Archive for the ‘General’ Category

Carlos Silvino was given an 18-year sentence after confessing to 639 charges relating to the abuse of children or procuring them for others.

His co-defendants, including the former TV presenter Carlos Cruz, were jailed for between five and seven years.

The boys, now aged between 16 and 22, were all residents at the Casa Pia children’s home in the capital, Lisbon.

he panel of three judges in the case spent most of the day reading the full verdict in each of the hundreds of sexual abuse accusations.

After ruling that the vast majority of the charges had been proven, they handed down guilty verdicts to six of the seven people on trial.

Silvino, a 54-year-old former driver for Casa Pia who abused boys on hundreds of occasions and later offered them to other men for cash, was convicted on all charges.

Cruz and Joao Ferreira Diniz, a doctor, were each given seven-year sentences, while retired ambassador Jorge Ritto got six years and eight months.

Hugo Marcal, a lawyer, was sentenced to six years and two months, while former Casa Pia governor Manuel Abrantes was sentenced to five years and nine months.

But Gertrudes Nunes, a woman who was alleged to have allowed her house in Elvas to be used by the abusers, was acquitted on all charges.

The six had denied the allegations and said their lives had been ruined.

“This is one of the most monstrous judicial mistakes in Portuguese history,” Cruz said, dismissing the verdict as built on “lies and manipulation” and part of a “vendetta” against him.

Horrific injuries

One of the victims, Bernardo Teixeira, hailed the sentences.

“It was very good to hear our names as a proven fact, and to know that really somebody believes us, principally the panel of judges,” he told RTP Internacional TV.

“People said we were lying, that it was all made up, and so it is very healthy and positive for us finally to have proof that we were not lying.”

Another victim, Bernardo Tavares, said: “It is difficult, but… when we hear our name linked to proven facts this gives us more strength.”

“There is anxiety, tensions are running high in there, our seats are probably the hottest because we have waited many years for this day. It is one of the days we have most looked forward to, the day when finally justice will be done and when finally those who have committed crimes will be sentenced for them.”

Pedro Namora, a lawyer and former pupil who helped expose the scandal in 2002, earlier said: “I hope this day will allow us to show the country that the boys have told the truth from the start.”

“These men have to be condemned, they committed barbarous crimes against humanity.”

The case is one of the longest-running in Portuguese history, lasting more than five years, with testimony from more than 800 witnesses and experts.

During the trial, the 32 victims gave gruesome testimony about being raped by adults in dark cellars, cars and secluded houses.

“Some of the accounts could be considered pornographic,” the lead judge, Ana Peres, told the courtroom on Friday.

One of the victims, now in his early 20s, was so seriously abused that he was now incontinent, a lawyer told the BBC.

Almost all of them identified their abusers by pointing them out in the courtroom.

However, the BBC’s Sarah Rainsford in Lisbon says it is thought that there may be many other victims who are still too frightened to speak out.

The abuse at Casa Pia is said to have started in the mid-1970s, but was not discovered until 2002, when the mother of a boy placed at a state-run home in Lisbon said he had been abused by staff there.

Casa Pia, or Pious House, is a 230-year-old institution which cares for about 4,500 orphans and underprivileged children through a network of homes and schools.

This case is not the only one spawned by the investigation that began in 2002.

Seven other trials have already run their course, with some of those found guilty themselves former Casa Pia pupils.

In March 2006, a court ordered the Portuguese government to pay 2m euros (£1.66m) in compensation to 44 former Casa Pia residents, saying it had failed in its duty to protect them.

02 Sep 2010

More body parts likely found in women search – policeRelated News

* Prostitutes murder suspect in suicide bid – reports
Jun 10, 2010
* Body parts in river are from missing woman – police
Jun 2, 2010
* “Crossbow cannibal” in court over Bradford murders
May 27, 2010
* Police charge man over prostitute murders
May 26, 2010
* Man arrested over murder of three prostitutes
May 26, 2010

Related Topics

* UK »

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Stephen Griffiths, who West Yorkshire Police say has been charged with murder, in an undated photo taken from MySpace.

Credit: Reuters/Stringer

LONDON | Sat May 29, 2010 3:36pm BST

LONDON (Reuters) – Detectives investigating the murder of three women from Bradford, northern England, who worked as prostitutes in the area said they may have discovered more body parts on Saturday.

An underwater search team made the discovery at the River Aire in Shipley, West Yorkshire, where the remains of one of the women, Suzanne Blamires, were recovered on Tuesday.

West Yorkshire police said the new find was about 200 yards from where Blamires’s body was located.

“The remains will now be forensically examined to identify them and at this stage it is too early to speculate on who the remains belong to,” a police spokesman said.

Stephen Griffiths, a mature student studying criminology at Bradford University according to media reports, was charged on Thursday with killing sex workers Blamires, 36, Shelley Armitage, 31, and Susan Rushworth, 43.

Griffiths, 40, appeared at Bradford Magistrates’ Court on Friday morning for a brief hearing where he gave his name as “the crossbow cannibal.”

Police are still trying to trace the other two sex workers. Armitage has been missing since April 26, and Rushworth disappeared on June 22 last year.

(Reporting by Stefano Ambrogi; Editing by Louise Ireland)
UK

SEPTEMBER 1–A California college student who was repeatedly beaten, punched, kicked, and paddled during a weeks-long sorority initiation that included frequent warnings that “snitches get stitches” yesterday filed a negligence lawsuit against a variety of defendants, including four sorority members who were convicted earlier this year of hazing.

In a Superior Court complaint, Courtney Howard details how she and fellow San Jose State University students were roughed up while pledging the Sigma Gamma Rho sorority in late-2008. After Howard, 20, reported the hazing to police and university officials, she charges that sorority members began to harass and threaten her. Howard, pictured at right, subsequently left the school, and is now enrolled at the University of Southern California.

In her lawsuit, excerpted here, Howard noted that she had originally planned to pledge Alpha Kappa Alpha, the oldest African-American women’s sorority. But since the sorority’s San Jose chapter has been suspended due to hazing activities, Howard opted to join Sigma Gamma Rho, believing that “they represented the ‘sisterhood’ she sought in a sorority.”

However, Howard contends, that the group’s pledge process was far from sisterly. According to her complaint, she and fellow pledges were punched, slapped, kicked, slammed into walls, struck with a wooden spoon and a cane, and had books and coins thrown at them during a series of 16 nighttime initiation sessions. Howard recalled one evening when a sorority sister told her to close her eyes. She was then struck on the buttocks with what she later learned was a kitchen pot. The pledges were also frequently struck with a wooden paddle, Howard said, blows that left her with welts on her buttocks.

Howard reported that pledges were repeatedly warned not to talk with friends and family about the initiation process, since “snitches get stitches.” They were also told that if they failed to participate in certain pledge activities, they would be “jumped out,” a gang term for a beating conducted by all members of the group.

Howard’s complaint names as defendants San Jose State University, Sigma Gamma Rho, and various sorority members, including a quartet of women who, court records show, pleaded no contest earlier this year to misdemeanor hazing charges. The defendants–Princess Odom; Monique Hughes; Joslyn Beard; and Nicole Remble–were each sentenced to 90 days in jail, directed to serve two years of court probation, and barred from involvement with any sorority. Odom, Hughes, Beard, and Remble are pictured here, clockwise from upper left, in San Jose Police Department mug shots.

As a result of the hazing, the Sigma Gamma Rho chapter has been suspended, according to a warning notice on the San Jose State University web site. (8 pages)

The American Pediatric Society has finally come to the conclusion that was reached thousands of years ago by religios and moral teachers.
Nature has made sex a pleasurable experience in order to induce humans (and other creatures) to engage in it in order to continue the species. Babies are a lot of work. The pleasure of sex was the carrot to get reproduction to be ongoing. The secondary purpose is pleasure. There is an appropriate age for humans to become actively engaged in it at any level. Except for the very sickest and most evil among us that age is not 4, 5, 6 or even 14, 15 because in our culture, childhood has been extended way beyond that of our ancestors in the Paleolithic Age.
But in the West for the past two generations we have adopted a “if it feels good DO it,” “Why don’t we do it in the road” mentality. Now we are reaping the whirlwind – the Sex trade, child pornography rings, Rape Trees, STDs, teen pregnancy, abortions etc.
So I say to our doctor friends who have been slow to come to the Wisdom table
‘Welcome to the Bronze Age.’

