Another Fraudster Wants His NYU Degree
A convicted hedge fund fraudster is suing New York University for revoking his MBA degree.
Ayal Rosenthal sued the school in Manhattan federal court for breach of contract, saying the revocation was “unfair and excessive,” The New York Post reports. Rosenthal also took issue with the seven-month delay in holding a hearing on the issue in September 2007.
NYU, which last year won a court battle with another convicted hedge fund fraudster who was seeking his undergraduate degree from the university, said the delay was due to “the unusual nature of the violation.”
Rosenthal was convicted of passing on non-public information while he was an accountant at PricewaterhouseCoopers. According to the SEC, Rosenthal, who was attending NYU’s Stern School of Business part time when the alleged infractions occurred, was part of an insider-trading circle with his father and two brothers.
Zvi Rosenthal, the father, was charged with passing tips on his employer, Taro Pharmaceuticals, to his sons. The tips were used to trade Taro shares through Aragon Capital Advisors, a Rosenthal family-owned and controlled hedge fund.
Haiti parents testify they gave kids to Americans
By KIRSTEN JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer Kirsten Johnson, Associated Press Writer
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Parents of some of the children who 10 U.S. missionaries tried to take out of Haiti after its catastrophic earthquake told a judge Tuesday that they freely handed over their kids, the Americans' lawyer said.
The parents' testimony means no law was broken and "we can't talk any more about trafficking of human beings," attorney Aviol Fleurant told reporters.
He said he was confident the judge will dismiss the case.
Nine of the Americans, most from an Idaho church group, have now been interviewed by the judge, who is to decide whether they will stand trial. The judge did not speak with reporters.
Flaurent said the Americans would be back in court Wednesday. One of them, Jim Allen of Amarillo, Texas, was represented by a separate lawyer Tuesday.
The Americans were charged with kidnapping and criminal association last week for trying to take 33 children into the neighboring Dominican Republic on Jan. 29 without proper documentation.
The Baptist missionaries say they were heading to a Dominican orphanage following Haiti's devastating quake, and had only good intentions.
Their leader, Laura Silsby of Meridian, Idaho, told The Associated Press the day after their arrest that the children were obtained from orphanages and distant relatives.
However, the parents of some of the children told the AP last week that they turned their youngsters over to the group. The parents said did so willingly after the missionaries promised the kids would be educated and relatives could visit them.
Silsby was the only American not to appear in court Tuesday.
The lawyer who represented the missionaries until last week said that Silsby deceived the rest of the group about having proper paperwork and that everyone but her should go free.
The Americans' original Haitian lawyer was fired late Friday. The Dominican attorney who had hired him claimed the Haitian attempted to bribe the detainees' way out of jail without their knowledge. The Haitian lawyer denied that.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Parents of some of the children who 10 U.S. missionaries tried to take out of Haiti after its catastrophic earthquake told a judge Tuesday that they freely handed over their kids, the Americans' lawyer said.
The parents' testimony means no law was broken and "we can't talk any more about trafficking of human beings," attorney Aviol Fleurant told reporters.
He said he was confident the judge will dismiss the case.
Nine of the Americans, most from an Idaho church group, have now been interviewed by the judge, who is to decide whether they will stand trial. The judge did not speak with reporters.
Flaurent said the Americans would be back in court Wednesday. One of them, Jim Allen of Amarillo, Texas, was represented by a separate lawyer Tuesday.
The Americans were charged with kidnapping and criminal association last week for trying to take 33 children into the neighboring Dominican Republic on Jan. 29 without proper documentation.
The Baptist missionaries say they were heading to a Dominican orphanage following Haiti's devastating quake, and had only good intentions.
Their leader, Laura Silsby of Meridian, Idaho, told The Associated Press the day after their arrest that the children were obtained from orphanages and distant relatives.
However, the parents of some of the children told the AP last week that they turned their youngsters over to the group. The parents said did so willingly after the missionaries promised the kids would be educated and relatives could visit them.
Silsby was the only American not to appear in court Tuesday.
The lawyer who represented the missionaries until last week said that Silsby deceived the rest of the group about having proper paperwork and that everyone but her should go free.
The Americans' original Haitian lawyer was fired late Friday. The Dominican attorney who had hired him claimed the Haitian attempted to bribe the detainees' way out of jail without their knowledge. The Haitian lawyer denied that.
THE FUTURE OF WORK-AT-HOME
'Future of Work' predicts jobs and home life will merge more
By Seth Brown, Special for USA TODAY
The line between work and home is disappearing, says former Financial Times columnist Richard Donkin in his new book.
"We don't stop living when we go to work and, very often today, we don't stop working when we arrive home."
Technology has merged our working and personal lives, creating a more unified experience described in The Future of Work.
"If the computer screen is not yet the Big Brother of George Orwell's 1984, along with invasive accomplices like the BlackBerry and iPhone, it may be seen as a kind of tolerated Little Brother, ever tugging at our sleeves for attention," Donkin writes.
Donkin opens the book by recounting his experience at a funeral, where a colleague was checking his BlackBerry, a reminder that today, people can work anywhere, at any time.
What will be the key influences on the future of work and the workers of tomorrow?
Donkin lists several, including:
Commoditization.
Standardization has turned the fulfilling work of the artisan into the cheerless repetitive job of the factory worker. Most businesses have closed systems and rigid policies and have "removed the discretion that allows people either to use their initiative or to impose their personalities and style on a job."
Work is here to stay, but it isn't working well. "People deserve better," Donkin writes.
Demographics.
In 2011, the oldest Baby Boomers will turn 65, heralding the biggest retirement wave ever, which will be about 79 million in total.
In the past, people rarely retired early. Donkin suggests that older workers continue working longer. "To be working full-on one day and finding oneself in retirement the next is simply not natural," he writes, calling for a gradual transition into part-time work.
Companies are often hesitant to hire aging employees, but a U.K. Department of Trade and Industry study showed that older workers were as productive as younger ones, and often had better attendance records and lower stress.
Health.
The World Health Organization foresees more unhealthy workers, predicting that diabetes deaths will rise 50% in the next decade and that global obesity levels will skyrocket. Companies can save millions by proactively caring for workers. British Telecom launched health initiatives in 2005, leading to a 33% decline in workers using sick days, saving $48 million annually.
Separately, studies show that working more than 55 hours a week can cause stress and mental decline, a sure threat to productivity of companies demanding long hours from workers.
Women in the workplace.
Many of America's low-paid jobs, such as cashiers and cleaners, are done primarily by women. In contrast, research published by Catalyst in 2004 found that Fortune 500 companies with the highest percentage of women in top management or on the board significantly outperformed companies with the lowest percentage of women in those roles.
Technology.
British Telecom let 600 workers begin working from home in 1998. Today, 6,600 workers telecommute, saving the company $58 million.
Social interaction in the workplace is changing with the times, moving away from the water cooler to social-networking sites such as Facebook. The result is deeper engagement with workplace peers and a rise in what Donkin calls "presenteeism."
The Net Generation.
A 2008 study found that young people's highest priority in a job was meaningful work. What's more, more than half of Internet-savvy youth in North America prefer to work outside the office and work flexible hours. Most jobs do not offer that option.
The blurry line between home and office makes it important for employers to embrace the idea of "human capital," a concept Donkin knows well. In 2005 in the United Kingdom, he helped launch the Human Capital Standards Group.
That organization measures how human resources management affects bottom-line performance.
As the workplace evolves, the task of managing human capital will become more important for companies, spurring them to show greater concern for the human component of business.
"Just as there is a greed for money in today's society," Donkin writes, "there is a greed for people. Business must learn to share their people. Companies do not own the lives of their employees."
Donkin recommends more freedom for workers, advocating a 30-hour workweek, or the option of working four days (10 hours each, if necessary) and taking Fridays off.
Near the end of the book, Donkin digresses down a science-fiction path, offering a bizarre vision of a quasi-utopian future in which everyone is connected through a ubiquitous "Wall."
Still, Donkin writes convincingly about the future of work and makes persuasive arguments for why change is needed. Most of the arguments are not new, but since they've gone largely unheeded by the business sector at large, their restatement seems worthwhile.
