http://www.theguardian.com/uk/commentisfree
Mirror.co.uk - News - I WILL FIGHT UNTIL I DIE TO FREE WOMEN FRO THE death threats come through Jasvinder Sanghera's letter box two or three times a week. On a bad day, the vicious notes are accompanied by excrement smeared on her windows. And when she's driving, Jasvinder is constantly on her guard in case she is being followed by the men intent on killing her. Saudi women make video protest Saudi women's rights activists have posted on the web a video of a woman at the wheel of her car, in protest at the ban on female drivers in the kingdom. Wajeha Huwaider talks of the injustice of the ban and calls for its abolition as she drives calmly along a highway. She says the film was posted to mark International Women's Day.
AOL and Huffington Post merger: Search engine optimization won't work forever. - By Farhad Manjoo Are you wondering, "will AOL's acquisition of the Huffington Post be successful?" I bet you are, as that's been a common search engine query since the announcement earlier this week that AOL will buy the Huffington Post. Other ways you might phrase the question include, "AOL Huffington Post will work?" or "AOL and Arianna good idea?" Chicago Tribune news: The bride was 7 Tihun Nebiyu the goat herder doesn't want to marry. She is adamant about this. But in her village nobody heeds the opinions of headstrong little girls. That's why she's kneeling in the filigreed shade of her favorite thorn tree, dropping beetles down her dress. Magic beetles. "When they bite you here--" Tihun explains gravely, pressing the scrabbling insects into her chest through the fabric of her tattered smock "--it makes your breasts grow."
Saudi forces daughter to dance at weddings A Saudi father abandoned tradition and encouraged his daughter to change careers from a physician to a wedding singer, after she was offered the job at a friends wedding. The girl, referred to by her initials R.I., by the Lebanese Magazine Sayedaty, was attending a friend's wedding and decided to sing for the bride. The lead singer in the band hired to perform at the wedding liked her performance and offered her a job. Initially, R.I.'s family was against the idea, but changed their minds when they realized that being a wedding singer was one of the most lucrative jobs in the conservative kingdom. R.I.'
Why the NYT will lose to HuffPo Tom McGeveran asks an important question, in his analysis of the AOL-HuffPo deal: What is it about the environment of traditional journalism that makes it so that readers are more likely to interact with the Huffington Post reblog of a New York Times article than they are with the article itself? The answer to this question, I think, is also a key part of the reason why the NYT paywall is a bad idea. It’s worth using a specific example here, so let’s take Dave Pell’s suggestion and look at the NYT’s Olbermann scoop last night, and HuffPo’s reblog of it. When Pell first tweeted the comparison, the NYT blog had no comments, while the HuffPo blog had “hundreds of comments/likes.”
Girl, 11, rescued from marriage An 11-year-old girl has been rescued from a forced marriage, the Home Office has said. Minister Baroness Scotland said the girl, who was born in Britain, was taken to Bangladesh at the age of six to care for her disabled mother. At 11, she was forced into marriage but her aunt in the UK reported the case to authorities who brought her back to Britain and put her in foster care. It is one of 5,000 cases handled by the government's forced marriage unit. Saudi mufti bans female university marathon When King Saud University in Riyadh announced holding a marathon for female students, the mufti of the kingdom put his foot down and talked the university president into canceling the entire event. The marathon, scheduled for Sunday morning, was officially postponed for unknown reasons. In a statement to Saudi daily Okaz, the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia Sheikh Abdul-Aziz Al al-Sheikh said he called the university president about the marathon and stressed that it had to be cancelled. The controversy started last January with a women's football game held between the teams of Prince Mohamed bin Fahd University in Khobar and Al-Yamama University in Riyadh. The game, held in a closed stadium with strictly female audience, caught the attention of Saudi media, as a precedent in the conservative society.
Huffington Post Thanks Facebook For Massive Growth Earlier this year, the Huffington Post announced the launch of Huffington Post Social News, a service which aggregates Huffington Post content that Facebook users comment on and share. In an interview with PaidContent‘s Staci Kramer, the company provided details about traffic and engagement since the launch of Facebook Connect. The results were nothing short of spectacular. Facebook referral traffic is up 48 percent since the launch – and the already-heavy volume of comments jumped to 2.2 million from 1.7 million in July. Fifteen percent of HuffPo comments now come from Facebook.
'My father tried to murder me' by honour killer daught I remember clearly the first time I feared for my life. My father was visiting my mother and their new baby in hospital, leaving my ten-year-old sister and me at home taking care of the younger children. The other two babies, aged one and two, were asleep and the original Godzilla film was on television. We were so absorbed that we didn't hear my father come in. Hearing my baby sister Farah grizzling in the cot, he strode over to discover her nappy had leaked and her clothes and bedding were a mess. The room shrank as my father loomed, more terrifying than Godzilla, very real and very angry.
Saudi women 'kept in childhood Saudi women are being kept in perpetual childhood so male relatives can exercise "guardianship" over them, the Human Rights Watch group has said. The New York-based group says Saudi women have to obtain permission from male relatives to work, travel, study, marry or even receive health care. Their access to justice is also severely constrained, it says. The group says the Saudi establishment sacrifices basic human rights to maintain male control over women.