By Amanda Gardner
HealthDay Reporter by Amanda Gardner
healthday Reporter – 18 mins ago

TUESDAY, Aug. 31 (HealthDay News) — The nation’s leading group of pediatricians has issued a strong policy statement directed toward pediatricians, parents and the media on the danger of messages American teens and children are getting about sex from television, the Internet and other media outlets.

The statement, Sexuality, Contraception, and the Media, was published online Aug. 30 and in the September print issue of the journal Pediatrics.

“The media represents arguably the leading sex educator in America today,” said Dr. Victor Strasburger, the lead author of the paper. “We do such a poor job of educating kids about sex in sex education classes in school, and parents are notoriously shy about talking to kids about sex. The media picks up the slack.”

Seventy percent of teen shows contain sexual content, Strasburger added, “and less than 10 percent of that content involves what anyone would classify as being responsible content. There’s no mention of contracting an STD [sexually transmitted disease] or the need to wait to have sex until later.”

The United States leads the western world in teen pregnancy rates and American teens have an alarmingly high rate of STDs — one in four children.

Meanwhile, U.S. children spend seven hours and more a day with various types of often-sexually explicit media, including music, movies, television shows, magazines and the Internet.

“The research shows us that the portrayal of sex in the media is really unrealistic. It’s unhealthy. It doesn’t consider the consequences of sexual behavior,” said Alan Delamater, professor and director of child psychology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. “This is what our kids are growing up thinking. This is what sex is about. To deny its impact is ignorant because there’s so much knowledge of it at this point.”

Many pediatricians would like to flip the equation and see media outlets introduce more responsible programming.

“Media has an opportunity to continue doing the same old thing, which is to have an adverse effect on child development, or turn it around and shape attitudes and behavior that could have a positive effect on child development,” Delamater said.

The statement contains a number of recommendations for parents, physicians and the media.

“We want physicians to ask two media questions at every well-child visit: how much entertainment screen time per day does the child engage in, and is there a TV set or Internet connection in his or her bedroom,” said Strasburger, professor of pediatrics at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine. “That takes 20 seconds and may be more important than asking about childproofing or car seats or bicycle helmets.”

The authors of the statement ideally would like ads for erectile dysfunction drugs to not be shown on TV until after 10 p.m.

“Half a billion dollars of ads for erectile dysfunction drugs and virtually no ads for birth control pills or condoms or emergency contraception,” Strasburger said. “There’s not a single shred of evidence that exposing kids to birth control ads or even making birth control available to them makes them sexually active at a younger age. We’re doing things completely backwards.”

There should also be more attention paid to how kids use social networking sites on the Internet. And parents can use media story lines as teaching tools to discuss sex with their children, instead of having “the big talk,” the statement said.

On the more idealistic side, the statement also recommends that advertisers no longer use sex to sell a wide range of products.

“We want parents to realize that kids are spending more time with media than in any other activity but sleeping, and that the media represents a powerful source of information and in this case a powerful sex educator,” Strasburger said.

More information

To learn more about children and the media, visit the American Academy of Pediatrics.

he following is the full segment as it was aired on the August 30 edition of Hardball:

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Wow, we’re talking gender politics. We’re back. High profile victories this summer by Nikki Haley in South Carolina and Sharron Angle winning that nomination in Nevada for the Senate. Meg Whitman spending zillions out there running for the governorship of California. This could be the Year of the Woman, maybe. But will women gain ground in Congress this November? On Sunday the Los Angeles Times had a sobering outlook piece. Quote: “After the November election, Congress could end up with as many as 10 fewer female members, prognosticators now say. The first backslide in the uninterrupted march of women coming to Washington since 1978.”

Joining us now is Bloomberg’s Margaret Carlson and Politco’s Jeanne Cummings. Now I know we have to decipher between right and left, the big executive positions and the somewhat lowlier U.S. Congress positions. But look at this now. In the Congress there are a total of 90 women now, Senator and House members: 69 Democrats, 21 Republicans. Margaret, it looks like liberals are in trouble this year, progressives, if you will. That includes a lot of women.

MARGARET CARLSON, BLOOMBERG: Well, there are more Democratic women than, than Republicans, liberals. So you’re gonna have, this is like a final piece of equality for women where they can lose with men-

MATTHEWS: Right.

CARLSON: -when incumbents are in trouble. So women have finally achieved some kind of parity, and boom, it’s time to boot them out. But there’s a certain kind of woman that’s gonna do okay. I mean you have the momma grizzlies but it’s the grizzly part of it, not the momma part that’s working. You have to be a bear-

MATTHEWS: Give me names, give names.

CARLSON: You have to be a bear who’s gonna knock down the tent.

MATTHEWS: Who are the heavyweight women?

CARLSON: Linda McMahon? Can you imagine more of a bear. I mean it’s softcore wrestling-

MATTHEWS: Of world heavyweight wrestling.

CARLSON: -porn.

MATTHEWS: And, and Meg Whitman in California.

CARLSON: Yeah and it’s the corporate titan bear. Carly Fiorina, Meg Whitman as you say. So that is the kind of woman. It is not the kind of – it’s not a compassionate women year.

MATTHEWS: Right, it’s tough for women. Let me got to that, Jeanne Cummings is this, is this the upgrade to the tougher executive positions? I’ve always said, and it’s a tough line but you gotta get on, the on deck circle to really have lots of shots at the presidency. If women start winning these big governorships across the country like California knocking off Jerry Brown, it’d be a giant killer, things like that really – people tell me Meg wants to be, Meg Whitman wants to be president. Is this what’s going on here on the Republican side.

JEANNE CUMMINGS, POLITICO: Well absolutely. I mean women like any, all the different types of people before them are earning their way up the ladder, one rung at a time. And winning some of those big governor races is important. We certainly saw how Hillary Clinton was able to use her Senate position, and her prior role as First Lady, but largely her Senate position gave her-

MATTHEWS: I agree.

CUMMINGS: -the credentials to go out there and run on the campaign trail. And so I think this is clearly, that women have now gotten to the point where they are accepted by voters as competent executives, tough enough to run, smart enough to run governments, and those are great achievements for women. I would point out that if-

MATTHEWS: These-

CUMMINGS: Just one quick thought.

MATTHEWS: Sure.

CUMMINGS: That, that if the losses are as bad as they, as some believe they could be in the House, there could be one giant blow to women. And that is, it could take down the Speaker. Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Certainly she’s not gonna lose her House seat, but she could lose the Speakership itself. And that has been, for many women, particularly Democratic women, a real shining star for the achievements and the rise of women in government.

MATTHEWS: We haven’t had a woman governor of New York, Pennsylvania, California, or probably Illinois. These are big, the big jobs. These are women coming out of industry with a proven executive record.

CARLSON: And mixed, and mixed.

MATTHEWS:

You, you mentioned, Jeanne, you said they’re working their way one step at a time. Meg Whitman is not going one step at a time, she’s going right for governor.

CARLSON: Yeah.

MATTHEWS: Carly Fiorina is going right from HP for, for Senate.

CARLSON: And by the way her reputation was mixed as a, as a corporate executive.

MATTHEWS: So are things changing? Is the glass ceiling getting smashed at the top?

CARLSON: Well no. I think there’s a certain kind of corporate woman that, that does look like she can run a big state because she’s run a big country, I mean, a big company.

MATTHEWS: Could it be that men are blowing it? Just to be blunt, could it be that the quality of male candidates has declined. Women candidates have gone up and they’re passed them on the old vector there.

CUMMINGS: Well I think that the women candidates can run in this year, the Year of the Outsider. They can run as genuine outsiders. And that is an asset when you have an anti-incumbent election.

MATTHEWS: Wow!

CUMMINGS: And the other thing, in terms of Fiorina and Meg Whitman, they, they both are shooting, going to, trying to go from the corporate boardroom right into the Governor’s office or the Senate office, it is true. However, their candidacies were made possible by the victories of women before them.

MATTHEWS: Yeah that’s certainly true. Well what do you make of Momma Grizzly’s comment the other day? Sarah Palin’s, that her biggest accomplishment was that she produced a combat vet. It sounds like women are running what we used to call the Daddy Party, the right, you know the Macho Party?

CARLSON: Yeah.

MATTHEWS: Women are now openly saying, “I’m tougher than the men, I can produce as a mother a got vet, get out of my way.” Jeanne, this is strong, strong tea here, if you will?