By Seth Brown, Special for USA TODAY
The line between work and home is disappearing, says former Financial Times columnist Richard Donkin in his new book.
"We don't stop living when we go to work and, very often today, we don't stop working when we arrive home."
Technology has merged our working and personal lives, creating a more unified experience described in The Future of Work.
"If the computer screen is not yet the Big Brother of George Orwell's 1984, along with invasive accomplices like the BlackBerry and iPhone, it may be seen as a kind of tolerated Little Brother, ever tugging at our sleeves for attention," Donkin writes.
Donkin opens the book by recounting his experience at a funeral, where a colleague was checking his BlackBerry, a reminder that today, people can work anywhere, at any time.
What will be the key influences on the future of work and the workers of tomorrow?
Donkin lists several, including:
Commoditization.
Standardization has turned the fulfilling work of the artisan into the cheerless repetitive job of the factory worker. Most businesses have closed systems and rigid policies and have "removed the discretion that allows people either to use their initiative or to impose their personalities and style on a job."
Work is here to stay, but it isn't working well. "People deserve better," Donkin writes.
Demographics.
In 2011, the oldest Baby Boomers will turn 65, heralding the biggest retirement wave ever, which will be about 79 million in total.
In the past, people rarely retired early. Donkin suggests that older workers continue working longer. "To be working full-on one day and finding oneself in retirement the next is simply not natural," he writes, calling for a gradual transition into part-time work.
Companies are often hesitant to hire aging employees, but a U.K. Department of Trade and Industry study showed that older workers were as productive as younger ones, and often had better attendance records and lower stress.
Health.
The World Health Organization foresees more unhealthy workers, predicting that diabetes deaths will rise 50% in the next decade and that global obesity levels will skyrocket. Companies can save millions by proactively caring for workers. British Telecom launched health initiatives in 2005, leading to a 33% decline in workers using sick days, saving $48 million annually.
Separately, studies show that working more than 55 hours a week can cause stress and mental decline, a sure threat to productivity of companies demanding long hours from workers.
Women in the workplace.
Many of America's low-paid jobs, such as cashiers and cleaners, are done primarily by women. In contrast, research published by Catalyst in 2004 found that Fortune 500 companies with the highest percentage of women in top management or on the board significantly outperformed companies with the lowest percentage of women in those roles.
Technology.
British Telecom let 600 workers begin working from home in 1998. Today, 6,600 workers telecommute, saving the company $58 million.
Social interaction in the workplace is changing with the times, moving away from the water cooler to social-networking sites such as Facebook. The result is deeper engagement with workplace peers and a rise in what Donkin calls "presenteeism."
The Net Generation.
A 2008 study found that young people's highest priority in a job was meaningful work. What's more, more than half of Internet-savvy youth in North America prefer to work outside the office and work flexible hours. Most jobs do not offer that option.
The blurry line between home and office makes it important for employers to embrace the idea of "human capital," a concept Donkin knows well. In 2005 in the United Kingdom, he helped launch the Human Capital Standards Group.
That organization measures how human resources management affects bottom-line performance.
As the workplace evolves, the task of managing human capital will become more important for companies, spurring them to show greater concern for the human component of business.
"Just as there is a greed for money in today's society," Donkin writes, "there is a greed for people. Business must learn to share their people. Companies do not own the lives of their employees."
Donkin recommends more freedom for workers, advocating a 30-hour workweek, or the option of working four days (10 hours each, if necessary) and taking Fridays off.
Near the end of the book, Donkin digresses down a science-fiction path, offering a bizarre vision of a quasi-utopian future in which everyone is connected through a ubiquitous "Wall."
Still, Donkin writes convincingly about the future of work and makes persuasive arguments for why change is needed. Most of the arguments are not new, but since they've gone largely unheeded by the business sector at large, their restatement seems worthwhile.
MBA Job Outlook Improving
By Alison Damas
Recruiters are skittish and the job market is more competitive than ever, but career services directors say this year may be the year of the turnaround
This year's class of MBAs arrived on campus in September expecting a challenging fall recruiting season and now many are bracing themselves for an even tougher spring ahead. One of them is Aashini Shah, an MBA student looking for a job in the entertainment industry, who is feeling the pressure because most movie studios and entertainment companies don't hire until the spring. To get an edge, she's spent every spare moment she has networking with alumni, going on informational interviews, and keeping in touch with the contacts she made last summer, she says.
"It is slightly nerve-wracking now in the sense that there are only going to be so many positions available and that there are many people from the class of '09 that are still unemployed," says Shah, 29, a second-year student at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business (Marshall Full-Time MBA Profile), who interned at Disney (DIS) last summer. "Not only will you be vying with your own classmates, but you are vying with the class behind you for the same job."
With uncertainty about the economic recovery looming, students trying to secure full-time offers are entering a job climate that looks eerily similar to last year's brutal MBA job market, career services officers say. Compounding the problem, fewer second-year students came back this fall with full-time job offers from their internships, they say, making an already tight job market even more competitive. This fall, recruiters continued to shy away from campus and many are being cautious about hiring, according to a recent survey of 78 business schools by the MBA Career Services Council (MBA CSC), the umbrella group for business school career placement officers. Recruiting remains down, with 79% of schools reporting a decline in on-campus recruiting for full-time MBA jobs in the fall of 2009, the same number as the previous year. To assist students, career services officers are using many of the same tactics they used last year to dig up jobs. They're cold-calling recruiters, adding executives in residence to counsel MBAs, and tapping into alumni networks. Meanwhile, they're preparing students to seize on what they believe could be a last-minute flood of job opportunities that they expect will emerge closer to graduation.
Encouraging Signs
At the same time, there are a number of signs that the MBA job market could improve, albeit slightly, in the coming months and a growing sense of optimism prevails among career services officers, says Kip Harrell, president of the MBA CSC. According to his group's survey, full-time MBA job postings appear to be rebounding; 34% of schools reported an increase in full-time postings this fall. And, perhaps even more important, fewer schools are reporting declines, with 48% of schools seeing a reduction in full-time postings, as compared with 70% of schools last year.
The still-shaky job market is a bitter pill for many MBA students, who came to B-school 18 months ago in the hope that the recession would be long gone by graduation and are now finding that it isn't. The surge in B-school applications at the start of the downturn was one of the biggest on record, as many fled the uncertainty of the job market for what they viewed as a surefire career boost and six-figure salary. Today, that all seems like a cruel joke, but on campus a fragile optimism prevails. "We are seeing signs that the economy is turning around, so the mood at business schools now is that everyone is waiting with lots of hope," says Harrell.
Another bright spot is that internship opportunities for first-year students may be bouncing back. In the survey by the MBA CSC, 31% of career services officers say they expect internship recruiting activity to be down, while 33% expect it to be up and 36% expect it to be flat. Last year at this time, 62% of career services officers said they expected internship activity to be down.
"It is definitely an improvement over last year," says Harrell, vice-president for professional and career management at the Thunderbird School of Global Management (Thunderbird Full-Time MBA Profile). "We do expect the internship process to run longer than usual this year, with some just-in-time internships coming up going into the summer."
Many first-year students came into business school this fall anticipating that it would be difficult to land an internship, says Joyce Rothenberg, director of the Career Management Center at Vanderbilt University's Owen Graduate School of Management (Owen Full-Time MBA Profile). With fewer recruiters visiting campus, she encouraged her first-year students to attend national MBA conferences this fall, venues where they would get exposure to a larger cohort of companies. Some students decided to take her advice; she had a group of 25 first-year students go to the National Society of Hispanic MBAs Conference this fall, some of whom were able to secure job leads and internship offers, she says.
"I think my first-year students were expecting it to be tough, so they've been more creative about their internship searches," she says.
"Cautiously Optimistic"
On the full-time job front, career services officers say they are encouraged by small signs of progress. Michelle Antonio, director of MBA career management at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School (Wharton Full-Time MBA Profile), says she has seen double-digit growth in off-campus job postings on the school's job board, despite a slight decline in the number of employers that came to campus this fall. Another encouraging sign? More second-year students appear to have accepted full-time job offers now than last year at this time; of those, many have come from on-campus recruiting opportunities, she notes.
