WMC Daily News Brief - Palin's Interview, Bailout, England

September 26, 2008

A Question Reprised, but the Words Come None Too Easily for Palin
9/25/08
NY Times: Her first interview, with the ABC News anchor Charles Gibson, was too hard. The second, with Sean Hannity on the Fox News Channel, was too soft. The third, however, did not turn out to be just right for Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska.

Economists Fear Bailout Could Tighten Squeeze on Women
9/26/08
Women’s eNews: As policymakers craft a Wall Street bailout, budget experts with women's policy groups worry about the fate of public programs and hail some Democratic provisions. Some activists and pundits, meanwhile, reiterate protests against the Iraq war.

Councils to Get £450m to Pay Back Low-Paid Women
9/26/08
Telegraph, UK: John Healey, the Local Government minister, will announce that 34 councils will be able to borrow £450 million to help them settle bills that cover the back-pay of up to 400,000 low-paid women.Town Halls were forced to draw up plans to recompensate low paid workers for up to six years of labour after a ruling in 2004.

NBC says local TV Profoundly Affected by Downturn
9/26/08
Reuters: The U.S. economic downturn has had a severe effect on broadcaster NBC's local television stations but the company has not yet seen an advertising slowdown at a national level, its chief executive said.

Palin's Big Oil Infatuation
9/24/08
LA Times: John McCain has chosen as his running mate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, a diligent student of Big Oil's crib sheets. She used to insist that human activities have nothing to do with climate change, but she magically reversed herself, to a point. Meanwhile, Alaska is melting before our eyes. Palin had to keep her head buried in an oil well to ever have denied that humans are causing climate change.

Wasilla Watch--Sarah Palin and the Rape Kits
NY Times: When Sarah Palin was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, the small town began billing sexual-assault victims for the cost of rape kits and forensic exams. In the absence of answers, speculation is bubbling in the blogosphere that Wasilla’s policy of billing rape victims may have something to do with Ms. Palin’s extreme opposition to abortion, even in cases of rape.

County Abortion Regulations Closely Watched in Indiana
9/26/08
USA Today: Abortion opponents in Indiana are encouraging passage of regulations at the county level that abortion-rights groups say might be the leading edge of a nationwide effort to limit access to the procedure. Two Indiana counties have passed ordinances that require doctors who perform abortions to have the authority to admit patients at local hospitals.

Healey Headed to Afghanistan
9/26/08
AP via Boston Globe: Former Massachusetts Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey is headed to Afghanistan as part of a federal effort to recruit Afghani women who want to come to the U.S. and study to become lawyers and judges.

'North-South' Gap in Mothers' Age
9/26/08
BBC News: Women in southern England are likely to wait longer than those in the north to have children, statistics show. The birth figures, covering England and Wales, revealed that childbearing in many parts of the south peaked when women were aged 30 to 34. In contrast, women in northern regions and Wales were more likely to give birth between the ages of 25 and 29.

Women Worry, but Many Don't Breast-feed in China
9/26/08
NY Newsday: The number of Chinese women who rely on breast milk alone to feed their newborns has dropped as working mothers have less time to nurse and fall prey to advertising about the benefits of infant formulas. Such economic pressures have taken China's tainted milk crisis to every corner of the country.

LABOUR: Abuse, Alienation Daily Fare for Women Migrants
9/26/08
IPS.com: Sexual abuse, harassment, poor living conditions and disconnection with their families and own cultures -- these are real-life stories that Sharu Joshi Shrestha, a regional programme officer for migration at the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), hears from many Nepali, Bangladeshi and Sri Lankan women migrants who come to her office each day.

Zulus Eagerly Defy Ban on Virginity Test
9/26/08
Washington Post: The debate over virginity testing is an example of the clash common throughout Africa as governments try to regulate traditional practices that have long held sway. Legal experts say the topic is particularly complex in post-apartheid South Africa, where patriarchal tribal cultures have dusted off long-stifled traditions under one of the world's most progressive constitutions.

Lenders to the Poor Adopt Guidelines
9/25/08
NY Times: This week, Compartamos, a fast-growing Mexican bank, joined a group of microfinancing organizations to announce a code of conduct to protect the microlenders’ clients from being exploited. Organizations signing the code say it is meant to reaffirm the principles of microlending and set microlenders apart from consumer lenders.

Wyeth: Menopause Drug Reduces Multiple Symptoms
9/25/08
AP: An experimental menopause treatment drugmaker Wyeth is developing reduced hot flashes, trouble sleeping and other symptoms and did not increase breast tenderness, a problem that bothers many women taking menopause drugs, according to data from two studies released Thursday.

Writing Her Way Home
9/26/08
NY Times: Dorothea Benton Frank had never written a book. She was a million-dollar fund-raiser for a number of charities, the contented mother and wife. Then her mother, a lifelong resident of Sullivan’s Island, S.C, received a cancer diagnosis and died six months afterward. She turned her grief and anger into a loosely autobiographical novel, “Sullivan’s Island.”

Wiggins Named Top 6th-Woman
9/26/08
SF Gate: For the first time in her basketball career, Candice Wiggins was coming off the bench this season. And she did it better than anybody in the women's professional game. Wiggins, the former Stanford star, was honored with the WNBA's Sixth Woman of the Year award for her rookie season with the Minnesota Lynx.