CUMMINGS: Absolutely. And I have to say, Sarah Palin, I think, has done something unprecedented when you look at gender politics. And that is, she is so influential. She is a king maker.

MATTHEWS: That’s true.

CUMMINGS: And we have not seen a female king maker in political history. She has really broken new ground. I mean, what does a Huckabee nomination get you? Page three on the local paper? But Palin’s nomination can be a complete game changer, as we have seen in these races.

MATTHEWS: We’re looking at that picture as you’re speaking, Jeanne, of her endorsing Nikki Haley. Haley was at the back of the pack, she’s now probably gonna be the next governor of South Carolina.

CARLSON: But wait Chris, she’s a king maker but she’s also a queen killer. She killed Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison in Texas in favor of the incumbent, Governor Perry.

MATTHEWS: Yeah.

CARLSON: And look what she did to Lisa Murkowski in Alaska. So let us, she is an equal opportunity maker and destroyer, and not always for the women.

MATTHEWS: Yeah I also, I also think and I gotta be careful, she’s picking women candidates that men are ready to vote for too.

CARLSON: Yes.

MATTHEWS: This isn’t just women voting for women here. There’s a lot of, obviously a lot of those right-wing men love Sarah Palin. Let’s be honest here. Jeanne, thanks so much, Jeanne Cummings for joining us. Margaret Carlson, thank you.

—Geoffrey Dickens is the Senior News Analyst at the Media Research Center. You can follow him on Twitter here

Center. You can follow him on Twitter here

ran Calls French First Lady a ‘Prostitute’ Over Stoning Issue
Updated: 24 minutes ago
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Dana Kennedy
Dana Kennedy Contributor
AOL News
(Aug. 30) — Iranian state media branded French first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy a “prostitute” for her public support of an Iranian woman sentenced to death for adultery — and activists worry the convicted woman may still be stoned.

The attack on the wife of French President Nicolas Sarkozy shows the Iranian’s government’s continued “defiance” of international pressure on the issue, activists said today.

The government-controlled newspaper Kayhan denounced Bruni-Sarkozy and actress Isabelle Adjani in an editorial headlined “French Prostitutes Join Human Rights Protest.” The piece called Bruni-Sarkozy a “hypocrite” and detailed the former supermodel’s colorful past love life with several celebrities.
Carla Bruni-Sarkozy on June 18.
Oli Scarff, WPA / Getty Images
French first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, seen here in June, was called a “hypocrite” by Iranian-government-controlled newspaper Kayhan.

The editorial, followed by an Iranian state television report labeled Bruni-Sarkozy “immoral,” appeared after protests on behalf of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani in 100 cities Saturday and following Bruni-Sarkozy’s open letter to the condemned woman last week.

“Why shed your blood and deprive your children of their mother?” Bruni-Sarkozy wrote. “Because you have lived, because you have loved, because you’re a woman, and because you’re an Iranian? Everything within me refuses to accept this.”

Ashtiani, a 43-year-old mother of two, has been the subject of an international uproar after she was sentenced to death by stoning for adultery and complicity in her husband’s murder. She is still under a death sentence, although the government — after considerable pressure from around the world — has said it will not stone her. The execution has been stayed pending a judicial review that her attorneys and advocates say could be unpredictable.

“We don’t take them at their word,” Maria Rohaly of Mission Free Iran told AOL News today. “The Islamic government said she was not going to be stoned, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything.”

Rohaly said Iranian officials told Ashtiani to write her will on Saturday night. She reportedly cried all night after being told she would be executed at dawn on Sunday, Rohaly said. Although all indications are Ashtiani is still alive, Rohaly says it’s proof that the government can’t be trusted.

Rohaly said Ashtiani’s situation grows more precarious every day. Her son, who called into the Washington protests on Saturday from Iran, has said his mother appeared to be under the influence of a drug when he and his sister visited her about 10 days ago.
Iranian 43-year old mother of two Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani is seen in this undated handout image.
AFP / Getty Images
Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, a 43-year-old mother of two, was sentenced to death by stoning in Iran. The execution has been stayed pending a judicial review.

Last week, Ashtiani’s two children were not allowed to visit her. One of her attorneys is on the run in Norway. Her lawyer in Iran, Javid Houtan Kian, says he also feels threatened. He said the government has ransacked his home, has confiscated important documents and is monitoring his cell phone calls.

“I would be lying to say I wasn’t scared for myself,” Kian told the Times of London.

Kian said he has no way of guessing the outcome of the judicial review but added, “I feel it is my duty as a lawyer” to defend Ashtiani.

“It’s very upsetting,” Rohaly said. “With a lot of high-profile execution cases, they will cut off all communication and telephones.”

She said the Islamic government in Iran is in a “Catch-22 situation.”

“Pressure is growing, and they don’t know what to do,” Rohaly said. “The Iranian people don’t like the government, and they’d get rid of it in a day if they could. The government needs to execute people to instill fear and to stay in power. But if they kill Ashtiani, they will have major problems in the international community.”

Ashtiani was convicted in 2006 of having an “illicit relationship” with two men in 2006 and flogged 99 times in front of her son, among others. Later that year she was convicted of adultery and sentenced to death by stoning.

In Afghanistan, “bacha bazi,” or “boy play” is a dangerous trend. It involves young boys entertaining groups of men by dressing in women’s clothes, dancing, and often going home with the highest bidder at the end of the night.

Powerful men attend these “parties” or keep “stables” of boys, despite the fact that trading in children and sex acts with children are illegal.

The boys are taken from the streets or sold to their masters by their poor families, and they have no idea what will be expected of them as a “dancing boy.” They are caught in a world of violence and rape. Boys who cross their masters have been murdered.

The situation is difficult to control because some Afghan authorities, including police members, have been caught at “boy parties.”

The boys of Afghanistan need our help. Tell the UN envoy to Afghanistan, Staffan de Mistura, to encourage President Karzai to enforce laws against bacha bazi and put an end to this practice.

To sign Petition CLICK HERE

The question on everyone’s mind after news broke of the rapes of 200 Congolese villagers over the course of a weekend was why it took peacekeepers two weeks to find out — especially considering the military base some 20 miles away. The available answers, it turns out, are not so satisfying.

The United Nations was aware the villages were being occupied by Rwandan rebels at the time of the attack. The New York Times reports that an e-mail was sent from the Department of Safety and Security “to United Nations staff members on July 30, the day the rapes began” and “warned them to stay away from the area … because it had been taken over by rebels.” A top official explained that there was no indication of the extreme level of brutality that was taking place.

Regardless, an anonymous U.N. source told the Times that the alert should have caused peacekeepers to intervene. Another unnamed U.N. official told the Times that there has been “a lot of miscommunication” and that “there seems to be a disagreement between the military and civilian sides” of the peacekeeping mission. Imagine trying to explain that to the victims: Sorry, you know how it is dealing with bureaucracies.

One U.N. official went on the record with the Associated Press to propose a different theory: Maybe it’s a cultural issue. “There is, of course, a significant amount of cultural baggage … associated with rapes in this area, as well as elsewhere,” said special representative Roger Meece. “Is it conceivable that the local villagers were afraid of reprisals if they reported anything to MONUSCO? Possible. Is it conceivable that they were ashamed of what has happened in some form? That’s possible.” Now they are toying with the idea of having villages make daily reports to the nearest U.N. base. Sounds like the typical bureaucratic solution to a problem: more bureaucracy.

COLOMBO (Reuters) – A Saudi couple tortured their Sri Lankan maid after she complained of a too heavy workload by hammering 24 nails into her hands, legs and forehead, officials said on Thursday.

Nearly 2 million Sri Lankans sought employment overseas last year and around 1.4 million, mostly maids, were employed in the Middle East. Many have complained of physical abuse or harassment.

L.T. Ariyawathi, a 49-year old mother of three, returned on Friday after five months in Saudi Arabia.

Her family only realized what had happened to her when she complained of pain and they took her to see the doctor, Foreign Employment Bureau officials said.

“The landlord and the wife of the landlord hammered 24 nails into her when she complained of the heavy workload,” Kalyana Priya Ramanayake, media secretary of the Foreign Employment Bureau, told Reuters.

Ariyawathi has been taken to hospital for surgery to remove the nails, which according to the maid were hammered in when they were hot.

X-rays showed one- to two-inch nails in her hands and legs, with one over her eyes, officials said.

