From Andy Dolan @ Mail Online:Supporters of a women's refuge were 'shocked and stunned' to be told it is being closed - because it does not cater for men.
The emergency shelter was set up 13 years ago for women and children and adult males are not allowed to stay.
But council officials have now ruled that, because it does not serve both sexes equally, the money used to run the home would be better spent on an 'outreach service' to help battered husbands as well as wives in their own homes.
Brian Ellis, a councillor who helped set up the refuge in Weymouth, Dorset, in 1986, branded the move a 'step backwards'.
'It doesn't make sense,' he said. 'The women are there because of what men have done to them and their children. When people suffer from domestic violence they need an immediate escape and that's being taken away.'
Refuge, a charity for women and children affected by domestic violence, said: 'There are not enough refuges for women as it is.
'It's already difficult to get help and women often have to travel long distances. Losing beds that are already there is really devastating. It is a whole community that has lost that kind of safety.'
The shelter, which can accommodate six families, costs £82,780 a year to run.
From the Khaleej Times Online:Scuffles broke out on Sunday when hundreds of Saudi women students held a rare protest at a university over alleged corrupt admission policies, local newspapers reported.
The protest erupted after students were turned away on admissions day at Taif University, south of the holy city of Mecca, Okaz and its sister paper the Saudi Gazette said on Monday.
Female security guards clashed with the students and female guardians as they staged a sit-in and blocked streets and the entrance to the university, they said on their websites.
Witnesses quoted by the Saudi Gazette said that Red Crescent relief teams treated the female guardian of one of the girls “who was beaten up by the security women.”
Al-Medina newspaper said the women and their guardians attempted to storm the university’s gate and were pushed back by security guards, resulting in some injuries.
The women accused the university of admitting less qualified students and closing admissions before the official registration date.
But the dean of admissions and registration, Hisham al-Zeer denied there was any corruption in the admissions process, the Gazette said.
From Middle East Online:A Sudanese journalist facing 40 lashes for wearing "indecent" trousers vowed on the eve of her judgment that she is ready to be whipped 40,000 times in her bid to change the country's harsh laws.
Lubna Ahmed al-Hussein, who works for the media department of the United Nations Mission in Sudan, is to be judged on Tuesday after waiving the immunity granted to UN workers.
She is to be judged under Article 152 of Sudanese law, which promises 40 lashes for anyone "who commits an indecent act which violates public morality or wears indecent clothing."
Police arrested Hussein and 12 other women wearing trousers at a Khartoum restaurant on July 3. Two days later 10 of the women accepted a punishment of 10 lashes, but Hussein is appealing in a bid to eliminate such rough justice.
Hordes of people, many of them female supporters and some also wearing trousers out of solidarity, crammed into the courthouse for the hearing.
From Canada.com:The family-history experts at ancestry.com have discovered the actress' distant relative may have been a sorceress in real life. According to English records, Joan Playle lived in Essex County, England, during the 16th century and was convicted of witchcraft in 1592.
It is not known for a fact whether Playle really was a witch. Records, however, indicate she was not executed for her alleged crimes but was excommunicated from the Church of England. In Elizabethan times, women were more susceptible to being accused of witchcraft if they were poor, widowed or single. It appears Watson's distant family member was one of 270 known people who were accused and tried for witchcraft in England under the rule of Queen Elizabeth I.
From David Randall @ the Independent:Corazon Aquino, who was propelled by the assassination of her husband into a crusade that saw her defeat Ferdinand Marcos, the then president of the Philippines and one of the 20th century's most corrupt dictators, died yesterday. She was 76.
Later, as supporters scattered yellow confetti on the procession, her body was taken to a Manila school, where it will lie in state. Her funeral will take place on Wednesday at the capital's cathedral. She had been diagnosed with advanced colon cancer last year, and, for the past month, had been confined to a Manila hospital. Her old adversary, Imelda Marcos, even led prayers for Cory Aquino in the final weeks of her illness.
Interview @ AllAfrica between Yemisi Suleiman and Bishop Peace Okonkwo in the lead up to the Women of Global Impact Conference 2009.The Women of Global Impact is an initiative that has different points of reaching out: Rehoboth Homes, Widows Empowerment Initiative, Children Educational Support and Orphanage Support.
The programme was actually aimed at getting women that are highly placed in the society to let them know that as women we could do more to complement what the men are doing; because, we are the ones carrying the brunt, the ones that give birth. It was to bring them together and thank them for what they are doing and inspire them to do more.
From Chris Smyth @ Times Online:...1.4 million criminal trials from the 18th and 19th centuries that feature in registers that go online for the first time today.
The records, published in a collaboration between the website and the National Archives, include every criminal trial in England and Wales that was reported to the Home Office between 1791 and 1892.
It was a deadly period to be a criminal — the “Bloody Code” when more than 200 different offences carried the death penalty was in place at the start of this era — and the documents detail 10,300 executions as well as 97,000 transportations and 900,000 sentences of imprisonment.
The documents, held in 279 volumes at the National Archives in Kew, were scanned in by volunteers for the genealogical website ancestry.co.uk and can be searched by keyword. They are available only to subscribers, although the website is offering a free two-week trial.
From Vijay Kumar @ Ground Report:In Indian Kashmir, J & K Police department discovered an ancient and magnificent stone sculpture of Goddess Lakshmi from an ancient spring at Village Nagabal Lesser in Kokernag area of South Kashmir. The sculpture is brilliantly carved in limestone (slightly brownish in colour) measuring 9-inches in height and 5-inches in width. The deity is seated on a lotus throne placed in between two lions.
The preliminary study of the sculpture dates the artifact between 6th - 7th Century A.D. and places it very near to the sculptures previously found at Bijbehara, Anantnag, Kashmir. This is the only kind of artifact found from the Lesser Kokernag area of South Kashmir so far and the presence of pottery in an around Village Lesser reveals that there had been some ancient settlements which requires further examination.
From
Christina Caron @ ABC News:
It has been 72 years since famed aviator Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared while attempting to fly around the world. But the mystery remains unsolved: Nobody knows exactly what happened to Earhart or her plane.
Now researchers at the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, or Tighar, say they are on the verge of recovering DNA evidence that would demonstrate Earhart had been stranded on Nikumaroro Island (formerly known as Gardner Island) before finally perishing there.
During May and June of next year, Tighar will launch a new $500,000 expedition, continuing the archaeological work it has been doing on the island since 2001.
"We think we will be able to come back with DNA," said Tighar's Executive Director Ric Gillespie, who is working with two DNA labs in Ontario, Canada, Genesis Genomics and Molecular World. "We were out there in 2007 under the impression that in order to extract DNA we would need to find a piece of a human, and we didn't find anything like that. But we did find what's best described as personal effects of the castaway that died there."