"I think it definitely looks and feels healthier than it did last year," she says. "I'm cautiously optimistic that come spring, things will look better than they did last year."
At the Marshall School, on-campus recruiting has been down about 15% to 20% so far this academic year, says Pete Giulioni, executive director of Marshall's Keenan MBA Career Resource Center. With tighter budgets, some recruiters are taking a different approach to finding talent, he says. For example, rather than come to campus, recruiters with openings are calling him directly and asking him to send them a package of student résumés.
"The spigot hasn't been turned off, so to speak, but employers are being much more cautious and very deliberate about their hiring and hiring patterns," he says.
Ken Keeley, executive director of the Career Opportunities Center at Carnegie Mellon's Tepper School of Business (Tepper Full-Time MBA Profile), has been keeping a close eye on the MBA hiring scene. He runs a program on his computer every Friday that tracks job and internship placement figures for students. As of Jan. 22, there were 71 companies that made full-time offers to second-year MBA students, the same number as last year, Keeley says. But of this year's second-year class, 44% have received job offers, down from 61% last year, said Keeley, noting that those numbers are slightly skewed because this year's graduating MBA class has 43 additional students.
"We've Hit the Employment Bottom"
Meanwhile, starting salaries are down slightly, with offers now averaging $103,382, down about $700 from last year. Says Keeley: "My take would be that we've hit the employment bottom, unless something dramatically changes in the next few months."
Like many career services officers, he's expecting that there will be more recruiters who will want to interview students come March and April. And he's aggressively taking steps to ensure that students get a chance to meet with them, organizing the school's first-ever spring break career fairs in New York and San Francisco this March.
"We're going to try to capture some of that just-in-time recruiting activity by going back to the New York and West Coast markets on our own," he says. "There will still be a lot of good students available in March, April, and May, so we are going to make it as easy as possible for companies that might want to recruit students."
Career services directors' hunches may not be so far off. Nearly 70% of MBA recruiters expect that their business will improve in 2010, according to a recent survey of 317 employers conducted by the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), which administers the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT). Meanwhile, more than one-third of employers, 35%, said they plan to hire more recent MBA graduates in 2010 than they did in 2009, while 45% say they plan to hire the same number of MBAs this year and only 20% say they expect to reduce MBA hiring. A year ago, the estimates were far more downbeat, with only 19% of employers surveyed by GMAC predicting an increase in MBA hiring.
Busy Spring Expected
Recruiters say they are in the midst of finalizing their employment projections for the year, but many expect a busy spring hiring season ahead.
Susan Shald, director of talent sourcing for Gallup Inc.'s consulting division, says she expects her firm to continue to hire MBA students this spring, especially in key areas like business development. While the firm has cut back on some "less significant campus visits" in the last year, she says she's moving forward with plans to visit several schools this spring, including the Marshall School, the University of California at Berkeley's Haas School of Business (Haas Full-Time MBA Profile) and the UCLA Anderson School of Management (Anderson Full-Time MBA Profile).
"I think the fall was a bit tighter, but I am seeing things pick up a bit. We are seeing an increase in need for our services and, as a result, we have more postings," she says.
Ann Nowak, director of recruiting for professional programs at Liberty Mutual Group Inc. (LMG), the policyholder-owned property and casualty insurer, says her company is also still hiring, but that the competition for the company's openings is stiff. Unlike some recruiters, Nowak says she has not cut back on her recruiting schedule at all this year. Rather, she has used this fall's quiet recruiting season as an opportunity to introduce more students to her company and, as a result, has done more work with the company's core schools.
"We have more opportunities, but the flip side is that we are seeing a tremendous uptick in the number of applications for positions," says Nowak, noting that her company is receiving about 1,000 résumés a day for job openings, up from 350 a day last year. "MBA students have always had to be really good, but now you have to be even better in how you approach the company."
Staying on Recruiters' Radar
That's advice that many MBA students still looking for jobs are taking seriously as they continue their job hunts. Christopher McFall, a second-year MBA student at the Wharton School, is looking for a job in the real estate industry, a sector that has been particularly hard-hit by the economic downturn. He was able to secure a paid internship at a real estate firm in New York last summer—most of his peers had to take unpaid ones—but did not receive a full-time offer after the internship.
Most real estate companies don't hire until the spring, so he has been trying to stay on recruiters' radar in the meantime, says McFall, co-president of Wharton's Real Estate Club. He typically goes to New York at least twice a month to meet with companies, and last week attended a real estate career fair on campus. There were about 40 to 50 recruiters at the fair, down from last year's 70. Many of the recruiters encouraged him to keep in touch, but told him they are not hiring yet; others said they were still not clear on their needs.
Despite the uncertainty, McFall says he is still determined to pursue his dream job—as an acquisition manager at a large property owner—even if it takes him a little longer than he'd like.
"I would say I have good days where I feel great about what I'm doing and I have bad days when I wake up and think about all my friends who have concrete plans for next year and panic a little bit," he says. "But the more I talk with people and the more meetings I have with professionals in my industry, the better I feel about waiting it out."
Recruiters are skittish and the job market is more competitive than ever, but career services directors say this year may be the year of the turnaround
This year's class of MBAs arrived on campus in September expecting a challenging fall recruiting season and now many are bracing themselves for an even tougher spring ahead. One of them is Aashini Shah, an MBA student looking for a job in the entertainment industry, who is feeling the pressure because most movie studios and entertainment companies don't hire until the spring. To get an edge, she's spent every spare moment she has networking with alumni, going on informational interviews, and keeping in touch with the contacts she made last summer, she says.
"It is slightly nerve-wracking now in the sense that there are only going to be so many positions available and that there are many people from the class of '09 that are still unemployed," says Shah, 29, a second-year student at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business (Marshall Full-Time MBA Profile), who interned at Disney (DIS) last summer. "Not only will you be vying with your own classmates, but you are vying with the class behind you for the same job."
With uncertainty about the economic recovery looming, students trying to secure full-time offers are entering a job climate that looks eerily similar to last year's brutal MBA job market, career services officers say. Compounding the problem, fewer second-year students came back this fall with full-time job offers from their internships, they say, making an already tight job market even more competitive. This fall, recruiters continued to shy away from campus and many are being cautious about hiring, according to a recent survey of 78 business schools by the MBA Career Services Council (MBA CSC), the umbrella group for business school career placement officers. Recruiting remains down, with 79% of schools reporting a decline in on-campus recruiting for full-time MBA jobs in the fall of 2009, the same number as the previous year. To assist students, career services officers are using many of the same tactics they used last year to dig up jobs. They're cold-calling recruiters, adding executives in residence to counsel MBAs, and tapping into alumni networks. Meanwhile, they're preparing students to seize on what they believe could be a last-minute flood of job opportunities that they expect will emerge closer to graduation.
Encouraging Signs
At the same time, there are a number of signs that the MBA job market could improve, albeit slightly, in the coming months and a growing sense of optimism prevails among career services officers, says Kip Harrell, president of the MBA CSC. According to his group's survey, full-time MBA job postings appear to be rebounding; 34% of schools reported an increase in full-time postings this fall. And, perhaps even more important, fewer schools are reporting declines, with 48% of schools seeing a reduction in full-time postings, as compared with 70% of schools last year.
The still-shaky job market is a bitter pill for many MBA students, who came to B-school 18 months ago in the hope that the recession would be long gone by graduation and are now finding that it isn't. The surge in B-school applications at the start of the downturn was one of the biggest on record, as many fled the uncertainty of the job market for what they viewed as a surefire career boost and six-figure salary. Today, that all seems like a cruel joke, but on campus a fragile optimism prevails. "We are seeing signs that the economy is turning around, so the mood at business schools now is that everyone is waiting with lots of hope," says Harrell.
Another bright spot is that internship opportunities for first-year students may be bouncing back. In the survey by the MBA CSC, 31% of career services officers say they expect internship recruiting activity to be down, while 33% expect it to be up and 36% expect it to be flat. Last year at this time, 62% of career services officers said they expected internship activity to be down.
