KARACHI: “There definitely is friction between custom and religion, especially when it comes to giving women land rights,” said speakers at at an event organised by the Irtiqa Institute of Social Sciences on Tuesday.

Dr Saba Gul Khattak, a member of the social sector at the Planning Commission, said that while doing research in the Swat Valley recently, she came across many instances where people were against the thought of giving women land rights “as if it is something which can distort the very fabric of society”.

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The stories are grim and often impossible to confirm: illicit clinics, corrupt doctors and global networks dealing in human flesh. International organ trafficking is a big business, with an estimated value of $50m in 2008, according to Michael Bos from the European Platform on Ethical Legal and Psychosocial Aspects of Organ Transplantation.

This Chinese man is offering to sell his organs to pay the bills, which is typical as poverty drives the shadowy trade worth an estimated $50m globally [GALLO/GETTY]

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The high stress, high risk environment on Wall Street may lead many bankers to participate in risky sexual behaviour.

My colleague Mike Whitney asks: "What are the chances that Strauss-Kahn will get a fair trial now that he's been blasted as a serial sex offender in about 3,000 articles and in all the televised news reports?" "Do you remember any Wall Street bankers being dragged off in handcuffs when they blew up the financial system and bilked people out of trillions of dollars?"

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A woman has been detained in Saudi Arabia for defying the ban on driving. The kingdom is the only country in the world where women are discouraged from getting behind the wheel. Manal al Sharif is part of an online campaign group determined to get women in the driving seat more.

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By Manzoor Ali

PESHAWAR: The police have arrested a madrassa teacher on charges of sexual assaulting a three-year-old boy in the Kakshal area of Peshawar on Saturday.A police official of the Yakatut Police Station told The Express Tribune that accused Gul Zaman, a resident of the Orakzai Agency, was arrested after the assault victim’s father Shahbaz Khan reported the incident late on Friday.

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By Umer Nangiana

ISLAMABAD: A girl was allegedly kidnapped from the city centre and gang raped by four O-Levels students on Friday night. Kohsar police registered criminal cases against the four suspects after receiving the victim’s medical report on Saturday.

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Government officials in southern China are being accused of stealing infants from villagers for purposes of trafficking in infants.The officials allegedly arrived at people's houses demanding enormous sums of money from families who violated China's one-child policy.

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By Zahrah Nasir

It’s Apple blossom time and the air is heavy with bees bumbling from one cluster of nectar-rich, pale pink blossoms to the next, pollinating as they go. False springs have gone; this spring — a full six weeks later than what passes for ‘normal’ — is definitely the real thing, complete with swallows swooping through the open front door, flying in bomber formation around the living room before executing a complicated series of flips and rolls. They exit the back door and zoom through the woodshed, revving up for a repeat performance in two seconds flat.

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By Amna Feroze

Some stories prove that a life lived not for yourself, but for other people, can be more fulfilling than anything else you could have imagined.

Years ago, a slight and pretty girl, Rehana Khanum, lived at her uncle’s home in Wah Cantt. Her mother had died when she was just four years old, and her father, who was a prisoner of war in India, was in no position to help her. She loved going to school, but was plagued with worry for her sister, who was ill and couldn’t attend school herself, let alone get up from her bed. She was happy to pass her Matric exams, and soon after that she got married. She moved to Karachi filled with hope for her new future, but the large metropolis was unforgiving.

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Iraq is full of street kids; children with one or both parents killed, or some who have merely been abandoned.It has been estimated that there are now more than one million orphans in the country. But there are just four small orphanages in the capital, Baghdad - none of them filled to capacity.

The Iraqi government says that relatives would rather abandon children they are unable to take care of than bear the shame of bringing them to an orphanage. Al Jazeera's Jane Arraf reports from Baghdad.

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by Adil Najam

For the fifth time in as many days, a bomb ravaged through Pakistan killing innocent Pakistanis. Muslims killing other Muslims they considered less Muslim than themselves. This time the target was the shrine of 13th century Sufi saint Sakhi Sarwar in District Dera Ghazi Khan. This time more than 40 were killed. That number is likely to rise.

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Although bonded labour is a grave crime according to the constitution of Pakistan, but no one cares about implement laws that protect workers.

Many of my friends don’t know this but I worked as a manual labourer in my early teenage years. I used to work several hours a day for just Rs20.  There weren’t any weekly off days nor were there any extra benefits.

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DEARBORN: Shortly after Osama bin Laden’s death was broadcast to the world, Linda Sarsour posted on Twitter, ”Osama Bin Laden is dead. Good, now can I get my identity back? 10 yrs is a long time. Can being Palestinian and Muslim be cool again?”

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An undercover journey deep into the world of sex trafficking, following one man determined to rescue his wife -- kidnapped and sold into the global sex trade. How five women from the struggling countries of Eastern Europe were tricked into sexual slavery, beaten by traffickers and pimps, forced to work to turn a profit -- and finally escaped. Plus, a convicted Ukrainian sex trafficker talks about the multibillion dollar sex trade business, and why he sold an acquaintance for $1,000.