The Foreign Employment Bureau is consulting the Attorney-General while the Sri Lankan External Affairs Ministry is to take the matter up with the Saudi government, officials said.

NEW YORK – The suffragists who 90 years ago won voting rights for women would likely shake their heads in wonder at this election, with its “mama grizzly” candidates and high-stakes woman-vs.-woman showdowns.

The women in key races include a rancher and three multimillionaire former CEOs, one a pro wrestling magnate. Two frontier states — Oklahoma and New Mexico — seem assured of electing their first female governor after both major parties nominated women.

Yet in spite of celebrations planned Thursday for Women’s Equality Day, marking the adoption of the 19th Amendment in 1920, American women’s share of high-level political power still lags behind scores of other nations.

Women hold only 17 percent of the seats in Congress — well below Europe’s 22 percent and far behind the Nordic countries’ 42 percent — and the major parties have yet to nominate a woman for president. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign for the Democratic nomination in 2008 collected 18 million votes but still fell short of victory.

“The handful of women that you see near the top is just that — a handful,” said Erin Vilardi of the White House Project, which seeks to expand women’s role in politics.

“At the congressional level, both parties have a hell of a lot of work to do,” Vilardi said. “The culture is still very dominantly male.”

Among the notable developments in this year’s campaign is the emergence of numerous charismatic, conservative women running as Republicans.

In California, wealthy businesswomen Meg Whitman, the ex-CEO of eBay, and Carly Fiorina, ex-CEO of Hewlett-Packard, are the GOP nominees for governor and Senate.

Fiorina is the first Republican woman to take on the Democratic incumbent, Barbara Boxer, since Boxer entered the Senate in 1992, and the race has captured national attention.

In South Dakota, the race for the state’s lone House seat pits the incumbent Democrat, Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin, against Republican legislator Kristi Noem — both of them working moms who grew up on farms. Noem, who helps her husband run a ranch, is one of several GOP woman candidates dubbed “mama grizzlies” because of traits shared with Sarah Palin, the party’s 2008 vice presidential nominee and a political star who’s been doling out endorsements this year.

In Minnesota’s 6th District, the conservative Republican incumbent, outspoken Tea Party favorite Michele Bachmann, is being challenged by Democratic State Sen. Tarryl Clark in what could be one of the nation’s most expensive House races.

In New Mexico, Democrat Diane Denish, the lieutenant governor since 2003, is competing for governor against the GOP’s Susana Martinez, a Latina district attorney who has drawn attention for her tough stance on illegal immigration.

In Oklahoma, Republican U.S. Rep. Mary Fallin, who’s been endorsed by Palin, is favored in the governor’s race over Democratic Lt. Gov. Jari Askins.

According to the Center for American Women in Politics at Rutgers University, there have been only two other woman-vs.-woman gubernatorial contests in U.S. history — in Nebraska in 1986 and Hawaii in 2002.

Florida could join New Mexico and Oklahoma is electing its first woman governor — if Democratic nominee Alex Sink can win in November.

One of the most distinctive female candidates is the GOP nominee for U.S. Senate in Connecticut, Linda McMahon, former CEO of the World Wrestling Entertainment empire that she and her husband developed. McMahon, who says she’ll spend up to $50 million of her own money on the race, was nicknamed “Crotch-kicker” in a statement from the Democratic National Committee.

In Colorado, the issue of male chauvinism surfaced in the campaign for the GOP Senate nomination. Ken Buck — a prosecutor with a strong Tea Party following — prevailed despite criticism for saying he should be backed over rival Jane Norton “because I do not wear high heels.”

Worldwide, women hold 19 percent of the seats in national legislatures, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union. Its rankings of 186 nations — based on percentage of women in the single or lower chamber of the legislature — has the U.S. tied for 90th with Turkmenistan.

Women have held the top government post in dozens of countries — including Germany, Britain, Australia, Argentina, Israel, India and Turkey.

Several Women’s Equality Day events are planned across the country Thursday.

In California, a great, great, great granddaughter of suffragist leader Elizabeth Cady Stanton will address a rally near the statehouse in Sacramento. In New York, the Susan B. Anthony List — it backs female candidates opposed to abortion — will host a forum on “pro-life feminism.”

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, said the surge of women running as anti-abortion conservatives reflected a “war over who gets to define what feminism means.”

“There’s an unsettling of the political apple cart,” Dannenfelser said. “Sarah Palin kicked the door open, and a lot of women started going through.”

Elsewhere in New York, several women’s rights leaders and liberal members of Congress will be speaking at a ceremony renaming a U.S. post office in Queens after Geraldine Ferraro, who in 1984 became the first woman to run for vice president on a major party ticket.

Among the scheduled speakers is Terry O’Neill, president of the National Organization for Women, who said Ferraro’s poise and toughness had inspired many women to go into politics.

However, O’Neill described the percentage of women in Congress as “abysmal” and said the United States should be ashamed that it’s one of only seven U.N. members — in company with Iran and Sudan — that hasn’t ratified a 30-year-old women’s rights treaty, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.

Akwa Ibom state, Nigeria — Just after midnight, the pastor seized a woman’s forehead with his large hand and she fell screaming and writhing on the ground. “Fire! Fire! Fire!” shouted the worshippers, raising their hands in the air.

Pastor Celestine Effiong’s congregants are being delivered from what they firmly believe to be witchcraft. And in the darkness of the city and the villages beyond, similar shouts and screams echo from makeshift church to makeshift church.

“I have been delivered from witches and wizards today!” exclaimed one exhausted-looking woman.

Pastors in southeast Nigeria claim illness and poverty are caused by witches who bring terrible misfortune to those around them. And those denounced as witches must be cleansed through deliverance or cast out.

As daylight breaks, and we travel out to the rural villages it becomes apparent the most vulnerable to this stigmatization of witchcraft are children.

A crowd gathered around two brothers and their sister. Tears streamed down their mother’s face as she cast out her children from the family, accusing them of causing the premature deaths of two of their siblings with black magic.

“I am afraid. They are witches and they can kill me as well,” she sobbed.

Taking his time to talk to the mother, Sam Ikpe-Itauma, an imposing man wearing a “Child’s Rights & Rehabilitation Network” t-shirt, has come to try to rescue the three children.

“If we are not here there’s a possibility of them being thrown into the river, buried alive or stabbed to death,” Sam said.

He tries to persuade their mother and a crowd of villagers that the three children are not witches – but no one believes him. And so, putting the children in his white pick-up, he drives away to his orphanage and safety.

Sam runs Child’s Rights & Rehabilitation Network, or CRARN — an orphanage that supports nearly 200 children. All of them were accused of witchcraft and cast out by their families, often after being tortured. The orphanage provides security, healthcare, nutrition and counseling.

Check out the CRARN website

Godwin’s story is typical. As he sat next to the quiet 5-year-old, Sam said that after Godwin’s mother died, the church pastor told his family that “Godwin is responsible.”

From his own investigation, questioning Godwin and talking with neighbors, Sam said that when a relative asked Godwin if he was a witch, “he said no and was beaten and made the confession that he actually killed the mother.”

Sam said Godwin was locked up with his mother’s corpse every night for three weeks with little food or water before a neighbor contacted Sam, who was able to rescue him.

Other children at his orphanage bear the scars of being beaten, attacked with boiling water, and cuts from machetes. But these children are the ones lucky to be alive.

“A child witch is said to be a witch when that child possessed with certain spiritual spells capable of making that child transform into cat, snake, vipers, insects, any other animal and that child is capable of wreaking havoc like killing of people, bringing diseases, misfortune into the family,” Sam said.

“When a child is accused of being a witch — that child is hated absolutely by everybody surrounding him so such children are sent out of the home… But unfortunately such children do not always live long. A lot of them, they’re either killed, abandoned by the parents, tortured in the church or trafficked out of the city.”

Sam doesn’t believe in witchcraft and is trying to raise awareness in local communities now gripped by hysteria.

Belief in witchcraft is rooted in centuries of tradition, but it’s only in the last 10 years, that it has become associated with child abuse, he said.

“It’s a social crisis,” he added. “Poverty propels this child witch phenomenon and poverty is a twin sister to ignorance.

“Most vulnerable children come from single parents, divorced parents, dysfunctional families.”

But the orphanage has very little space for more children. Overstretched finances mean he can barely pay a skeleton staff of four people, as well as feed the children.