"It is definitely an improvement over last year," says Harrell, vice-president for professional and career management at the Thunderbird School of Global Management (Thunderbird Full-Time MBA Profile). "We do expect the internship process to run longer than usual this year, with some just-in-time internships coming up going into the summer."
Many first-year students came into business school this fall anticipating that it would be difficult to land an internship, says Joyce Rothenberg, director of the Career Management Center at Vanderbilt University's Owen Graduate School of Management (Owen Full-Time MBA Profile). With fewer recruiters visiting campus, she encouraged her first-year students to attend national MBA conferences this fall, venues where they would get exposure to a larger cohort of companies. Some students decided to take her advice; she had a group of 25 first-year students go to the National Society of Hispanic MBAs Conference this fall, some of whom were able to secure job leads and internship offers, she says.
"I think my first-year students were expecting it to be tough, so they've been more creative about their internship searches," she says.
"Cautiously Optimistic"
On the full-time job front, career services officers say they are encouraged by small signs of progress. Michelle Antonio, director of MBA career management at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School (Wharton Full-Time MBA Profile), says she has seen double-digit growth in off-campus job postings on the school's job board, despite a slight decline in the number of employers that came to campus this fall. Another encouraging sign? More second-year students appear to have accepted full-time job offers now than last year at this time; of those, many have come from on-campus recruiting opportunities, she notes.
"I think it definitely looks and feels healthier than it did last year," she says. "I'm cautiously optimistic that come spring, things will look better than they did last year."
At the Marshall School, on-campus recruiting has been down about 15% to 20% so far this academic year, says Pete Giulioni, executive director of Marshall's Keenan MBA Career Resource Center. With tighter budgets, some recruiters are taking a different approach to finding talent, he says. For example, rather than come to campus, recruiters with openings are calling him directly and asking him to send them a package of student résumés.
"The spigot hasn't been turned off, so to speak, but employers are being much more cautious and very deliberate about their hiring and hiring patterns," he says.
Ken Keeley, executive director of the Career Opportunities Center at Carnegie Mellon's Tepper School of Business (Tepper Full-Time MBA Profile), has been keeping a close eye on the MBA hiring scene. He runs a program on his computer every Friday that tracks job and internship placement figures for students. As of Jan. 22, there were 71 companies that made full-time offers to second-year MBA students, the same number as last year, Keeley says. But of this year's second-year class, 44% have received job offers, down from 61% last year, said Keeley, noting that those numbers are slightly skewed because this year's graduating MBA class has 43 additional students.
"We've Hit the Employment Bottom"
Meanwhile, starting salaries are down slightly, with offers now averaging $103,382, down about $700 from last year. Says Keeley: "My take would be that we've hit the employment bottom, unless something dramatically changes in the next few months."
Like many career services officers, he's expecting that there will be more recruiters who will want to interview students come March and April. And he's aggressively taking steps to ensure that students get a chance to meet with them, organizing the school's first-ever spring break career fairs in New York and San Francisco this March.
"We're going to try to capture some of that just-in-time recruiting activity by going back to the New York and West Coast markets on our own," he says. "There will still be a lot of good students available in March, April, and May, so we are going to make it as easy as possible for companies that might want to recruit students."
Career services directors' hunches may not be so far off. Nearly 70% of MBA recruiters expect that their business will improve in 2010, according to a recent survey of 317 employers conducted by the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), which administers the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT). Meanwhile, more than one-third of employers, 35%, said they plan to hire more recent MBA graduates in 2010 than they did in 2009, while 45% say they plan to hire the same number of MBAs this year and only 20% say they expect to reduce MBA hiring. A year ago, the estimates were far more downbeat, with only 19% of employers surveyed by GMAC predicting an increase in MBA hiring.
Busy Spring Expected
Recruiters say they are in the midst of finalizing their employment projections for the year, but many expect a busy spring hiring season ahead.
Susan Shald, director of talent sourcing for Gallup Inc.'s consulting division, says she expects her firm to continue to hire MBA students this spring, especially in key areas like business development. While the firm has cut back on some "less significant campus visits" in the last year, she says she's moving forward with plans to visit several schools this spring, including the Marshall School, the University of California at Berkeley's Haas School of Business (Haas Full-Time MBA Profile) and the UCLA Anderson School of Management (Anderson Full-Time MBA Profile).
"I think the fall was a bit tighter, but I am seeing things pick up a bit. We are seeing an increase in need for our services and, as a result, we have more postings," she says.
Ann Nowak, director of recruiting for professional programs at Liberty Mutual Group Inc. (LMG), the policyholder-owned property and casualty insurer, says her company is also still hiring, but that the competition for the company's openings is stiff. Unlike some recruiters, Nowak says she has not cut back on her recruiting schedule at all this year. Rather, she has used this fall's quiet recruiting season as an opportunity to introduce more students to her company and, as a result, has done more work with the company's core schools.
"We have more opportunities, but the flip side is that we are seeing a tremendous uptick in the number of applications for positions," says Nowak, noting that her company is receiving about 1,000 résumés a day for job openings, up from 350 a day last year. "MBA students have always had to be really good, but now you have to be even better in how you approach the company."
Staying on Recruiters' Radar
That's advice that many MBA students still looking for jobs are taking seriously as they continue their job hunts. Christopher McFall, a second-year MBA student at the Wharton School, is looking for a job in the real estate industry, a sector that has been particularly hard-hit by the economic downturn. He was able to secure a paid internship at a real estate firm in New York last summer—most of his peers had to take unpaid ones—but did not receive a full-time offer after the internship.
Most real estate companies don't hire until the spring, so he has been trying to stay on recruiters' radar in the meantime, says McFall, co-president of Wharton's Real Estate Club. He typically goes to New York at least twice a month to meet with companies, and last week attended a real estate career fair on campus. There were about 40 to 50 recruiters at the fair, down from last year's 70. Many of the recruiters encouraged him to keep in touch, but told him they are not hiring yet; others said they were still not clear on their needs.
Despite the uncertainty, McFall says he is still determined to pursue his dream job—as an acquisition manager at a large property owner—even if it takes him a little longer than he'd like.
"I would say I have good days where I feel great about what I'm doing and I have bad days when I wake up and think about all my friends who have concrete plans for next year and panic a little bit," he says. "But the more I talk with people and the more meetings I have with professionals in my industry, the better I feel about waiting it out."
The price of working abroad
MANILA, Philippines--I believe there is another kind of calamity that has been causing more havoc upon the lives of millions of Filipinos both here and abroad than the natural calamities that visit the Philippines regularly. It has been going on for four decades starting in the early '70s when our countrymen started to leave their land, their homes, and loved ones for greener pastures overseas.
It has made millions of children virtually orphans as they are left by one or both of their parents for jobs abroad; and spouses virtually widows or widowers. This different kind of calamity has a name: The Filipino diaspora. It has put to naught the biblical fiat that no one should put asunder the marriage of man and woman inasmuch as overseas employment has been relentlessly causing the erosion and break-up of thousands of marriages and families.
Absence, it is said, makes one's heart grow fonder. But more often, insofar as innumerable OFWs are concerned, absence makes their heart grow fonder for fellow OFWs. The same is true of hundreds of spouses left in the home front who, out of sheer loneliness for their absent spouses, become vulnerable to temptations.
Hence marriages, treated by our Civil Code as an “inviolable institution” and by the Catholic Church and other religions as a “sacrament,” have been crumbling continually for decades now and there's no sign of its letting up.
OFW Family Club
The OFW Family Club which I and my family organized eight years ago as a support group for OFWs and families, has a subgroup known as the Kinalasan, acronym for the Kababaihang Iniwan Na ng mga Lalaking Sumama sa ibang Nililiyag. It was founded by my wife Minerva. It has in its roster OFW wives and children who have virtually become widows and orphans after they have been abandoned by their husbands and fathers.
The club has a group of volunteer lawyers headed by Roger Evasco and Jose Maronilla who assist the members for free in filing claims for support with the courts. We have been busy in the club writing to ambassadors and labor attachés to locate OFW husbands and fathers overseas to remind them of their statutory obligations to provide financial support to their families.