From the villages of Moldova and Ukraine, to underground brothels and discotheques in Turkey where many women are trafficked and forced into prostitution, we witness first-hand the brutal world of white sex slavery.

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Every day, 2,500 women and children around the world are sold into sexual slavery. Entering the brothels of Bombay with hidden cameras, THE DAY MY GOD DIED documents the tragedy of the child sex trade, exposing human rights violations and profiling the courageous abolitionists who are working towards change.

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By Mickey Goodman Mickey Goodman 
Pimps will traffic thousands of under-age prostitutes to Texas for Sunday's Super Bowl, hoping to do business with men arriving for the big game with money to burn, child rights advocates said. As the country's largest sporting event, the game between the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers will make the Dallas-Fort Worth area a magnet for business of all kinds.

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Inside the bizarre cabal of secretive donors, demagogic bloggers, pseudo-scholars, European neo-fascists, violent Israeli settlers, and Republican presidential hopefuls behind the crusade.

— By Max Blumenthal

Nine years after 9/11, hysteria about Muslims in American life has gripped the country. With it has gone an outburst of arson attacks on mosques, campaigns to stop their construction, and the branding of the Muslim-American community, overwhelmingly moderate, as a hotbed of potential terrorist recruits. The frenzy has raged from rural Tennessee to New York City, while in Oklahoma, voters even overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure banning the implementation of Sharia law in American courts (not that such a prospect existed). This campaign of Islamophobia wounded President Obama politically, as one out of five Americans have bought into a sustained chorus of false rumors about his secret Muslim faith. And it may have tainted views of Muslims in general; an August 2010 Pew Research Center poll revealed that, among Americans, the favorability rating of Muslims had dropped by 11 points since 2005.

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This is a very fantastic collection of interviews from our old heroes that raised the slogan of Student Unions to be fielded in educational institutions to thwart any negative political syndromes that might underestimate their newly born states sovereignty as well as to shed light on student internal affairs & exhibit them to higher officials.
The timeline starts from the 1950s till the present & it discusses the evolution of student unions; their say in political norms as well as the say of political parties in unions. The background to the disintegration of Unions on the basis of ideologies & how Jamat Islami rose to populace in the very era via utilising pro-religious tactics & nurturing military support for them.

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by Nadeem F. Paracha

In all probability he doesn’t know. I am talking about the great Imran Khan. I hope he doesn’t know that he’s being used. I say this because that’s the way he is. Naïve and vulnerable – especially to the instant wonders of some of the most worn-out right-wing clichés this side of Westophobia.

But then, of course, as the large number of politicians and media personnel suspected to have been ‘propped up’ by the shadowy ones (or what Kamran Shafi calls the ‘Deep State’) would tell you, nobody’s an innocent prey in this respect. One just cannot be used by the shadowy ones without showing eagerness and the will to proceed with what one is being propped up for.

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by Uzma Ahmed Khan

Is chivalry an obsolete concept? “A few thousand years into civilisation and we still haven’t figured out how men and women should relate to each other” is Nighat’s first reaction as she rolls her eyes. A born and bred Pakistani now living independently in Canada, she feels that women really need to be very clear on what they need from men.

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Children as young as eight are being raped in front of their families by Gaddafi's forces in Libya, according to a leading charity. Aid workers described horrific stories of widespread sexual abuse, including one incident in which a group of girls was abducted and held hostage for four days.

When they were finally released, they were too traumatised to speak.

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1. The FBI’s definition of “forcible rape” in their Uniform Crime Report (UCR): “The carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will.” [PDF]
2. What that definition leaves out: anal, oral and statutory rape; incest; rape with an object, finger or fist; rape of men
3. Number of men raped in any year, according to the UCR: 0 [PDF]
4. Estimated number of men actually raped each year, according to the Dept. of Justice: 93,000 [PDF]
5. Number of women raped in 2007 under the UCR definition: 91,874
6. Number of sexual assaults in 2007–which includes rapes the FBI leaves out–according to the National Crime Victimization Survey: 248,300
7. Dept. of Justice estimate of how many women are actually raped each year: 300,000 [PDF]
8. Number of arrests for rape in 2007 (UCR): 23,307
9. Percentage of rapes that result in incarceration: 0.35 percent [PDF]
10. Number of murders/manslaughters in 2007 (UCR): 17,157
11. Number of arrests for murder/manslaughter in 2007 (UCR): 13,480
12. Percentage of murders that result in incarceration: 20 percent or more [PDF]
13. Average number of rapes to every murder committed annually: 5 to 1
14. Two of the top five cities in the U.S. with the most “unfounded” (i.e., falsely reported, according to police) rapes: New Orleans and Baltimore
15. Percentage of rape reports deemed “unfounded” by New Orleans police in 2008: 60 percent
16. Percentage of rape reports deemed “unfounded” by Baltimore police in 2009: 32 percent
17. Percentage of actual estimated false rape reports in any given year according to research studies: 2-8 percent
18. Percentage of rape reports deemed “unfounded” by the FBI in 2006: 5 percent
19. How Baltimore police once explained their “unfounded” rape rate: “One of the things we know is that victims do lie.”
20. Percentage of rape reports deemed “unfounded” (i.e. falsely reported) by Philadelphia police in 1983: 52 percent
21. The year Philadelphia was forced to clean up its rape reporting practices: 1999
22. Percentage of rape reports deemed unfounded in Philadelphia in 2007: 10 percent
23. What a Philadelphia police officer once called his city’s sex crimes unit: “The lying bitches unit.”
24. “Reasons” women lie about rape, according to Philadelphia’s police department in 1984: revenge; free abortion; covering up truancy, pregnancy, infidelity, lost money, sexual precocity.
25. Number of people who have signed a letter urging the FBI to change its definition of rape: 2,019 (and counting)

