
US colleges and universities (including the offshore ones) are required to publish an annual report containing information about campus crime and security policies as part of the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act (Clery Act).
US universities at the Education City, Virginia Commonwealth University, Weill Cornell Medical College, Texas A&M, Carnegie Mellon University, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, and Northwestern University treat the 25,000-hectare gated Education City as one campus and figures are shared.
Other colleges and academic institutions at the Education City do not require such a disclosure.
The standard chart includes such offences as murder/non-negligent homicide, negligent manslaughter, sex offences (forcible and non-forcible), robbery, aggravated assault, burglary of structure, motor vehicle theft, arson, hate crimes, illegal weapons possession; violations referred for disciplinary action, drug law arrest; drug law violations referred for disciplinary action, liquor law arrests, and liquor law violations resulting in disciplinary action.
The crimes are listed under On-Campus Property, Residential Facilities, Non-Campus Property, and Public Property.
The 2008 figures, the latest available, show only one offence; burglary of a structure, under the Non-Campus Property category.
During the previous year (2007), there was one incident of illegal weapons possession leading to arrest (On-Campus), while another of liquor law arrest and two liquor law violations that were referred for disciplinary action, also under the On-Campus Property category.
An official at the Qatar Foundation’s Health, Safety and Environment Directorate yesterday said: “I document these incidents and include them in the Clery chart. Other than what is reported in the mandatory Clery annual report, there are only very minor incidents that do not require disclosure.”
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Nurse dies
A Qatari female nurse who had suffered serious injuries in a power transformer explosion in a school health club recently, has succumbed to her injuries and her husband has threatened to sue those responsible for carrying out the maintenance of the transformer.
According to a local Arabic daily, the husband of the deceased, Mohamed Al Haddad, is furious and blames those responsible for carrying out the maintenance of the transformer for negligence.
“I am going to sue these people. I want compensation,” Al Haddad was quoted as saying. The school health club is located in Old Ghanim area of Doha.
Al Haddad who has a young son said he had every right to know the cause of the explosion but added that so far he had not been officially informed of it.
“I have only been reading about the explosion and its causes in the newspapers. I have not been officially told anything,” he told the Arabic daily.
According to a local Arabic daily, the husband of the deceased, Mohamed Al Haddad, is furious and blames those responsible for carrying out the maintenance of the transformer for negligence.
“I am going to sue these people. I want compensation,” Al Haddad was quoted as saying. The school health club is located in Old Ghanim area of Doha.
Al Haddad who has a young son said he had every right to know the cause of the explosion but added that so far he had not been officially informed of it.
“I have only been reading about the explosion and its causes in the newspapers. I have not been officially told anything,” he told the Arabic daily.
Fire destroys five new cars
Five brand new Toyota cars waiting to be delivered to the public transport company, Mowasalat, were gutted when a fire broke out in the huge car park behind the Toyota Tower, near Al Mana traffic intersection, yesterday.
No casualties were reported. The Civil Defence Department, while confirming the incident, said no one suffered any injuries.
A senior Civil Defence official told The Peninsula last evening that the blaze broke out at 12.34pm and timely intervention by his department prevented the flames from spreading to other vehicles.
An estimated 100 vehicles are believed to have been parked in the sprawling parking lot behind the Toyota showroom at the time. Most of these cars belonged to people staying nearby as there are densely populated residential areas around the place.
“Firefighters rushed to the site as soon as information about the fire was received and they could contain it, or it would have easily spread,” the Civil Defence official said.
Asked about the cause of the fire, he said the incident was still under investigation.
Eyewitnesses said they heard explosions a little after noon. “It was not a powerful explosion but I could hear it from at least half-a-kilometre away, where I stay,” said an eyewitness not wanting his name in print.
Another eyewitness said he was driving on the C Ring Road near the Al Mana intersection a little after 12.30pm and he could see thick clouds of smoke billowing from the parking lot behind the Toyota showroom.
“I was bringing my daughter back from tuitions at the time and saw thick clouds of smoke billowing over the car park. I immediately knew there was something wrong,” the eyewitness said.
No one had a clue as to what triggered the blaze but it is suspected that a spark from the battery of any of the five affected cars could have ignited it.
All the five Camry cars that were burnt down were brand new and parked together and were to be delivered to Mowasalat, the Civil Defence official who confirmed the incident, added.
Neither Karwa nor Toyota showroom officials could be immediately contacted for comment
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
TOP WEIGHT LOSS FOOD FOR 2010
If you're like most Americans, you've gained about 5 pounds since Thanksgiving. Each small holiday-season indulgence may have seemed like no big deal at the time, but added all together, they created the perfect storm for a juggernaut of jiggle. Don't believe us? Consider the caloric damage of typical holiday activities—weekly parties, with buffet tables lined with goodies and treats; cookies and cakes delivered by your well-intentioned neighbors; and seasonal beverages, from holiday lagers to rum-spiked eggnogs, that had you washing down those hundreds of extra calories with, well, hundreds of extrea calories. It’s no wonder Baby New Year always makes her debut toting a gargantuan gut!