Instead, many children are left to roam the streets.

“My parents sent me out of the house — said I’m a witch,” said Samuel, a 15-year-old who has lived on the streets for five years after a local pastor blamed him for unexpected deaths in the family.

“I was beaten by the prophet in the church,” he said in a quiet voice.

Samuel lives in an abandoned building with 10 other children accused of witchcraft. A local group, ‘Stepping Stones Nigeria,’ which is dedicated to helping street children, visits them.

“Religious leaders capitalize on the ignorance of some parents in the villages just to make some money off them,” said Lucky Inyang, project coordinator for ‘Stepping Stones Nigeria’.

“They can say your child is a witch and if you bring the child to the church we can deliver the child but eventually they don’t deliver the children… The parents go back to the pastor and say, ‘why is it you have not been able to deliver the child’ and the pastor says ‘Oh – this one has gone past deliverance – they’ve eaten too much flesh so you have to throw the child out.’”

And most pastors charge a fee for deliverance — anywhere from $300 to $2,000.

One of the most notorious and influential pastors is Helen Ukpabio of Liberty Gospel Church. Her 1999 film, the widely distributed, “End of the Wicked” has been attacked by child rights groups for its depictions of Satan possessing children.

She had agreed to an interview but the meeting was continually postponed for two days.

But in her preaching at Liberty Gospel Church, she heralds success stories of how she has driven out demons through deliverance.

“Witches and wizards, they started getting afraid. I never gave them rest!” she shouted to a cheering congregation.

Some pastors believe education is a more powerful tool against witchcraft fears.

“One of the things that caused the parents to abandon the children is ignorance,” explains another local pastor, Celestine Effiong.

The local government, however, accuses Sam Ikpe-Itauma and Lucky Inyang of using the children to run a scam.

“We insist that the name of Akwa Ibom state must not be smeared and the people of the world should not be deceived by certain NGOs who are claiming to be taking care of stigmatized children of Akwa Ibom,” said Aniekan Umanah, the Information Commissioner of Nigeria’s Akwa Ibom state.

“This is a ruse, they are making money for themselves.”

Stories of NGOs rescuing children, say the government, are exaggerated. They argue instead, that a new Child Right’s bill outlawing child stigmatization has largely ended the problem.

But despite some arrests, so far, the government acknowledges, there have been no prosecutions.

“There may be problems yes but it’s been blown out of proportion and people are capitalizing, on what ordinarily may be a social problem, across the globe in painting Akwa Ibom state black — that is the aspect we say no to. We will not allow the image of our state to be smeared.”

Sam and other NGOs deny any improprieties, insist their finances are a matter of public record and plead with the government to support their cause.

“Relevant government agencies, working on security and protection of children must step up their efforts to make sure any child that is stigmatized must — that parent, the churches, the law must be evoked to make sure such people face the law immediately, otherwise it must go on and on, on and on.”

With the night comes the screams of more deliverances — and more witches to be cast out.

Fifty-nine Afghan schoolgirls and 14 teachers were hospitalized this morning after an apparent gas poisoning, CNN reported. The attack occurred at a girls’ high school in Kabul.

Ultra-conservative elements in Afghan society oppose female education and have a history of setting fire to girls’ schools, threatening teachers and attacking students. Some even earn money for doing so. Although these extremists aim to terrify girls back into isolation and ignorance, many young women refuse be intimidated.

In 2001, only 1 million Afghans were enrolled in school, all of them boys, The New York Times reported. Today, approximately 7 million Afghan children attend school, of which 2.6 million are girls. However, schools for girls still remain closed in Taliban strongholds, particularly in southern and eastern Afghanistan.

Two years ago, Shamsia Husseini was walking to school when a man on a motorbike drove up and asked if she was going to school. He then pulled the scarf away from Shamsia’s head and threw acid in her face. Five other girls were also badly burned in the attack. Shamsia is now back at school, even though she fears the man on the bike will return to hurt her again.

“I still have nightmares,” she told CBS Evening News. “I will fight these people by continuing to go to school. Last time they threw acid to stop me, but even if they hit me with bullets, I will not stop going to school.”

How to help

Ayenda: The Afghan Children Initiative funds projects relating to education for Afghan children. The group grants scholarships to female students, builds schools and provides food and supplies to schoolchildren in Afghanistan.

The Afghan Institute of Learning works to empower Afghans, especially women, through education. The AIL also operates five health clinics in Afghanistan.

Greg Mortenson, humanitarian and author of the bestselling book, “Three Cups of Tea,” supports educational programs in Afghanistan and Pakistan, with a special emphasis on educating girls. CAI builds schools in underserved rural areas, offers educational scholarships and provides stable salaries for teachers.

The Women’s Watch, Inc. & Casa Luz, Inc. Website is back online.  We have added a Twitter Retweet and Facebook Recommend button to the bottom of every articles so you can Retweet or Recommend articles to your friends.

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Playing the lady: Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind

She was described as ‘the essence of English womanhood’ by the then poet laureate John Betjeman.

On top of that, Vivien Leigh’s romance with Laurence Olivier was a fairytale that wowed 1930s Hollywood.

It was, of course, all too good to be true but the full extent of Miss Leigh’s fall from grace can now be revealed.

According to a new biography, the actress who starred as southern belle Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind was a serial bisexual adulterer.

Her marriage to Olivier was a sham, with both cheating on one another within months of becoming lovers in 1937, according to unpublished memoirs and witness accounts.

At least three of the Oscar winner’s lesbian conquests are revealed in ‘Damn You, Scarlett O’Hara’, to be published in the U.S.

And, according to reports, the biography describes her insatiable appetite for ‘rough trade’ – male prostitutes picked up at Scotty’s, a Los Angeles brothel that masqueraded as a petrol station.

‘In the 1940s the world’s most recognisable star would drive down to Scotty’s with her friend George Cukor, the initial director of ‘Gone with the Wind’, and they would pick out young men for the night,’ a publishing source said.

‘They would pay the men with gifts such as cigarette cases, jewels or even stocks and bonds

‘She depended on the professional discretion of men not to boast they had just serviced Scarlett O’Hara,’

Miss Leigh was apparently even kicked out of an Italian hotel for bringing back too many ‘street boys’.

‘Today, she would be diagnosed as bipolar and there are drugs that would help, but in those days people did not know how to deal with a star who tore off all her clothes and ran out of her house,’ the source added.

The memoir is by Darwin Porter, who knew the British actress in the 1960s, and Roy Moseley, Olivier’s former assistant.

‘They were both beautiful and both wanted more,’ the authors say.

More…

* She was a party-loving English aristocrat, he was an obscure Australian actor. But her brief, impulsive affair with Mel Gibson held dark omens for his future

‘Vivien loved to torture Olivier with her affairs, especially after she grew more mentally ill, depressed and manic.’

In addition to flings with British actress Isabel Jeans and two other women, Miss Leigh also cheated with co-stars Marlon Brando and Rex Harrison, they add.

Miss Leigh was born in Darkeeling in British India in 1913.
Screen siren: The icon, seen here with Clark Gable in Gone With the Wind, had an insatiable lust for male prostitutes, according to unpublished memoirs

Screen siren: The icon, seen here with Clark Gable in Gone With the Wind, had an insatiable lust for male prostitutes, according to unpublished memoirs

She married barrister Leigh Holman when she was nineteen and still studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.

But despite giving birth to a daughter, Suzanne, she returned to acting and ended up falling for Mr Olivier, then another rising star, who left his lesbian wife for her.

They married in 1940, the year after GoneWith The Wind shot Miss Leigh to international stardom.

Among the ten Academy Awards won by the film was a Best Actress statuette for its leading lady.

She won a second Oscar for her portrayal of the emotionally fragile Blanche DuBois in 1951’s ‘A Streetcar Named Desire.’

In 1960, she and Sir Laurence divorced and he went on to marry actress Joan Plowright.

In his autobiography, he described her illness, saying: ‘Throughout her possession by that uncanny evil monster, manic depression, with its ever-tightening spirals, she retained her own individual canniness – an ability to disguise her true mental condition from almost all except me, for whom she could hardly be expected to take the trouble.’

The actress died in 1967 aged 53.

Police believe children are targeted because of a belief by witch doctors that the blood and body parts of albinos can bring good luck and fortune when used in potions Photo: AFP/GETTY

The child had been washing clothes and bathing at a river with friends and was returning home when she was grabbed by a man wearing a balaclava.