The Kinalasan is now headed by Jovielyn, an abandoned wife with two children whose husband is a hotel worker in Macau. With the help of the club, she now receives a monthly allowance from her estranged husband who lives with another OFW in Macau. Jovielyn is actively assisted by her fellow “abandonados” in playing the role of “cheerers” or “morale supporters” to fellow Kinalasan members, such as Noraida.
Broken marriage
Noraida has her own sad story to tell. Sometime in 2003, her husband Karim went to Jeddah to work as an aircon technician. Later, Noraida also found work in Doha as a housemaid. Her Qatari employer raped and impregnated her and sent her home while her pregnancy was not yet obvious. Later, she gave birth to a black-skinned boy with Arab features. Her husband understood her helpless situation and forgave her. Noraida gave birth to two more kids of their own.
But eventually Karim found another woman in Jeddah for whom he built a home in Antipolo, Rizal. The club threatened Karim with a lawsuit constraining him to settle with Noraida with a monthly support that is so meager, Noraida laments, she had to seek regular help from her sister.
Gov't clueless
The devastation wrought by the diaspora is aggravated by a government that is clueless about what it is supposed to do to come to the rescue of the OFWs and the loved ones they leave behind. It is a government that is as clueless as it was about what to do when “Ondoy” and “Pepeng” relieved themselves of unwanted floodwaters upon our land.
The question now is, can we rely on this government to come to the rescue of the OFWs in the face of the unceasing devastations that they are being subjected to?
We do not talk merely of their painful separation from their loved ones; of marriages being broken; of employment contracts being brazenly violated by employers. We have to talk, more urgently, of countless of rapes being committed on a daily basis upon our hapless women, especially those who work as domestic helpers in millions of households of complete strangers.
Many of them are back in the Philippines like Jovielyn and Noraida, doing their best to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives. Many have gone mad, many have gone six feet below the ground with the untold stories of their harrowing experiences. In the files of the club are countless of sad stories about OFWs. They are open to everyone who may be interested to research or to lend a helping hand.
OFW profile
Of the eight million OFWs, there are one million professionals such as doctors, engineers, architects, nurses, seafarers, and others; two million skilled like master mechanics, electricians, carpenters; three million semi-skilled like hotel workers, restaurant waiters, and others; two million domestic helpers, caregivers, and others.
The two million domestic helpers are females. They are the ones who, by the very environment of their jobs, are highly vulnerable to all sorts of abuses, from non-payment or underpayment of salaries, to physical and verbal abuse, acts of lasciviousness, and worse, rapes. The abusers, criminals as they are, do not discriminate whether the victims of their bestial instincts are virgins or not; married or unmarried; teeners or in their 40s; Christians or Muslims or neither.
I was labor attaché to the United Arab Emirates from 1983 to 1989. At the time, the total population of Filipino domestic helpers in the UAE was only 15,000 out of a total population of only 80,000. The total worldwide at the time was only five million. At any given day during my watch, the number of runaway housemaids that I sheltered in my family's three-bedroom apartment averaged 10.
Millions of maids
After solving the problems of some of them, others would take their place. At present, the population of Filipino domestic helpers in the UAE has sextupled to 100,000 out of a total population of 300,000. The total number of domestic helpers worldwide in 1989 was only half a million as compared to today's total of two million.
Last June, former President Joseph Estrada asked me to accompany him, former Senator Loi Estrada and their son, Senator Jinggoy Estrada to Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Kuwait. I was with the three when they visited and donated plane tickets to runaway housemaids at the OWWA centers there. There were 120 runaway housemaids in Abu Dhabi, 130 in Dubai, and 160 in Kuwait. The number of runaway maids has obviously grown by leaps and bounds.
Out of the 10 domestic helpers who sought shelter in my apartment when I was labor attaché, an average of three complained of rape, and two of attempted rape or acts of lasciviousness. The rest complained of breach of contract, physical abuse. Most rape victims would ask not to file a complaint with the police for fear that the Filipino community would get wind of it and their husbands, parents, or neighbors back home would come to know of their ordeal. They would prefer to keep their suffering to themselves.
Sex perverts
It is difficult to extrapolate from the number of those who were victims of rape during my time as labor attaché to arrive at the current number now of Filipinos all over the world who have become victims of rape.
But considering that there are now two million domestic helpers out there in the world toiling inside the confines of employers' households as compared to only half a million in 1989, it is reasonable to conclude that hundreds are being raped or sexually harassed every day, but still choose to just keep their agony to themselves until they die. Not a few employers consider their housemaids as chattels or as members of their harem.
This government, wittingly or unwittingly, has been playing the role of providers of the insatiable sexual appetites of rapists and perverts all over the world.
The law is clear. Section 27 of Republic Act No. 8042, otherwise known as the Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act, says: “The protection of the Filipino migrant workers and the promotion of their welfare, in particular, and the protection of the dignity and fundamental rights and freedoms of the Filipino citizens abroad, in general, shall be the highest priority concerns of the secretary of foreign affairs and the Philippine foreign service posts.” The other two concerns of the Department of Foreign Affairs are: economic diplomacy and furtherance of national security.
Romulo's role
Notwithstanding the clear mandate of our DFA, we have a foreign secretary in the person of Alberto Romulo who is apparently clueless about his role as the vicar of Philippine foreign policy. It is of public knowledge that it is Vice President Noli de Castro who is playing out Romulo's role insofar as the OFWs are concerned.
Who makes the pronouncements every time an OFW is about to be executed? Who gives out instructions for the rescue of kidnapped Filipino seafarers in Somalia and other crises involving OFWs? It has always been Noli de Castro. But the man's background and experience have never been honed toward the conduct of foreign policy and service. Unlike Romulo, the man has not gone through the burning furnace of the Commission on Appointments to determine whether or not he has the competence to venture into the realm of our country's “highest priority concerns” in foreign affairs.
We fervently wish this government shed itself off its affliction and issue forthwith several directives in line with Section 27 of Republic Act 8042: One, to issue an executive order requiring ambassadors to exercise the extraordinary diligence of a good father of a family in overseeing the welfare and protection of OFWs in their host countries. Their job performance should be measured on how true and dedicated they and their subordinates are in discharging their roles as surrogate fathers and substitute families of the OFWs; two, the government must likewise put more teeth to the citizens' arrest law by requiring the police to swiftly come to the assistance of victims of illegal recruitment who decide to arrest on the spot their illegal recruiters; three, the government should authorize ambassadors and consuls to withhold approval or cancel the passports of irresponsible OFW husbands and fathers until they resume their support to their dependents;
Four, using its profound power and influence upon every sector in society, the government should prod big businesses, especially those who have tremendously benefited from OFW remittances like Henry Sy's SM, Lucio Tan's airlines, the Ayalas and the Villars, Gotianum's real estate conglomerates, Manny Pangilinan's and the Indonesians' PLDT, Globe's, and the Lhuillier's remittance companies and other banks owned by Tans, Sys, Yuchengcos, to contribute to a private fund that will underwrite the education of children who have been orphaned by the death of their fathers or mothers overseas;
SSS coverage
Five, the government must acknowledge in more concrete terms the major OFW contributions to the economy by placing them under the coverage of the Social Security System to enable them to avail of a loan, and most especially, its retirement benefits. The government must play the role of being their “surrogate” employer by paying the counterpart amount that employers in the Philippines are normally required to pay;
It has made millions of children virtually orphans as they are left by one or both of their parents for jobs abroad; and spouses virtually widows or widowers. This different kind of calamity has a name: The Filipino diaspora. It has put to naught the biblical fiat that no one should put asunder the marriage of man and woman inasmuch as overseas employment has been relentlessly causing the erosion and break-up of thousands of marriages and families.
Absence, it is said, makes one's heart grow fonder. But more often, insofar as innumerable OFWs are concerned, absence makes their heart grow fonder for fellow OFWs. The same is true of hundreds of spouses left in the home front who, out of sheer loneliness for their absent spouses, become vulnerable to temptations.
Hence marriages, treated by our Civil Code as an “inviolable institution” and by the Catholic Church and other religions as a “sacrament,” have been crumbling continually for decades now and there's no sign of its letting up.
