Muslim women journalists defy gender and religion in Bihar
Zubaan has published a collection of Irom Sarmila's poems called Fragrance of Peace, which has been translated into English from Meiteilon (Manipuri). This was to be released in Imphal during the 10th anniversary of her hunger fast for the repeal of the AFSPA, but unfortunately permission to release the book was denied.
Questionable Freedom
Questionable Freedom by Janet Miller Alternet Excerpt from the article: Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times blames women's organizations for failing to address the issue of trafficking. He recently published a series of diary-style articles detailing his project to buy two young Cambodian women out of slavery. In his series, which is as carefully orchestrated as a reality TV show, he repeatedly refers to the attractiveness of his purchases, and sexualizes them with terms like "lovely," "giggly," and "wisp." And though he's outraged by their plight, Kristof has no scruples about re-victimizing them, subjecting both women to...
Round-up
> Interesting links
A
letter by Bette Midler to President Bush on marriage
Dear President Bush,
Today you called upon Congress to move quickly to amend the US Constitution, and set in Federal stone a legal definition of marriage. I would like to know why.
In your speech, you stated that this Amendment would serve to protect marriage in America, which I must confess confuses me. Like you, I believe in the importance of marriage and I feel that we as a society take the institution far too lightly. In my circle of family, friends and acquaintances, the...
The Intern on Page One
The Intern on Page One by Timothy Karr Alternet Excerpt from the article: Cutting Corners To Stand above the News Clutter These news sources, once inaccessible to average Americans, now appear alongside mainstream news stories in the results of a simple Google News search. According to a recent report from the Pew Research Center for People and the Press, more than 40 millions Americans go online for election news. Much of this comes via Google News and other news search engines that return news links based upon a quantitative – not qualitative – search process....
![]()
Round-up
> Press releases
Afghanistan:Women
reluctant to seek marital redress through the courts
Faryab, 21 August 2007 (IRIN)
Jamila — not her real name — was 14 when she was married to Habibullah, 31, a match arranged by her father.
Habibullah left her just three months into their marriage to go and work in Iran and has not reappeared in 10 years. Jamila now lives with her in-laws but feels cheated as she cannot get remarried and has not sought a divorce because of the social stigma attached to such a move. She feels trapped: “I have no future," she...
"The Face" — a film on Burma on NDTV 24x7, on 2 October 2007 at 10 p.m.; also available as DVDs for screenings at cost price.
article
Dear Friends, We can recognise George Bush or Saddam Hussein or Pinochet and some may even recall what Idi Amin looked like but do we know what the head of the Burmese military supreme dictator Senior General Than Shwe looks like ? Tune into NDTV 24X7 at 10 p.m. on the 2nd of October to see my film - THE FACE. ( The Face will be telecast within a program entitled 'A...
Foreign aid greatly exaggerated, says new study
article
A 2005 report indicates that the world's richest nations greatly exaggerate their aid to economically poor countries. In total, 'real aid' in 2003 accounted for US$27 billion, or 0.1 percent of combined donor income. Nearly 90 percent of all contributions from the USA and France are considered phantom aid (diverted for other purposes).
Read
the entire article
Also
read: Real aid : an agenda for making aid
White Man to the Rescue?
White Man to the Rescue? by Katha Pollitt Alternet Excerpt from the article: Nicholas Kristof is once again accusing American feminists of ignoring Third World women and girls. Last spring, he discovered obstetric fistula in Africa – the tear between the birth canal and the lower intestine that can happen during protracted labor and that, unless corrected, condemns a woman to a lifetime of physical misery and social ostracism. Kristof profiled Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital in Ethiopia and wondered why "most feminist organizations in the West have never shown interest in these women." Perhaps, he...