As her friends looked on, the man shot her in the back before dragging her away. Her headless body was found upriver a short time later.

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The murder is the latest in a series of albino killings in Sub-Saharan Africa, where sufferers of the rare skin pigmentation condition are concentrated.

Earlier this year, another 11-year-old albino child was killed close to the same spot in Swaziland and her hand was removed.

Police believe both children may have been targeted because of a belief by witch doctors that the blood and body parts of albinos – who lack pigment in their eyes, hair and skin – can bring good luck and fortune when used in potions.

Their value for black magic practitioners sees them often fall prey to human traffickers, one of whom was jailed for 17 years in Tanzania this week for abducting and attempting to sell a live albino man.

The girl murdered in Swaziland was named locally as Banele Nxumalo. A man identified as her father, Luke Nxumalo, told The Times of Swaziland that his late uncle had also been an albino.

“What happened to my child is very painful. I wonder why albinos are targeted because they are just humans like us and a gift from God,” he said.

The Women’s Watch & Casa Luz website will be going offline at 2pm (eastern) on Tuesday, August 24th, 2010 for maintenance. There is no time estimate at this moment for when the website will be back online.

We apologize for the inconvenience and will get the website back online as soon as we can.

Women’s Watch & Casa Luz Staff

By JOSH KRON

Published: August 22, 2010

*GOMA, Democratic Republic of Congo — A mob of Rwandan rebels gang-raped at least 150 women last month during a weekend raid on a community of villages in eastern Congo, United Nations and other humanitarian officials said Sunday.

The United Nations blamed the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, or F.D.L.R., for the attack. The F.D.L.R. is an ethnic Hutu rebel group that has been terrorizing the hills of eastern Congo for years, preying on villages in a quest for the natural resources beneath them.

The raided villages are near the mining center of Walikale, known to be a rebel stronghold, and are “very insecure,” said Stefania Trassari, a spokeswoman for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. “Rape is something we get quite often.”

But she and other United Nations and humanitarian officials said that this attack was unusual because of the large number of victims and the fact that they were raped by more than one attacker simultaneously.

On the evening of July 30, armed men entered the village of Ruvungi, in North Kivu Province.

“They told the population that they were just there for food and rest and that they shouldn’t worry,” said Will F. Cragin, the International Medical Corps’ program coordinator for North Kivu, who visited the village a week after their arrival.

“Then after dark another group came,” said Mr. Cragin, referring to between 200 and 400 armed men who witnesses described as spending days and nights looting Ruvungi and nearby villages.

“They began to systematically rape the population,” he said, adding, “Most women were raped by two to six men at a time.”

The attackers often took the victims into the bush or into their homes, raping them “in front of their children and their families,” Mr. Cragin said. “If a car passed, they would hide.”

The rebels left on Aug. 3, he said, the same day the chief of the area traveled through the villages and reported horrific cases of sexual violence. “We thought at first he was exaggerating,” Mr. Cragin said, “but then we saw the scale of the attacks.”

Miel Hendrickson, a regional director for the International Medical Corps, which has been documenting the rape cases, said, “We had heard first 24 rapes, then 56, then 78, then 96, then 156.”

“The numbers keep rising,” she said. The United Nations maintains a military base approximately 20 miles from the villages, but United Nations officials said they did not know if the peacekeepers there were aware of the attack as it occurred. A United Nations military spokesman, Madnoje Mounoubai, said information was still being gathered.

The F.D.L.R., which began as a gathering of fugitives of the Rwandan genocide in 1994, has grown into a resilient and savage killing machine and an economic engine in the region.

The United Nations, Congo and Rwanda began a military offensive against the group in early 2009, but since then, humanitarian organizations say, cases of rape have risen drastically.

“It’s awful,” Ms. Trassari said. “The numbers are quite worrying.”

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton visited eastern Congo in 2009 to raise awareness about widespread rape in the region, calling it “evil in its basest form,” and the United States pledged $17 million to the Congolese government to fight sexual violence.
A version of this article appeared in print on August 23, 2010, on page A8 of the New York edition.

The reigning Miss USA has come out against the Ground Zero mosque, saying “it shouldn’t be so close” to Ground Zero.

The 24-year-old Rima Fakih, is the first Muslim winner of the Miss USA contest and is preparing for the Miss Universe Pageant, scheduled for Monday in Las Vegas.

“I totally agree with President Obama with the statement on Constitutional rights of freedom of religion,” Fakih told “Inside Edition” in an interview that will air tonight.

“I also agree that it shouldn’t be so close to the World Trade Center. We should be more concerned with the tragedy than religion.”
Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, left, executive director of the Cordoba Initiative, shares a laugh with worshipers inside a Muharraq, Bahrain, mosque.
AP
Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, left, executive director of the Cordoba Initiative, shares a laugh with worshipers inside a Muharraq, Bahrain, mosque.
see more videos

This comes as the imam spearheading controversial plans for the mosque and Islamic center near the site of the 9/11 attacks said today that extremism poses a security threat in both the West and the Muslim world — and is even working on a plan to “Americanize” Islam.

The comments by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf come during the first leg of a 15-day Middle East tour — funded by the US State Department — to discuss Muslim life in America and religious tolerance.

Speaking after leading prayers at a neighborhood mosque in Bahrain’s capital Manama, Rauf said he hopes to draw attention during his trip to the region to the common challenges to battle radical religious beliefs.

“This issue of extremism is something that has been a national security issue — not only for the United States but also for many countries and nations in the Muslim world,” Rauf told Associated Press Television News.

“This is why this particular trip has a great importance because all countries in the Muslim world — as well as the Western world — are facing this … major security challenge.”

Rauf also said he has been working on a way to “Americanize Islam,” although he did not elaborate on what an American version of Islam might look like.

“The same principles and rituals were everywhere, but what happened in different regions was there were different interpretations,” he said. “So we recognize that our heritage allows for re-expressing the internal principles of our religion in different cultural times and places.”

The comments differ greatly from what Rauf said in December 2001. Just two months after the 9/11 attacks, the imam wasn’t so quick to condemn radical religious beliefs in his own faith.

“The United States’ policies were an accessory to the crime that happened, because we have been an accessory to a lot of innocent lives dying in the world,” he said during an interview on CBS’s “60 Minutes. “In fact, in the most direct sense, Osama bin Laden is made in the USA.”

Rauf, meanwhile, refused to discuss the political firestorm over plans for an Islamic cultural center near the site of the World Trade Center towers. The center would include a mosque, a swimming pool, gym auditorium and other facilities on a plot of land some two blocks from the World Trade Center site.

Foes of the project say it is insensitive and disrespectful to the victims of 9/11 and their families. The debate has become politicized ahead of November’s midterm congressional elections.

President Obama has said he believes Muslims have the right to build an Islamic center in New York as a matter of religious freedom, though he’s also said he won’t take a position on whether they should actually build it.

Earlier this week, Gov. Paterson said he had hoped to meet with developers to talk about the concerns of those still hurt over Sept. 11. He told WNYC Radio’s “The Take Away” today that he’s still seeking a meeting, but that the group postponed one set for Monday because of Rauf’s travels.

Muslims have been holding prayer services since last year in the building that the new project will replace.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/

The reigning Miss USA has come out against the Ground Zero mosque, saying “it shouldn’t be so close” to Ground Zero.

The 24-year-old Rima Fakih, is the first Muslim winner of the Miss USA contest and is preparing for the Miss Universe Pageant, scheduled for Monday in Las Vegas.

“I totally agree with President Obama with the statement on Constitutional rights of freedom of religion,” Fakih told “Inside Edition” in an interview that will air tonight.

“I also agree that it shouldn’t be so close to the World Trade Center. We should be more concerned with the tragedy than religion.”
Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, left, executive director of the Cordoba Initiative, shares a laugh with worshipers inside a Muharraq, Bahrain, mosque.
AP
Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, left, executive director of the Cordoba Initiative, shares a laugh with worshipers inside a Muharraq, Bahrain, mosque.
see more videos

This comes as the imam spearheading controversial plans for the mosque and Islamic center near the site of the 9/11 attacks said today that extremism poses a security threat in both the West and the Muslim world — and is even working on a plan to “Americanize” Islam.

The comments by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf come during the first leg of a 15-day Middle East tour — funded by the US State Department — to discuss Muslim life in America and religious tolerance.