OFW Family Club
The OFW Family Club which I and my family organized eight years ago as a support group for OFWs and families, has a subgroup known as the Kinalasan, acronym for the Kababaihang Iniwan Na ng mga Lalaking Sumama sa ibang Nililiyag. It was founded by my wife Minerva. It has in its roster OFW wives and children who have virtually become widows and orphans after they have been abandoned by their husbands and fathers.
The club has a group of volunteer lawyers headed by Roger Evasco and Jose Maronilla who assist the members for free in filing claims for support with the courts. We have been busy in the club writing to ambassadors and labor attachés to locate OFW husbands and fathers overseas to remind them of their statutory obligations to provide financial support to their families.
The Kinalasan is now headed by Jovielyn, an abandoned wife with two children whose husband is a hotel worker in Macau. With the help of the club, she now receives a monthly allowance from her estranged husband who lives with another OFW in Macau. Jovielyn is actively assisted by her fellow “abandonados” in playing the role of “cheerers” or “morale supporters” to fellow Kinalasan members, such as Noraida.
Broken marriage
Noraida has her own sad story to tell. Sometime in 2003, her husband Karim went to Jeddah to work as an aircon technician. Later, Noraida also found work in Doha as a housemaid. Her Qatari employer raped and impregnated her and sent her home while her pregnancy was not yet obvious. Later, she gave birth to a black-skinned boy with Arab features. Her husband understood her helpless situation and forgave her. Noraida gave birth to two more kids of their own.
But eventually Karim found another woman in Jeddah for whom he built a home in Antipolo, Rizal. The club threatened Karim with a lawsuit constraining him to settle with Noraida with a monthly support that is so meager, Noraida laments, she had to seek regular help from her sister.
Gov't clueless
The devastation wrought by the diaspora is aggravated by a government that is clueless about what it is supposed to do to come to the rescue of the OFWs and the loved ones they leave behind. It is a government that is as clueless as it was about what to do when “Ondoy” and “Pepeng” relieved themselves of unwanted floodwaters upon our land.
The question now is, can we rely on this government to come to the rescue of the OFWs in the face of the unceasing devastations that they are being subjected to?
We do not talk merely of their painful separation from their loved ones; of marriages being broken; of employment contracts being brazenly violated by employers. We have to talk, more urgently, of countless of rapes being committed on a daily basis upon our hapless women, especially those who work as domestic helpers in millions of households of complete strangers.
Many of them are back in the Philippines like Jovielyn and Noraida, doing their best to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives. Many have gone mad, many have gone six feet below the ground with the untold stories of their harrowing experiences. In the files of the club are countless of sad stories about OFWs. They are open to everyone who may be interested to research or to lend a helping hand.
OFW profile
Of the eight million OFWs, there are one million professionals such as doctors, engineers, architects, nurses, seafarers, and others; two million skilled like master mechanics, electricians, carpenters; three million semi-skilled like hotel workers, restaurant waiters, and others; two million domestic helpers, caregivers, and others.
The two million domestic helpers are females. They are the ones who, by the very environment of their jobs, are highly vulnerable to all sorts of abuses, from non-payment or underpayment of salaries, to physical and verbal abuse, acts of lasciviousness, and worse, rapes. The abusers, criminals as they are, do not discriminate whether the victims of their bestial instincts are virgins or not; married or unmarried; teeners or in their 40s; Christians or Muslims or neither.
I was labor attaché to the United Arab Emirates from 1983 to 1989. At the time, the total population of Filipino domestic helpers in the UAE was only 15,000 out of a total population of only 80,000. The total worldwide at the time was only five million. At any given day during my watch, the number of runaway housemaids that I sheltered in my family's three-bedroom apartment averaged 10.
Millions of maids
After solving the problems of some of them, others would take their place. At present, the population of Filipino domestic helpers in the UAE has sextupled to 100,000 out of a total population of 300,000. The total number of domestic helpers worldwide in 1989 was only half a million as compared to today's total of two million.
Last June, former President Joseph Estrada asked me to accompany him, former Senator Loi Estrada and their son, Senator Jinggoy Estrada to Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Kuwait. I was with the three when they visited and donated plane tickets to runaway housemaids at the OWWA centers there. There were 120 runaway housemaids in Abu Dhabi, 130 in Dubai, and 160 in Kuwait. The number of runaway maids has obviously grown by leaps and bounds.
Out of the 10 domestic helpers who sought shelter in my apartment when I was labor attaché, an average of three complained of rape, and two of attempted rape or acts of lasciviousness. The rest complained of breach of contract, physical abuse. Most rape victims would ask not to file a complaint with the police for fear that the Filipino community would get wind of it and their husbands, parents, or neighbors back home would come to know of their ordeal. They would prefer to keep their suffering to themselves.
Sex perverts
It is difficult to extrapolate from the number of those who were victims of rape during my time as labor attaché to arrive at the current number now of Filipinos all over the world who have become victims of rape.
But considering that there are now two million domestic helpers out there in the world toiling inside the confines of employers' households as compared to only half a million in 1989, it is reasonable to conclude that hundreds are being raped or sexually harassed every day, but still choose to just keep their agony to themselves until they die. Not a few employers consider their housemaids as chattels or as members of their harem.
This government, wittingly or unwittingly, has been playing the role of providers of the insatiable sexual appetites of rapists and perverts all over the world.
The law is clear. Section 27 of Republic Act No. 8042, otherwise known as the Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act, says: “The protection of the Filipino migrant workers and the promotion of their welfare, in particular, and the protection of the dignity and fundamental rights and freedoms of the Filipino citizens abroad, in general, shall be the highest priority concerns of the secretary of foreign affairs and the Philippine foreign service posts.” The other two concerns of the Department of Foreign Affairs are: economic diplomacy and furtherance of national security.
Romulo's role
Notwithstanding the clear mandate of our DFA, we have a foreign secretary in the person of Alberto Romulo who is apparently clueless about his role as the vicar of Philippine foreign policy. It is of public knowledge that it is Vice President Noli de Castro who is playing out Romulo's role insofar as the OFWs are concerned.
Who makes the pronouncements every time an OFW is about to be executed? Who gives out instructions for the rescue of kidnapped Filipino seafarers in Somalia and other crises involving OFWs? It has always been Noli de Castro. But the man's background and experience have never been honed toward the conduct of foreign policy and service. Unlike Romulo, the man has not gone through the burning furnace of the Commission on Appointments to determine whether or not he has the competence to venture into the realm of our country's “highest priority concerns” in foreign affairs.
We fervently wish this government shed itself off its affliction and issue forthwith several directives in line with Section 27 of Republic Act 8042: One, to issue an executive order requiring ambassadors to exercise the extraordinary diligence of a good father of a family in overseeing the welfare and protection of OFWs in their host countries. Their job performance should be measured on how true and dedicated they and their subordinates are in discharging their roles as surrogate fathers and substitute families of the OFWs; two, the government must likewise put more teeth to the citizens' arrest law by requiring the police to swiftly come to the assistance of victims of illegal recruitment who decide to arrest on the spot their illegal recruiters; three, the government should authorize ambassadors and consuls to withhold approval or cancel the passports of irresponsible OFW husbands and fathers until they resume their support to their dependents;
Four, using its profound power and influence upon every sector in society, the government should prod big businesses, especially those who have tremendously benefited from OFW remittances like Henry Sy's SM, Lucio Tan's airlines, the Ayalas and the Villars, Gotianum's real estate conglomerates, Manny Pangilinan's and the Indonesians' PLDT, Globe's, and the Lhuillier's remittance companies and other banks owned by Tans, Sys, Yuchengcos, to contribute to a private fund that will underwrite the education of children who have been orphaned by the death of their fathers or mothers overseas;
SSS coverage
Five, the government must acknowledge in more concrete terms the major OFW contributions to the economy by placing them under the coverage of the Social Security System to enable them to avail of a loan, and most especially, its retirement benefits. The government must play the role of being their “surrogate” employer by paying the counterpart amount that employers in the Philippines are normally required to pay;
10 US Baptists charged with child kidnap
By FRANK BAJAK, Associated Press Writer Frank Bajak
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Ten members of a U.S. missionary group who said they were trying to rescue 33 child victims of Haiti's devastating earthquake were charged with child kidnapping and criminal association on Thursday, their lawyer said.
