WMC News Brief: Mexico, Adoption Ban, Iraq

November 26, 2008

Violence Against Journalists Grows In Mexico's Drug War
11-25-08
Washington Post: The attacks against journalists, which run from threats hissed on their cellphones to grenades lobbed into their newsrooms, form a new front in the larger war the drug cartels are waging against Mexico's social and government institutions.

Judge Rules Against Fla. Gay Adoption Ban: Says 'No Rational Basis' For Law; State To Appeal
11/26/08
AP via Boston Globe: A judge ruled yesterday that a strict Florida law that blocks gay people from adopting children is unconstitutional, declaring that there is no legal or scientific reason for sexual orientation alone to prohibit anyone from adopting.

Rape's Vast Toll In Iraq War Remains Largely Ignored
11/24/08
Christian Science Monitor: Many rape victims have escaped from Iraq to Jordan but still don't have access to treatment and counseling.

BBC Journalist 'Felt She Had To Go' To Danger Spot
11/24/08
BBC: A BBC journalist shot dead while working in one of the world's most dangerous countries "felt she had to go" to prove her commitment, an inquest heard today.

Local Journalist Killed In Eastern Congo
11/25/08
International Herald Tribune: U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for an independent inquiry into the shooting death of a Congolese radio journalist and said the killing underlined the risks of covering news in the country's restive east.

WI To Check Local Papers' Sex Ads
11/25/08
The Guardian: Members of the Women's Institute are to keep watch for sex ads in local papers that could involve trafficked women, in a crackdown that could involve the "naming and shaming" of publishers.

Palin To Campaign For Incumbent In Georgia Senate Race
11/25/08
CNN: Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is returning to the campaign trail next week to lend her support to Saxby Chambliss, the freshman senator who is fighting to keep his seat in Georgia.

Five Ways Obama Has Already Changed Washington
11/26/08
The Daily Beast: The press corps has a new dean. David Broder is, of course, Dean Emerita, but the Chicago Sun-Times' Lynn Sweet will probably be taking over the daily duties.

Michelle Obama's 'Mommy' Stamp
11/25/08
Washington Post: When Michelle Obama took to describing her new role as mom in chief, my first reaction was to wince at her words. My second reaction was to identify with them.

Rape Survivors Heal With Assistance From Their Canines: “An Angel In A Dog’s Body”
11/26/08
Women's International Perspective: Leah Epperson recalls the day she survived being abducted from church and raped when she was twelve. Next to her sits her best friend Emma, a rotund Chow-Retriever mix.

Inquiry Set On Mormon Aid For California Marriage Vote
11/26/08
NY Times: California officials will investigate accusations that the Mormon Church neglected to report a battery of nonmonetary contributions — including phone banks, a Web site and commercials — on behalf of a ballot measure to ban same-sex marriage.

10 Arrested For Afghan Acid Attack
11/25/08
NY Times: The police in Kandahar Province arrested 10 Taliban militants they said were involved in an attack this month on a group of Afghan schoolgirls whose faces were doused with acid, officials in Kandahar said Tuesday.

Study Cites Toll Of AIDS Policy In South Africa
11/26/08
NY Times: A new study by Harvard researchers estimates that the South African government would have prevented the premature deaths of 365,000 people earlier this decade if it had provided antiretroviral drugs to AIDS patients and widely administered drugs to help prevent pregnant women from infecting their babies.

The Rights Of Women As Casualties Of War
11/25/08
The Palestine Chronicle: Qurban-Bibi and Nahil Abu-Rada are two women, one Afghan and the other Palestinian, who made news with similar tragedies. But their losses also helped further delineate the plight of millions of women in war zones and poor countries.

RIGHTS: Gender Violence "Pandemic" Highlighted At U.N.
11/25/08
IPS: Activists and U.N. officials called on governments to take stronger action to end violence against women Tuesday, with at least one out of every three women around the world having been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused in her lifetime -- with the abuser usually someone known to her.

Russian Politician Was Behind Anna Politkovskaya Murder, Lawyer Claims
11/25/08
The Guardian: A defence lawyer involved in the trial of three men accused in the murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya has today claimed court documents suggest a Russian politician was behind the assassination.

RIGHTS-ARGENTINA: Children Of The ‘Disappeared’ Tell Their Stories
11/25/08
IPS: For the first time, the life stories of children of people forcibly disappeared by Argentina’s 1976-1983 dictatorship have been compiled in a book that sheds light on their experiences.

FDA Tests Find Melamine Traces In Baby Formula
11/26/08
Wall Street Journal: The Food and Drug Administration said it found "trace levels" of the industrial chemical melamine in one sample of U.S.-made infant formula and in a few samples of other products like nutritional and medical supplements made by U.S. manufacturers of infant formula.

Plastic Surgery (Thankfully) Is Under The Knife
11/26/08
Women's eNews: Anti-ageism commentator Margaret Morganroth Gullette gives thanks for some good news about plastic surgery. Procedures are down, outcry is up and few American women ever considered getting themselves "done" anyway.

Publishing Displays Its Split Personality
11/26/08
NY Times: In less than a week the book publishing industry has been set abuzz by the news that one publisher is so uncertain about the economic climate that it has temporarily shut its doors to most manuscripts while another is celebrating a banner year by handing out extra bonuses to all its employees.

A Critic, Insatiable And Dismissed
11/26/08
NY Times: Gael Greene stood at the microphone during the annual Power Lunch for Women benefiting Citymeals-on-Wheels and lamented the economic meltdown. “I’ve just been downsized myself,” she said, and indeed, two days before, Ms. Greene had been fired after 40 years at New York magazine.

Miss Tibet, A Pageant Loaded With Controversy And Drama
11/25/08
Washington Post: For Buddhists, the first noble truth is that all life is suffering -- and that apparently applies to beauty pageants, too.

Nigerian Super Falcons' Loss Gets Media Attention
11/26/08
Afrique en Ligne (Nigeria): The end of the 10-year dominance of Nigeria's women's national football team, the Super Falcons, in the African Women Championship (AWC) got the attention of the local media Wednesday, a day after the team crashed out of the current edition of the two-yearly competition.