In 2010, vow to eat better—not less, just better. Add these 9 best foods for weight loss to your daily (or weekly) diet, and watch as the pounds melt away. The best-selling weight loss series Eat This, Not That! shows you how to make a weight-loss resolution worth sticking to.
Full-Fat Cheese
This dairy product is an excellent source of casein protein-- one of the best muscle-building nutrients you can eat. What's more, Danish researchers found that even when men ate 10 ounces of full-fat cheese daily for 3 weeks, their LDL ("bad") cholesterol didn't budge.
Bonus tip: See which cheese won the distinction of “best” in the annual 125 Best Supermarket Food Awards.
Pork Chops
Per gram of protein, pork chops contain almost five times the selenium--an essential mineral that's linked to a lower risk of prostate cancer--of beef, and twice that of chicken. And Purdue researchers found that a 6-ounce serving daily helped people preserve their muscle while losing weight.
Ice Coffee
Coffee reduces your appetite, increases your metabolism, and gives you a shot of antioxidants. A study published in the journal Physiology & Behavior found that the average metabolic rate of people who drink caffeinated coffee is 16 percent higher than that of those who drink decaf. Caffeine stimulates your central nervous system by increasing your heart rate and breathing. Honestly, could there be a more perfect beverage? Plus, frequent mini servings of caffeine (8 ounces of coffee or less) keep you awake, alert, and focused for longer than a single jumbo one would, according to sleep experts. When you quickly drink a large coffee, the caffeine peaks in your bloodstream much sooner than if you spread it out over time. Start your day with an 8 ounce coffee (the "short" size is available by request at Starbucks). Or, ask for a large half caf. Then keep the caffeine lightly flowing with a lunchtime cappuccino (it's got only 75 mg, which is about one quarter of what you'd get in a 16 ounce coffee).
Bonus tip: Don't derail your diet. See our indespensible list of the 20 Worst Drinks in America.
Grapefruit
In a recent study, Louisiana State University scientists discovered that people who ate half a grapefruit three times a day lost 4 pounds in 12 weeks, even though they hadn’t deliberately altered any other part of their diets. Although the mechanism isn’t clear, the researchers speculate that grapefruit’s acidity may slow your rate of digestion, helping keep you full longer.
Apple
Turns out, an apple a day may also keep the extra weight away. Penn State researchers discovered that people who ate a large apple 15 minutes before lunch took in 187 fewer calories during lunch than those who didn’t snack beforehand. (The apples had around 128 calories.) What’s more, they reported feeling fuller afterward, too. Sure, the fruit is loaded with belly-filling fiber, but there’s another reason apples help you feel full: They require lots of chewing, which can make you think you’re eating more than you really are, says study author Julie Obbagy, Ph.D.
Eggs
Skip the cold cereal: Eating eggs and bacon in the morning can help you control your hunger later in the day. Indiana University scientists determined that dieters who consumed their biggest dose of daily protein at breakfast felt full longer than those who ate more of the nutrient at lunch or dinner. The upshot: “They were less likely to overeat the rest of the day,” says study author Heather Leidy, Ph.D. To fend off hunger, shoot for at least 20 to 30 grams of protein at breakfast.
Bonus tip: Just because it’s made with eggs doesn’t make it good for you—see our worst omelet in the list of 20 Worst Restaurant Foods in America 2009.
Beans
If you're not a legume lover, consider this: In the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, scientists found that people who consumed beans were 23 percent less likely to have large waists than those who said they never ate them. The bean eaters in the survey also tended to have lower systolic blood-pressure measurements, says research Victor Fulgoni III, Ph.D. Legumes are rich in belly-filling fiber as well as potassium, which helps fight hypertension. Aim for half a cup of cooked beans 3 or 4 days a week.
Salmon
Fish isn't just good for your heart; it's good for your gut, too. That's because omega-3 fatty acids help you feel full longer, report scientists from Iceland. In the study, dieters who ate salmon felt fuller 2 hours later than those who either didn't eat seafood or had cod, a fish with little fat. The researchers found that eating foods high in omega-3s (like the ones to the left) increased blood levels of leptin, a hormone that promotes satiety. Hate fish? Take a fish-oil capsule every day - one that has 500 milligrams of the omega-3s DHA and EPA. It offers the same benefits as salmon.
Milk
Instead of fruit juice, reach for moo juice in the morning. Drinking milk at breakfast can help you eat less at lunch, Australian scientists say. In their study, overweight people who downed about 2 1/2 cups of skim milk in the morning consumed 8.5 percent fewer calories at an all-you-can-eat lunch spread than people who drank the same amount of fruit juice. Both beverages had an equal number of calories, but the milk contained 25 grams of protein while the fruit juice had virtually no protein and 63 grams of sugar. Those may be big servings, but the principle remains: Protein helps you feel fuller throughout the morning.
For thousands of great tips like these, be sure to download the Eat This, Not That! iPhone app—it’s like having your own personal nutritionist always at your fingertips!
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