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FrontPage Magazine 26 April 2011
By Steven Plaut

The media and the cyber-world are all abuzz this week over the Palestinian-perpetrated murder of an Italian communist and cheerleader for terrorism. An accomplice to Islamist terrorism, the "victim” was one Vittorio Arrigoni. He evidently found himself in the middle of a turf war between Hamas and another genocidal Islamist organization. The rival terrorist group is being described by the media alternatively as an al-Qaeda branch or as "Salafists,” meaning Islamist fundamentalists led by Saudi Arabian Wahhabis. But I think it is more likely they are simply a front for the "Islamist Jihad” Palestinian terror group.

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According to a new study by the Centre for Social Justice, almost half of all children in the United Kingdom will see their married or cohabitating parents split up by the time they’re sixteen. Never before in Great Britain’s history has the breakdown of the family been so palpable.

Here in the United States things aren’t much different. According to a new report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, one in four children in the United States is being raised by a single parent. The main reason for the high U.S. figure, say the experts, is the growing acceptance of single-parent child rearing.

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Couples who want to separate are to be confronted by experts about the impact a divorce would have on their children and finances.

Those who go ahead with the split will be charged a fee if they want the state to sort out child maintenance arrangements. The measures are designed to reduce Britain’s divorce rate which is among the highest in Europe, and will be unveiled by the Government this week.

Ministers are planning to adopt a programme pioneered successfully in Norway in which couples threatening to split are made to ‘think again’. Experts talk them through the consequences of a separation, focusing on the likely damage to children and the pair’s future financial success.

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‘Ghairat’ (pride or honour), is a term that is often heard and used in the Pakistani media these days.

This is a term usually associated with TV news anchors, talk-show hosts, analysts and members of political parties who are verbose and smug, who get more space on TV news channels than votes.

It is a term that reflects images and sounds related to the muscle-flexing, big-talking and huff-puffing ways of ultra-patriots, or in case of Pakistan’s electronic media – free-wheeling loud-mouthed charlatans playing the role of fiery dyed-in-wool patriots.

So who comprises the ‘ghairat brigade’? It is a wide spectrum: from the usual bearded and hijab-wearing kind who are rather apt at expressing nationalism with the jingoism of ‘political Islam’, to the suit-and-tie wearing man and designer-brand-carrying ladies who would have been nothing more than periodical cranks restricted on the fringes of journalism and politics had the electronic media not been so generously allowed into private (ratings-driven) hands.

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A Pakistani victim of a village council-sanctioned gang-rape, who became a symbol of the country’s oppressed women, said on Thursday her life was in danger after the Supreme Court acquitted 13 men accused of the crime.

Mukhtaran Mai was attacked on the orders of a village council in 2002 as a punishment because her brother – who was 12 at the time – was judged to have offended the honour of a powerful clan by allegedly having an affair with one of its women.

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Now this is something reasonably hidden but still very awkward as to why the porn business flourishes worldwide while meanwhile any other business besides  Defence industry( thanks to the WOT ) is getting crippled?? In this document the author unveils a hidden Jewish cult meant to downplay the Christian religion using hideous methods of flesh, desire & money. The wealthy Jews had so covertly used the poverty stricken Eastern European Catholic girls for their lust & a road to become a billionaire!!

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“Who is it?” asks 12-year-old Khadijah as she unlocks the door to her home. Her accent differs from that of a Khyber Pakhtunkhwa native’s — and after she pulls open the door, her unique features further pique my curiosity. Where are Khadijah and her family really from?
Khadijah is one of the thousands of people in Pakistan whose lives have been influenced by the war in neighbouring Afghanistan, a country that has seen nothing but conflict for three decades. Khadijah is actually the granddaughter of Sufi Hameed Gul, who is famous in this small town of Regi, situated some 12 kilometres from the provincial capital of Peshawar. Although he is a respectable religious cleric, Sufi Hameed Gul’s fame stems from the fact that he is the father in-law of two former Guantanamo detainees.

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