Speaking after leading prayers at a neighborhood mosque in Bahrain’s capital Manama, Rauf said he hopes to draw attention during his trip to the region to the common challenges to battle radical religious beliefs.

“This issue of extremism is something that has been a national security issue — not only for the United States but also for many countries and nations in the Muslim world,” Rauf told Associated Press Television News.

“This is why this particular trip has a great importance because all countries in the Muslim world — as well as the Western world — are facing this … major security challenge.”

Rauf also said he has been working on a way to “Americanize Islam,” although he did not elaborate on what an American version of Islam might look like.

“The same principles and rituals were everywhere, but what happened in different regions was there were different interpretations,” he said. “So we recognize that our heritage allows for re-expressing the internal principles of our religion in different cultural times and places.”

The comments differ greatly from what Rauf said in December 2001. Just two months after the 9/11 attacks, the imam wasn’t so quick to condemn radical religious beliefs in his own faith.

“The United States’ policies were an accessory to the crime that happened, because we have been an accessory to a lot of innocent lives dying in the world,” he said during an interview on CBS’s “60 Minutes. “In fact, in the most direct sense, Osama bin Laden is made in the USA.”

Rauf, meanwhile, refused to discuss the political firestorm over plans for an Islamic cultural center near the site of the World Trade Center towers. The center would include a mosque, a swimming pool, gym auditorium and other facilities on a plot of land some two blocks from the World Trade Center site.

Foes of the project say it is insensitive and disrespectful to the victims of 9/11 and their families. The debate has become politicized ahead of November’s midterm congressional elections.

President Obama has said he believes Muslims have the right to build an Islamic center in New York as a matter of religious freedom, though he’s also said he won’t take a position on whether they should actually build it.

Earlier this week, Gov. Paterson said he had hoped to meet with developers to talk about the concerns of those still hurt over Sept. 11. He told WNYC Radio’s “The Take Away” today that he’s still seeking a meeting, but that the group postponed one set for Monday because of Rauf’s travels.

Muslims have been holding prayer services since last year in the building that the new project will replace.

The female victims of Pakistan’s flood
Women face starvation, disease and sexual assault. They’re also not supposed to get aid from male relief workers
By Judy Mandelbaum

*

In Pakistani floods, women are biggest victims
AP
Pakistani flood survivors demand help from a soldier in Jampur
This originally appeared on Judy Mandelbaum’s Open Salon blog.

Just when you thought the “ground zero mosque” was our most pressing concern, the floodwaters of Pakistan arrived to create “probably the biggest emergency on the planet today,” as UNICEF puts it. It is a disaster that contains the germ of many others: starvation, epidemics, climate change, political instability and future violence. Heavy rainfalls have placed some 20 percent of Pakistani territory underwater, an area greater than Italy, killing more than 2,000 persons and displacing and destroying the livelihoods of around 20 million more. Six million require immediate assistance. As always in disasters of this kind, it is women and the children they care for who tend to suffer the most — both in the immediate disaster and in the long, uncertain aftermath. This suffering manifests itself in ways that raw statistics cannot measure.

According to the RHRC (Reproductive Health Response in Crises Consortium), 85 percent of persons displaced by the flood are women and children. As the floodwaters rise, they are at acute risk from starvation, exposure, sexual assault and water-borne diseases. However, providing them with assistance is more difficult than these basic facts suggest. In traditional Pakistani society, it is taboo for women to receive aid or medical care from male relief workers, preventing many of them from seeking such aid in the first place.

This particularly applies to pregnant women surprised by the flood. Pakistan already had a high maternal morality rate before the flood, with 320 women dying per 100,000 live births. This rate has undoubtedly increased due to the disaster. While the Pakistani government and NGOs have sent female aid workers into the affected areas, their numbers are not always sufficient to meet the crushing demand for help. In addition, women are increasingly cut off from a supply of birth control pills and condoms (before the flood, 30 percent of fertile women were using some form of contraception). A wave of unwanted pregnancies, with all the complications that will bring, is certain.

AUGUST 19–As part of an undercover probe, federal agents have been targeting customers of a New Jersey-based business selling nudist publications in a sting operation aimed at trying to get these clients to purchase child pornography videos, The Smoking Gun has learned.

The undercover operation, run out of the United States Postal Inspection Service’s Newark office, is focusing on subjects receiving mail from Internaturally, Inc., a 30-year-old business whose web site advertises the “World’s biggest naturist catalog.” The company–run by Bernard Loibl, 62, and his wife Sherry, 57–also publishes “Naturally,” a quarterly nudist magazine with 6000 subscribers.

Details of the unorthodox federal probe surfaced this week in a court filing related to an August 4 raid at the South Carolina home of Joseph Laney, an Internaturally customer. A search warrant affidavit, excerpted here, provides a glimpse at the undercover operation, which apparently involves the monitoring of Internaturally’s mail. Known as a “mail cover,” the investigative tool allows agents to record details about senders and recipients of postal items.

According to the affidavit, Postal Inspector Brian Wittig “identified” Laney as “having U.S. Mail correspondence with” Internaturally. Wittig reported that the company “published a nudist magazine called Naturally, which offered images of nude children under the age of 18,” adding that the publication included ads “selling videos containing footage of” naked minors.

Aware that “those who have a sexual interest in children may also show an interest in obtaining child pornography,” Wittig created an undercover company, Vista Line Videos, that purported to be “one of the most complete speciality video suppliers in North America.” The firm’s 11 video categories included “Bestiality,” “Girls-Adolescent,” and “Incest & Family.” In a bid to entice customers, Wittig has sent unsolicited advertisements to individuals who have received mail from Internaturally (the firm has a 30,000-name mailing list).

The undercover mailing included a catalog request form that was to be filled out by the recipient. In Laney’s case, he wrote back Vista Line Videos and asked for five of its catalogs. Agents subsequently sent Laney, 55, five one-page catalogs, which listed 67 separate video titles and descriptions.

Laney, according to the affidavit, ordered a $30 DVD titled “Next Top Model.” According to one of the undercover operation’s catalogs, the video featured “many incredibly sexy 10-12 year old girls” stripping and showing off “their nude young bodies.” After the video was delivered to Laney, his Rock Hill home was raided by federal agents, who recovered a “Delivered ‘Vista Line Videos’ DVD from DVD player,” according to a court filing.

In a TSG interview, Laney admitted purchasing the DVD, which he termed a “mistake in judgment.” Claiming to be a “naturalist,” he said that the video was “not for sexual gratification,” adding that he thought the title was “straight nudist.” Laney, who has not yet been arrested in connection with his Vista Line Videos purchase, was unaware how federal agents came to target him in the undercover probe. Asked if he was an Internaturally customer, Laney replied that he had purchased items from the firm “on and off” since the mid-1980s.

In interviews, the Loibls told TSG that other customers reported receiving the unsolicited mailing, but that the couple did not begin connecting the dots until they were recently contacted by a lawyer representing a man who had been caught up in the sting. Bernard Loibl described his business as a “wholesome naturist organization,” while his wife noted that the firm has never encountered any legal problems. “We do not have anything to do with child pornography,” she said.

Both Loibls said they were distressed to learn that their mail was apparently being tracked and their customers were being targeted by federal investigators.

But while Sherry Loibl described Internaturally’s clientele as those “truly interested in the naturist lifestyle,” it is not hard to imagine publications and videos sold by the company–in addition to the firm’s web site itself–being of interest to pedophiles. The titles–which are often produced overseas–do not include sexual activity. But they frequently show young children naked, which can be jarring and unsettling, especially since the Internet is crawling with individuals thirsty for such imagery.

Additionally, some of the imported products offered by Internaturally–like the $80 DVD “Naturist Family Talent Contest”–carry descriptions that could easily be interpreted as sleazy come-ons: “Several Naturist girls show off their various talents in this family contest on the beach. Hundreds of people attend and every girl wins a prize.” Sherry Loibl described videos like this as “innocent portrayals of families having fun.” (5 pages)

Police: Sunday School Teacher Has Sex With Girl, 12, Before Class

Posted: 11:08 am EDT August 19, 2010Updated: 6:40 pm EDT August 19, 2010
ECONOMY, Pa. — Police have charged a Beaver County Sunday school teacher with twice having sex with a 12-year-old girl before class on church property.

