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vishalkhialani, a quick note that only higher education institutions can get a .edu extension, it's not available to just anyone who wants to pick one up.

Yes but still not as good as promoting the one site. You seem to like the local idea, so go with that, if at some stage you think its the wrong stratigy, you can always stop promoting all, and concentrate on the .com only

Hey there, I have to agree with Marc on this one. Cutting corners with link building is never a great move. As a rule of thumb  - the easier a link is to get the less it is worth.

There are countless little resource/ppc/affiliate websites out there trying to earn a few bucks. Most of them are pretty thin, but every now and then you will run into a good one. I would start by targeting each country and finding those quality forex sites to cross-promote with. If you provide data/information a widget/graph/tool might be an ideal way to earn links.

I had previously learned the deeper a keyword was in the URL, the better it was for ranking in SERPs. I am uncomfortable now because I can't remember where I learned that information or from whom. I spent about 90 minutes today watching all of Matt Cutt's videos discussing the topic. I also read numerous articles. In short, I could not locate any conclusive information on this topic. Everyone agrees it is good to have keywords in the URL, but no one shares if there is any higher value at various positions within the URL. I began a Q&A topic to seek more information on this topic. http://www.seomoz.org/q/keywords-in-urls-looking-for-consensus