Edwin Coq said after a court hearing that a judge found sufficient evidence to charge the Americans, who were arrested Friday at Haiti's border with the Dominican Republic. Coq attended Thursday's hearing and represents the entire group in Haiti.
Group leader Laura Silsby has said they were trying to take orphans and abandoned children to an orphanage in the neighboring Dominican Republic. She acknowledged they had not sought permission from Haitian officials, but said they just meant to help victims of the quake.
The children taken from the group, ranging in age from 2 to 12, were being cared for at the Austrian-run SOS Children's Village in Port-au-Prince on Wednesday.
The U.S. citizens, most of them members of an Idaho-based church group, were whisked away from the closed court hearing to jail in Port-au-Prince, the capital. Silsby waved and smiled faintly to reporters but declined to answer questions.
Coq said that under Haiti's legal system, there won't be an open trial, but a judge will consider the evidence and could render a verdict in about three months.
Coq said a Haitian prosecutor told him the Americans were charged because they had the children in their possession. No one from the Haitian government could be reached immediately for comment.
Each kidnapping count carries a possible sentence of five to 15 years in prison. Each criminal association count has a potential sentence of three to nine years.
Coq said that nine of the 10 knew nothing about the alleged scheme, or that paperwork for the children was not in order.
"I'm going to do everything I can to get the nine out," Coq said. That would still leave mission leader Laura Silsby facing charges.
State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said in Washington the U.S. was open to discuss "other legal avenues" for the defendants — an apparent reference to the Haitian prime minister's earlier suggestion that Haiti could consider sending the Americans back to the United States for prosecution.
Several parents of the children in Callebas, a quake-wracked Haitian village near the capital, told The Associated Press Wednesday they had handed over their children willingly because they were unable to feed or clothe their children and the American missionaries promised to give them a better life.
Their accounts contradicted statements by Silsby, of Meridian, Idaho.
In a jailhouse interview Saturday, Silsby told the AP that most of the children had been delivered to the Americans by distant relatives, while some came from orphanages that had collapsed in the quake.
"They are very precious kids that have lost their homes and families and are so deeply in need of, most of all, God's love and his compassion," she said.
In Callebas, parents said a local orphanage worker, fluent in English and acting on behalf of the Baptists, had convened nearly the entire village of 500 people on a dirt soccer field to present the Americans' offer.
Isaac Adrien, 20, told his neighbors the missionaries would educate their children in the neighboring Dominican Republic, the villagers said, adding that they were also assured they would be free to visit their children there.
Many parents jumped at the offer.
Adrien said he met Silsby in Port-au-Prince on Jan. 26. She told him she was looking for homeless children, he said, and he knew exactly where to find them.
He rushed home to Callebas, where people scrape by growing carrots, peppers and onions. That very day, he had a list of 20 children.
As they loaded children onto a bus in Callebas on Jan. 28, the Americans took down contact information for all the families and assured them a relative would be able to visit them in the Dominican Republic.
The Americans' journey began last summer after Silsby and her former nanny, 24-year-old Charisa Coulter, resolved to establish an orphanage for Haitian children in the Dominican Republic. Coulter is among the jailed Americans.
They began buying up used clothing and collecting donations from their Central Valley Baptist Church in Meridian and in November, Silsby registered the New Life Children's Refuge Inc., the nonprofit organization coordinating the rescue mission. It listed the address of her now-foreclosed home in Meridian as its headquarters.
Then the quake hit. Silsby and Coulter moved into high gear, gathering donations and assembling a team to go into Haiti and urgently take out children, the younger woman's father, Mel Coulter, told the AP from his home in Kuna, Idaho.
The group packed 40 plastic bins of donated goods into a U-Haul trailer and drove to Salt Lake City on Jan. 22, where they took a flight to the Dominican Republic. They made their way to Haiti, where four days later, they were introduced to Adrien.
Adrien, who had served as the go-between and translator for the missionaries, said he had no knowledge of the group's larger plans; villagers said they were told none of their children would be offered for adoption.
A Haitian-born pastor who said he worked as an unpaid consultant for the group insisted the Baptists had done nothing wrong.
The Rev. Jean Sainvil said some of the children were orphans and might have been put up for adoption. Children with parents were to be kept in the Dominican Republic, and would not lose contact with their families, Sainvil said in Atlanta.
"Everybody agreed that they knew where the children were going. The parents were told, and we confirmed they would be allowed to see the children and even take them back if need be," he said.
Sainvil stressed that in Haiti it is not uncommon for parents who can't support their children to send them to orphanages.
Even Prime Minister Max Bellerive has said he recognized the Americans may simply have been well-meaning who believed their charitable Christian intent justified trying to remove the children from quake-crippled Haiti.
Only minutes before the charges, the Americans' Dominican lawyer, Jorge Puello, had said he expected at least nine of the 10 to be released and said he was arranging a charter flight for them from Santo Domingo, the Dominican capital.
After the Haitian lawyer's announcement, Puello could not be reached by telephone for comment.
"I'm at the airport (in Santo Domingo) and we're getting the plane ready. We're just waiting for the green light," Puello said. "I spoke to a source inside the jail — a government official — who said nine would be released but one would be held for further investigation."
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Ten members of a U.S. missionary group who said they were trying to rescue 33 child victims of Haiti's devastating earthquake were charged with child kidnapping and criminal association on Thursday, their lawyer said.
Edwin Coq said after a court hearing that a judge found sufficient evidence to charge the Americans, who were arrested Friday at Haiti's border with the Dominican Republic. Coq attended Thursday's hearing and represents the entire group in Haiti.
Group leader Laura Silsby has said they were trying to take orphans and abandoned children to an orphanage in the neighboring Dominican Republic. She acknowledged they had not sought permission from Haitian officials, but said they just meant to help victims of the quake.
The children taken from the group, ranging in age from 2 to 12, were being cared for at the Austrian-run SOS Children's Village in Port-au-Prince on Wednesday.
The U.S. citizens, most of them members of an Idaho-based church group, were whisked away from the closed court hearing to jail in Port-au-Prince, the capital. Silsby waved and smiled faintly to reporters but declined to answer questions.
Coq said that under Haiti's legal system, there won't be an open trial, but a judge will consider the evidence and could render a verdict in about three months.
Coq said a Haitian prosecutor told him the Americans were charged because they had the children in their possession. No one from the Haitian government could be reached immediately for comment.
Each kidnapping count carries a possible sentence of five to 15 years in prison. Each criminal association count has a potential sentence of three to nine years.
Coq said that nine of the 10 knew nothing about the alleged scheme, or that paperwork for the children was not in order.
"I'm going to do everything I can to get the nine out," Coq said. That would still leave mission leader Laura Silsby facing charges.
State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said in Washington the U.S. was open to discuss "other legal avenues" for the defendants — an apparent reference to the Haitian prime minister's earlier suggestion that Haiti could consider sending the Americans back to the United States for prosecution.
Several parents of the children in Callebas, a quake-wracked Haitian village near the capital, told The Associated Press Wednesday they had handed over their children willingly because they were unable to feed or clothe their children and the American missionaries promised to give them a better life.
Their accounts contradicted statements by Silsby, of Meridian, Idaho.
In a jailhouse interview Saturday, Silsby told the AP that most of the children had been delivered to the Americans by distant relatives, while some came from orphanages that had collapsed in the quake.
"They are very precious kids that have lost their homes and families and are so deeply in need of, most of all, God's love and his compassion," she said.
In Callebas, parents said a local orphanage worker, fluent in English and acting on behalf of the Baptists, had convened nearly the entire village of 500 people on a dirt soccer field to present the Americans' offer.
Isaac Adrien, 20, told his neighbors the missionaries would educate their children in the neighboring Dominican Republic, the villagers said, adding that they were also assured they would be free to visit their children there.
Many parents jumped at the offer.
Adrien said he met Silsby in Port-au-Prince on Jan. 26. She told him she was looking for homeless children, he said, and he knew exactly where to find them.
He rushed home to Callebas, where people scrape by growing carrots, peppers and onions. That very day, he had a list of 20 children.
