Favoring Co-ed Schools
Fascinating defense of integrated classrooms in today’s Arab Times, entitled Students Will Be Made More Comfortable under Co-ed written by Kuwait University student Dalal Nasser Al-Otaibi.
I learned how American Universities became co-ed, and why. (I had no idea; you grow up thinking these things are a given.) This article must have been used as a paper for a class, as it is well documented, cites sources, etc.
Get Moving!
We all know that we need to get more exercise. This report from excerpted from BBC Health News tells us that if we don’t get moving, we are more subject to depression and later, to dementia. Get moving!
Inactivity link to mental decline
A lack of physical activity leads to depression and dementia, evidence presented at the British Nutrition Foundation conference shows.
It comes as new research from the University of Bristol found that being active cuts the risk of Alzheimer’s disease by around a third.
Currently only 35% of men and 24% of women reach the recommended weekly amount of physical activity.
Professor Nanette Mutrie, an expert in exercise and sport psychology at the University of Strathclyde, told the conference that mental health was not a trivial issue.
“It’s only recently that people have begun to see the link between physical activity and mental health,” says
Professor Nanette Mutrie.
“It’s important for increasing people’s self esteem, general mood, coping with stress and even sleeping better.
“And we now have very strong evidence that physical activity can prevent depression.”
She said inactive people had twice the risk of becoming depressed and there was also very good evidence that exercise is a useful treatment for depression.
Dementia risk
Researchers at the University of Bristol carried out an analysis of 17 trials looking at the effects of physical activity on dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
They found that in both men and women physical activity was associated with a 30-40% drop in the risk of Alzheimer’s.
It is unclear why there is such a great effect but it could be associated with benefits to the vascular system as well as release of chemicals in the brain.
Professor Mutrie added: “It could be a simple case of use it or lose it.
. . . . . .
“There has already, justifiably, been a lot of emphasis on good nutrition but we must also find ways of helping people to be more physically active to ensure that they maintain health and quality of life in later years.”
Department of Health figures show the majority of adults do not do the recommended 30 minutes of moderate activity at least five times a week.
Read the entire article HERE.
Salary Belongs to Husband?
Muna al-Fuzai had a column yesterday in the Kuwait Times entitled Kuwaiti Women Accept Discrimination. (You can read the whole article by clicking on the blue type.)
In this article is one small paragraph that sends shivers down my spine:
A religious Islamic ruling was made recently to approve the husband’s right to take his wife’s salary because the time she spent outside was his own and thus he is entitled to take her salary, which she has worked so hard to earn.
It doesn’t sound to me as if it has the weight of law – like the first question I ask is:
• “do all Islamic religious rulers believe this to be true, or is this one guy’s opinion?”
• is it possible for this ruling to receive enough support to make it law?
• if it becomes law in Kuwait, does this law apply to all people living in Kuwait, or just to Kuwaitis?
This, to me, is a very scary ruling.
I’ve been married to AdventureMan for a long time. We’ve always discussed finances together, and we’ve both agreed on how to allocate our money and salaries. Sharing is very different from my earnings being controlled by someone else, no discussion. Or maybe discussion, but not necessarily.
But I am not Kuwaiti. If you are working, have ever worked, or intend to work, how does this ruling strike you?
As It Snows . . .
Catching up with the news, I was looking at the Thursday Kuwait Times when I came across a photo. I am not going to print the photo in my blog, but if you want to look at it, or one like it, you can see it at Yahoo News, just click here on the blue type.
The photo of the execution, titled Iran hangs 13 on a single day is extraordinary enough. I don’t think we print those kind of photos in American newspapers. Maybe in the tabloids; these photos are considered disturbing. I know they disturb me. This one in the Kuwait Times has big white balls in it and the caption reads: QOM, Iran: Three Iranian drug traffickers hang limply from the nooses as it snows in a square in this central city yesterday.
I remember cutting out a similar one from a paper in Saudi Arabia when I lived there. It didn’t have a photo, but the article was about the Taliban hanging of a convicted man in the stadium in Kabul. It stated the man was wearing a blue sharwal khamis. There was no mention of why this man was hung, of what he was convicted.
The Yahoo version of the same hanging of 13 states: Three Iranian drug traffickers hang limply from the nooses after being executed in a square.
To me, the mention of snow falling as people are executed, of the executed man seems . . . maybe poetic? Maybe some way of softening the horror? I don’t know. It’s not something we would do. Bad news is left bare, without a lot of dressing it up. I would love to get your input on this. For me, it’s a different way of thinking.
Christian vs Christian
This is just purely sad. You can read the whole story at BBC World News.
Unholy dust-up at Nativity church
Members of rival Christian orders have traded blows at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, with four people reported wounded in the fray. Greek Orthodox and Armenian Apostolic priests were sweeping up at the church following the Christmas rites of the Western churches earlier in the week.
Reports say some Orthodox faithful encroached on the Armenian section, prompting pitched battles with brooms.
Intense rivalries at the jointly-run church can set off vicious feuds.
The basilica, built over the grotto in the West Bank town that is the reputed birthplace of Jesus Christ is shared by Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Armenian religious authorities.
Palestinian police formed a human cordon to separate the battling dark-robed and bearded priests and deacons, said to number about 80, so that cleaning could continue.
Read the rest of the story here.