Thomas Law, 19, of New Sewickley Township, is charged with aggravated indecent assault and other crimes for incidents last August, when he was 18 and still a Sunday school teacher at New Hope Evangelical Lutheran Church in Economy.

Police said the sex occurred on a couch in a building used for church gatherings.

Economy police began investigating after the girl’s mother found a note earlier this month about the alleged relationship with Law.

Police said Law confessed to having sex with the girl. He’s been released from the Beaver County Jail after posting bond.

Law’s attorney, Steve Colafella, said that he just received the case and has little to say about it except that Law was not a teacher during the time of the alleged sexual assaults.

The pastor of New Hope Evangelical Lutheran Church said that the church’s prayers are with the victim’s family and that Law is no longer working with children at the church.

A man in state prison on other charges pleaded guilty Thursday in federal court to transporting minor girls across state lines to work for him as prostitutes in Atlantic City, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman said.

Javon "Teflon" Gordon, 28, who has lived in Atlantic City and Vineland, faces from 10 years to life in prison and as much as $250,000 in fines when he is sentenced Nov. 22, Fishman said.

Gordon admitted Thursday that he acted as a pimp for underage girls and adult women in a prostitution ring he ran in the Atlantic City area from September 2007 to July 2008, Fishman said. He admitted he controlled the females and required them to turn over the money they got for sex acts with customers.

Gordon admitted that he went to Philadelphia from Atlantic City to pick up a minor girl to work as a prostitute, and also took an adult woman and another minor from Boston to Atlantic City to engage in prostitution, Fishman said.

Gordon was indicted in October on eight charges, including running a child exploitation enterprise, sex trafficking of children, sexual exploitation of children, distribution and possession of child pornography and two counts of transportation of a minor to engage in prostitution. He pleaded guilty Thursday to just the transportation of minors counts.

According to the indictment, Gordon trained the women how to perform sex acts for money, how much to charge for which acts and the areas of Atlantic City where they were to find customers. He used the money they earned for hotel rooms, gambling in Atlantic City casinos and other items, the indictment alleged.

Gordon took digital photos of the girls naked, partially clothed and in suggestive poses and posted them on Craigslist and other websites in order to attract customers, Fishman said Thursday. He also used the Internet to solicit women to work for him.

A September 2008 sworn affidavit by FBI Special Agent Daniel A. Garrabrant provides insight as to how Gordon ran his operation.

Atlantic City police found a 17-year-old girl April 17, 2008, who said Gordon had assaulted her, and that she had worked as a prostitute for him for more than a month, Garrabrant said in his statement.

The girl told police she was living in Philadelphia and her family was having financial difficulties when she met a woman who called herself Kitty, and said she was 24 and working for Gordon, Garrabrant said. The woman advised the girl to come to Atlantic City with her, and in February 2008, the two of them took a cab to the Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort, where Gordon met them and paid the driver. Gordon took the girl back to Philadelphia by cab so she could pick up some clothes, and they returned to Atlantic City.

The girl told Gordon she was 19, but Gordon called her "Baby Girl" because she looked so young, Garrabrant said. He put her to work as a prostitute, and gave her two cell phones and instructions on performing the job, Garrabrant said. Gordon, Kitty and the 17-year-old also traveled to a Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C., where they stayed in a motel and solicited customers over the Internet, the agent said.

Kitty turned out to be Colleen Stapleton, 18, who had been reported missing from Colorado in June 2007, Garrabrant said.

In March 2008, the New Jersey State Police conducted part of an ongoing investigation in the Taj Mahal, and a female undercover officer was approached by a man, later identified as Gordon, who asked her to work for him, Garrabrant said. Gordon gave her a phone number to call if she was interested, Garrabrant said.

In July 2008, Absecon police went to the Superlodge motel following a report of another 17-year-old girl who had been reported missing from Lawrence, Mass., Garrabrant said in his statement. Police found the girl, who told them Gordon had forced her into prostitution, made her take a handful of pills and threatened her with a stun gun, the agent said. Police staked out the room, and Gordon, Stapleton and another man were arrested when they returned.

The girl told police that she and her 14-year-old sister traveled to Atlantic City in early July 2008 and got a room at the Superlodge. They met Stapleton, who arranged for them to meet Gordon in the Taj Mahal parking garage, Garrabrant said. Gordon came up behind the girl, forced her into a car, punched her and threatened to kill her if she didn’t work for him or tired to run away, Garrabrant said.

Gordon and Stapleton tried to force the 14-year-old to work as a prostitute, Garrabrant said. When the girl refused, Gordon assaulted her, the agent said. The child got away, went back to Massachusetts and told her mother where her older sister was. The mother then called police.

Gordon is currently in the Mid-State Correctional Facility serving a 4-year sentence for resisting arrest and eluding police in a motor vehicle in Essex County, according to the state Department of Corrections Web site. He was also sentenced to a one-year term in July 2009 for promoting prostitution in Atlantic County.

A local Minnesota Republican Party operative yesterday waded into one of the signature political issues of our time: “Who’s hotter — Republican women or Democratic women?”

The Senate District 56 GOP Party posted a Web video yesterday laying out its position on the hotness question. It leads with images of prominent Republicans such as Sarah Palin, Michelle Malkin, and Michele Bachmann; the soundtrack, naturally, is the Tom Jones chestnut, “She’s a Lady.”

Then, there’s an abrupt switch to the other side of the aisle. The theme is subtly conveyed with the strains of the Baha Men hit “Who Let the Dogs Out?” Photos of Michelle Obama, Janet Reno, Rosie O’Donnell and Hillary Clinton flash on the screen.

The video quickly made its viral way through the blogosphere, and provoked strong reaction from state politicos and others. State Democratic chairman Brian Melendez called the video “sexist and offensive.”

“The day when a woman was judged by her looks rather than her competence and intelligence should have passed three generations ago,” Melendez said in a statement Tuesday. “But apparently Republican leaders in the year 2010 still think of that bygone era as the good old days, and want to bring it back.” Melendez called for the video’s removal and an apology from branch GOP chairman Joe Salmon.

Local Republican state House candidate Andrea Kieffer also requested that the video be removed, Paul Schmelzer reports for the Minnesota Independent. Kieffer called the video a “juvenile attempt at ‘marketing.’ ”

“This is not something I would condone, and I am sending a request that the webmaster take it down immediately,” she wrote in communication with the Independent.

As of Wednesday morning, the party had removed the video from its website.

Still, Salmon took a parting shot at what he seems to view as the humorless enforcers of political correctness. “It [is] really unfortunate to relearn that the other side is severely lacking a sense of humor,” Salmon tweeted Tuesday.

[Another beauty controversy: Miss Universe body paint photos surface]

Calls and emails to Salmon and the site’s webmaster were not immediately returned Wednesday morning. But webmaster Randy Brown told the Minnesota Independent yesterday that the video was mainly intended to inject levity in the election season. “[I]ts only intention was to bring a smile to a few peoples’ faces, and possibly irritate a few others. Is it fair? Does that matter? It wasn’t intended to be fair. It was intended to be funny,” Brown said.

Politicians — Republicans and Democrats alike — actually didn’t find it very funny when they argued Palin was the target of sexism during her 2008 vice presidential campaign. Palin herself branded Newsweek’s November ’09 cover photo of her in running shorts as sexist. That same image is the first photo that appears in the Minnesota GOP group’s video.

[Photos: Sarah Palin hits the campaign trail]

It also seems that the district’s image might benefit if GOP workers spent a bit less time compiling cheeky viral videos and a bit more time proofreading the party’s Web page. Here’s its mission statement:

“OUR MISSION: Senate District 56 Republians [sic] exist to promote our Republican principals [sic], to help elect Republician’s [sic] to the various offices which represent our area and reflect our beliefs. We in the district support each other and our neighbors to have government enable us to succeed, and not us enabling government to grow.”

Even though the offending video has been removed from the District 56 website, it of course lives on in YouTube — with the clear disclaimer that it’s meant to provoke a strong reaction, and plainly succeeds. Because of its content, YouTube also requests that users register and confirm they are over the age of 18 prior to viewing. With all that in mind, the link to the video is here.

The video furor marks just the latest episode in a long season of election-year gaffes. Here’s a sampling:

* A New Hampshire state legislator resigned last week after joking that Sarah Palin should also have died in the plane crash that killed former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens.
* Democratic Rep. Mike McMahon of New York fired an aide after she issued a memo highlighting “Jewish money” donations to McMahon’s challenger.