As they loaded children onto a bus in Callebas on Jan. 28, the Americans took down contact information for all the families and assured them a relative would be able to visit them in the Dominican Republic.
The Americans' journey began last summer after Silsby and her former nanny, 24-year-old Charisa Coulter, resolved to establish an orphanage for Haitian children in the Dominican Republic. Coulter is among the jailed Americans.
They began buying up used clothing and collecting donations from their Central Valley Baptist Church in Meridian and in November, Silsby registered the New Life Children's Refuge Inc., the nonprofit organization coordinating the rescue mission. It listed the address of her now-foreclosed home in Meridian as its headquarters.
Then the quake hit. Silsby and Coulter moved into high gear, gathering donations and assembling a team to go into Haiti and urgently take out children, the younger woman's father, Mel Coulter, told the AP from his home in Kuna, Idaho.
The group packed 40 plastic bins of donated goods into a U-Haul trailer and drove to Salt Lake City on Jan. 22, where they took a flight to the Dominican Republic. They made their way to Haiti, where four days later, they were introduced to Adrien.
Adrien, who had served as the go-between and translator for the missionaries, said he had no knowledge of the group's larger plans; villagers said they were told none of their children would be offered for adoption.
A Haitian-born pastor who said he worked as an unpaid consultant for the group insisted the Baptists had done nothing wrong.
The Rev. Jean Sainvil said some of the children were orphans and might have been put up for adoption. Children with parents were to be kept in the Dominican Republic, and would not lose contact with their families, Sainvil said in Atlanta.
"Everybody agreed that they knew where the children were going. The parents were told, and we confirmed they would be allowed to see the children and even take them back if need be," he said.
Sainvil stressed that in Haiti it is not uncommon for parents who can't support their children to send them to orphanages.
Even Prime Minister Max Bellerive has said he recognized the Americans may simply have been well-meaning who believed their charitable Christian intent justified trying to remove the children from quake-crippled Haiti.
Only minutes before the charges, the Americans' Dominican lawyer, Jorge Puello, had said he expected at least nine of the 10 to be released and said he was arranging a charter flight for them from Santo Domingo, the Dominican capital.
After the Haitian lawyer's announcement, Puello could not be reached by telephone for comment.
"I'm at the airport (in Santo Domingo) and we're getting the plane ready. We're just waiting for the green light," Puello said. "I spoke to a source inside the jail — a government official — who said nine would be released but one would be held for further investigation."
Transport secretary comment shakes Toyota
By John Crawley
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood sent shares of battered Toyota Motor Corp plunging even further on Wednesday when he advised owners of recalled vehicles to stop driving their cars, later characterizing the remark as a misstatement.
Toyota shares fell as much as 8 percent on the New York Stock Exchange but recovered some ground to trade down 5 percent at $74.30 on Wednesday afternoon.
LaHood's explosive comment at a House of Representatives hearing fueled new confusion over how consumers should respond to a January recall of 2.4 million cars and trucks due to faulty accelerator pedals.
LaHood, in comments to reporters shortly before the midmorning hearing, had repeated his recommendation that affected Toyota consumers should "exercise caution" and seek out dealers for information on repairs.
But he sharpened his tone in an exchange with lawmakers.
"My advice is if anybody owns one of these vehicles is to stop driving it and take it to a Toyota dealer because they believe they have the fix for it," LaHood said.
LaHood appeared after the hearing to clarify his statement, saying it was an obvious misstatement to say owners should stop driving their vehicles.
"I want to encourage owners of any recalled Toyota models to contact their local dealer and get their vehicles fixed as soon as possible," he said.
Toyota said in a statement that it appreciated LaHood's clarification, and advised owners to contact dealers if there was an accelerator pedal problem.
"If you are not experiencing any issues with your pedal, we are confident that your vehicle is safe to drive," the statement
said.
Toyota shares have dropped more than 17 percent since January 26 when it suspended sales of eight models in the United States, including its popular Camry and Corolla models.
Edmunds.com Chief Executive Jeremy Anwyl said the "flip-flop" by LaHood only added to the confusion about the Toyota recall and how consumers should respond.
"But in this situation, there are facts and there is speculation, and no factual revelation popped up this morning to cause anyone any additional concern," Anwyl said.
LaHood's agency has boosted pressure on Toyota in recent days, expressing public frustration with how the automaker handled the recall, which followed another recall in late 2009 for floor mats that can jam accelerator pedals.
LaHood said he plans to call Toyota President Akio Toyoda, the grandson of the company's founder, soon to ensure that the company understands the Obama administration is serious about ongoing safety matters.
Separately, LaHood said the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration was pressing ahead with a new investigation of complaints about Toyota electronic throttle systems to see if they are in any way related to unintended acceleration.
"It's not so complex that we can't figure it out," LaHood told reporters. "We have the resources to do this and we're going to do it."
LaHood said NHTSA has received new complaints recently and the Japanese automaker is cooperating.
LaHood said the electronic throttle review would also look at other automakers. But it is not clear what companies or what systems would be included. Complaints about unintended acceleration have cut across the entire industry over the years.
Potential electromagnetic interference with Toyota's electronic throttles is one technical issue NHTSA is looking into as part of its review, LaHood said.
Jim Lentz, president and chief operating officer of Toyota Motor Sales USA, told Reuters television on Monday that the automaker is convinced accelerator problems have nothing to do with electronics.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood sent shares of battered Toyota Motor Corp plunging even further on Wednesday when he advised owners of recalled vehicles to stop driving their cars, later characterizing the remark as a misstatement.
Toyota shares fell as much as 8 percent on the New York Stock Exchange but recovered some ground to trade down 5 percent at $74.30 on Wednesday afternoon.
LaHood's explosive comment at a House of Representatives hearing fueled new confusion over how consumers should respond to a January recall of 2.4 million cars and trucks due to faulty accelerator pedals.
LaHood, in comments to reporters shortly before the midmorning hearing, had repeated his recommendation that affected Toyota consumers should "exercise caution" and seek out dealers for information on repairs.
But he sharpened his tone in an exchange with lawmakers.
"My advice is if anybody owns one of these vehicles is to stop driving it and take it to a Toyota dealer because they believe they have the fix for it," LaHood said.
LaHood appeared after the hearing to clarify his statement, saying it was an obvious misstatement to say owners should stop driving their vehicles.
"I want to encourage owners of any recalled Toyota models to contact their local dealer and get their vehicles fixed as soon as possible," he said.
Toyota said in a statement that it appreciated LaHood's clarification, and advised owners to contact dealers if there was an accelerator pedal problem.
"If you are not experiencing any issues with your pedal, we are confident that your vehicle is safe to drive," the statement
said.
Toyota shares have dropped more than 17 percent since January 26 when it suspended sales of eight models in the United States, including its popular Camry and Corolla models.
Edmunds.com Chief Executive Jeremy Anwyl said the "flip-flop" by LaHood only added to the confusion about the Toyota recall and how consumers should respond.
"But in this situation, there are facts and there is speculation, and no factual revelation popped up this morning to cause anyone any additional concern," Anwyl said.
LaHood's agency has boosted pressure on Toyota in recent days, expressing public frustration with how the automaker handled the recall, which followed another recall in late 2009 for floor mats that can jam accelerator pedals.
LaHood said he plans to call Toyota President Akio Toyoda, the grandson of the company's founder, soon to ensure that the company understands the Obama administration is serious about ongoing safety matters.
Separately, LaHood said the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration was pressing ahead with a new investigation of complaints about Toyota electronic throttle systems to see if they are in any way related to unintended acceleration.
"It's not so complex that we can't figure it out," LaHood told reporters. "We have the resources to do this and we're going to do it."
LaHood said NHTSA has received new complaints recently and the Japanese automaker is cooperating.
LaHood said the electronic throttle review would also look at other automakers. But it is not clear what companies or what systems would be included. Complaints about unintended acceleration have cut across the entire industry over the years.
Potential electromagnetic interference with Toyota's electronic throttles is one technical issue NHTSA is looking into as part of its review, LaHood said.
Jim Lentz, president and chief operating officer of Toyota Motor Sales USA, told Reuters television on Monday that the automaker is convinced accelerator problems have nothing to do with electronics.
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