Thursday, December 15, 2011

Women's Views on News

Women's Views on News

How pedal power is helping Uganda’s gorillas

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Summary of story from The Guardian, December 14, 2011 Bicycles are powering films that teach communities about the plight of gorillas and their natural habitat. In late 2009, the Great Apes Film Initiative was struggling in its efforts to bring conservation education to communities located on the edge of the Mgahinga national park, Uganda. They [...]

German bank embarrassed by sex scandal

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Summary of story from BBCNews, December 14, 2011 The German mortgage bank Wuestenrot is investigating a rewards trip to Rio de Janeiro where the sales team ended up in a club called Barbarella. According to the German business papers, there was “heavy partying” and some of the salesmen ended up with prostitutes. Two members of [...]

Brazilian artist Lygia Pape: a retrospective

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Summary of story from The Guardian, December 7, 2011 A retrospective of Brazilian modernist artist Lygia Pape opened last week at London’s Serpentine gallery and runs until February 2012. The exhibition, which was launched at the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid earlier this year, has been edited down to fit the Serpentine’s spaces. Pape, who [...]

Yuko Hasegawa named curator of 11th Sharjah Biennial

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Summary of story from The National, December 14, 2011 Sharjah Art Foundation has announced Yuko Hasegawa as the curator of the 11th Sharjah Biennial in 2013. Hasegawa is the chief curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (MOT), and has previously worked as co-curator of the celebrated Sao Paolo Biennial (2010) and the 12th [...]

Symbio-genesis scientist Lynn Margulis dies, aged 73

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Summary of story from The Telegraph, December 13, 2011 Lynn Margulis, a microbiologist whose work on the origin of cells transformed the study of evolution, has died, aged 73. She also developed the “Gaia theory” with fellow scientist James Lovelock, showing how the Earth was a vast self-regulating system. Although advancing such theories exposed her [...]

Woman co-accused in racist attack in Greece

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Summary of story from HumanRightsWatch, December 12, 2011 One woman and two men are to go on trial for the September 2011 assault on an Afghan asylum seeker in Athens. A sobering reminder of increasing racist violence in Greece, this trial is the first of its kind since 1999 even though racist violence in the [...]

New wave of graffiti artists female

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Summary of story from The Independent, December 14, 2011 Graffiti is now shedding its macho tag, thanks to a new wave of urban female artists. The gender disparity seemed so deep-rooted in graffiti art that masculinity had often become the yardstick against which such artists were measured. Girls were expected to 'toughen up' in order [...]

Gender violence on New York public transport

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Polly Trenow WVoN co-editor  “This guy was standing between the edge of the platform and the staircase… He walked towards me while I was walking towards the platform. Unexpectedly he came in front of me and groped me on my chest!” “I was walking home from the C train at Lafayette … I saw a [...]

Women in Nairobi slums battle violence, poverty and toxic fumes

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Summary of story from HeraldScotland, December 11, 2011 David Pratt reports on the women living in slums on the outskirts of the Kenyan capital Nairobi who face conditions which are "among the most volatile and squalid on the continent" and the daily threat of violence. In the slums of Korogocho and Mathare – spread across only a [...]

UN rights commissioner calls for international trial of Assad government

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Summary of story from ABCNews, December 14, 2011 United Nations (UN) human rights commissioner Navi Pillay has recommended that the Syrian government be referred to the International Criminal Court, following the announcement that more than 5,000 people have now been killed during anti-government protests. Briefing the UN Security Council, Pillay said this number had grown by [...]

Petition for review of anti-depressant prescription

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Summary of story from Platform51, December 12, 2011 Platform51, an organisation supporting young women in the UK, is calling for a review of the way in which antidepressants are prescribed. The organisation says that according to its own research, 33 per cent of women have taken antidepressants. And more than half were not offered any alternative [...]

Lessons on nonviolence from Greenham Common Peace Camp

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Summary of story from OpenDemocracy, December 12, 2011 Feminist activist Rebecca Johnson reflects on the lessons learned about nonviolent protest from the Women’s Peace Camp on Greenham Common, UK, during the 1980s and 90s. Like many of the current Occupy groups, the women at Greenham Common protesting against nuclear weapons were evicted many times, and [...]

Reports find abuse rife in US women’s prisons

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Summary of story from IPS News, December 7, 2011 Human rights abuses against women in US prisons are widespread and going unreported, claim recent reports. One study found that 2.1 per cent of female inmates experienced sexual misconduct by a staff member during a 10-month period, and advocates believe the real number could be much [...]

Buying an abortion pill on-line: new discussion?

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Summary of story from The Daily Beast, December 12, 2011 A woman in Idaho, USA, has sparked a huge debate on abortion laws after being arrested for terminating her pregnancy with an abortion pill. Jennie Linn McCormack, 32, made the difficult decision to terminate a pregnancy after the father was sent to jail for robbery [...]

Child poverty group head says UK’s poorest taking biggest hit

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Summary of story from The Guardian, December 13, 2011 The coalition’s policies could do more harm even than the last Conservative government under Mrs Thatcher, says Alison Garnham, head of the Child Poverty Action Group, as poor families face benefit, support and service cuts. And she believes that the coalition government is in danger of emulating [...]

Prosecutions for Afghan acid attacks failing women

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Summary of story from Care2, December 11, 2011 A recent acid attack in Afghanistan has highlighted the shortcomings of a new law to protect women from gender-based violence. The attack against a mother and her three daughters took place after one of the perpetrators had asked to marry one of the girls. The father refused, [...]

Calls to cap interest on UK’s “payday” loans

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Summary of stories from New Statesman, December 8, 2011, and The Guardian, December 7, 2011 A Labour member of the UK parliament, Stella Creasy, is calling for the UK government to legislate to cap interest on 'payday' loans, preferably before Christmas. Payday loans are small, unsecured loans taken out to tide people over until their [...]

‘Fetus murder’ debate sparked by suicide attempt

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Summary of story from Care2, December 14, 2011 The Indiana Court of Appeals today heard testimony on the case of Bei Bei Shuai, who ingested rat poison in a suicide attempt which caused her to go into preterm labor at 33 weeks and her baby to die shortly afterwards (see WVoN story). The state doesn’t see [...]

UK students turn to sex industry to fund education

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Summary of story from BBCNews, December 14, 2011 The National Union of Students (NUS) claims a greater number of UK students are turning to prostitution and gambling to fund their education. It has estimated that about 20 per cent of women working in lap dancing clubs were students. Estelle Hart, the NUS’s national women’s officer, said [...]

International Criminal Court appoints African woman to top post

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Summary of story from BBCNews, December 12, 2011 The International Criminal Court (ICC) has appointed Gambian Fatou Bensouda as their new  chief prosecutor. She is the first African to hold a top post at the ICC (see WVoN story). Her appointment was unanimously approved at a meeting of the legislative body of the ICC, the Assembly of States Parties [...]

UK hens get a second chance

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Summary of story from BBCNews, December 9, 2011 Jane Howorth has been spending her time before Christmas rescuing 450 former battery hens from a Devon egg farmer. They are the first batch of 1,200 hens which will be collected  as he restocks with barn hens to comply with an EU-wide ban on battery cages which [...]