Dubai Rape Case Update
Here is an update on the case where the 15 year old French boy was kidnapped, taken to the desert and raped, and then the accused said it was consensual. The parents took them to court – and two have now been convicted; the third has yet to be tried. The doctor who examined this boy told the boy he was a homosexual, that there were no signs of rape. The parents were outraged, and pursued the case.
You can read the entire BBC Story HERE.
Emiratis jailed for raping youth
A court in Dubai, in the UAE, has jailed two men for 15 years for the abduction and sexual assault of a 15-year-old French-Swiss boy.
The men, one of whom is HIV positive, took the teenager to the desert and raped him at knifepoint.
The victim’s mother, Veronique Robert, says the authorities lied about the defendant’s medical status to hide the fact that Aids is present in the UAE.
“Fifteen years is nothing for someone who knew he had Aids,” she said.
A lawyer for the family said they would appeal against what they saw as a too-lenient sentence. A juvenile court is trying a third suspect in the same case.
The defence had claimed the victim had consented to sex and had lied to the authorities.
Treatment missed
Ms Robert has been campaigning to change the law in the United Arab Emirates to recognise homosexual rape as a crime and for more openness about HIV and Aids.
Bloggers Changing the Face of News in the Middle East
“So are the “new media” – blogs, websites, chatrooms – now becoming the only truly independent media in the Arab world?”
This article is from today’s BBC News in Depth:
New media dodge Mid-East censors
By Robin Lustig
BBC radio presenter
It’s never easy writing about media freedom.
Even in countries where there is no official censorship, all reporters know there will always be some restraints on what they can say – editors need to be persuaded, owners need to be kept happy, the law has to be obeyed.
Where there is official censorship – where, for example, it is a crime to “bring the government into disrepute” or to publish material which “insults the dignity of the head of state” – the problems are all the greater.
No freedom is absolute, yet some media are a great deal freer than others.
In the Arab world, in general, the media have been heavily politicised.
Governments have tended to control the main media outlets – the main daily newspaper, the main TV and radio networks – and where independent media have been allowed, they have often been owned by opposition parties or by businesspeople with clear links to political organisations. (The establishment of the Qatar-based al-Jazeera TV news station was a rare special case.)
But then, one day, along came the internet. And it was as if someone had blown open a few million doors.
Egyptian successes
Now, everyone can write – weblogs, or blogs, were born, giving everyone with access to the internet exactly the same opportunity to write and publish as the most powerful media tycoon.
You can read the rest of this article by clicking here, on BBC News.
Small Waist, Big Bum
Some of these studies are just too much. This study claims the results show that the curvier a woman is, the smarter she, and her children, are. From today’s BBC Health News.
Women with curvy figures are likely to be brighter than waif-like counterparts and may well produce more intelligent offspring, a US study suggests.
Researchers studied 16,000 women and girls and found the more voluptuous performed better on cognitive tests – as did their children.
The bigger the difference between a woman’s waist and hips the better.
Researchers writing in Evolution and Human Behaviour speculated this was to do with fatty acids found on the hips.
In this area, the fat is likely to be the much touted Omega-3, which could improve the woman’s own mental abilities as well as those of her child during pregnancy.
You can read the entire article HERE.
On What Grounds?
Let’s see. This guy was convicted, and sentenced to life imprisonment, and upon appeal, his verdict was upheld. Then an upper court of appeals judge reverses the conviction. When the Arab Times prints a story like this, they need also to report what the judge said, on what grounds he overturned the conviction, dont’ you think?
Bedoun acquitted in kidnap, sale of maid to Asian pimps
KUWAIT CITY: The Court of Appeals Wednesday overturned the verdict of a lower court and acquitted a Bedoun taxi driver, identified as Mohammed S., who had been charged with kidnapping and selling an Asian housemaid to three Bangladeshi pimps.
On March 4, 2007, the Criminal Court had sentenced the driver to life imprisonment in absentia. He submitted an objection letter to the same court, but the court upheld the verdict.
According to case papers the driver promised the victim a better job and lured her to run away from her sponsor. On June 17, 2006, the maid escaped from her sponsor. The accused waited for her in his taxi with two Bangladeshi men and the ‘four’ drove to an apartment in Riqei. There the maid was introduced to another Bangladeshi.
The man, who gave her shelter in his apartment, informed her that he had bought her from the driver for KD 150. The confused maid discovered she had been tricked and requested to go to the bathroom. In an attempt to escape by climbing down from the drainage pipes, she slipped and fell to the ground.
The building caretaker informed the authorities and police investigations revealed the apartment was rented by the driver, who reportedly went underground after the incident.
The session was presided by Judge Ibrahim Al-Obaid.
Obesity Fuels Cancer in Women
This is not good news – From BBC Health News:
About 6,000 middle-aged or older women in the UK develop cancer each year because they are obese or overweight, a Cancer Research UK-funded study says.
The study, which looked at 45,000 cases of cancer in 1m women over seven years, says this is about 5% of such cases.
It is published online by the British Medical Journal and blames excess fat for 50% of cases of womb cancer and a type of oesophageal cancer.
Last week an international study warned of the link between cancer and weight.
Cancers Linked to Obesity:
Womb
Oesophagus
Bowel
Kidney
Leukaemia
Breast
Multiple myeloma (bone marrow)
Pancreatic
Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma
Ovarian
You can read the entire article HERE.
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