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'Sex Slaves' Rescued in Raids. [
England]
Nineteen women from Eastern Europe who are thought to have been tricked into becoming sex slaves
were rescued during raids. A special task
force of female officers from West Midlands Police were sent to a massage parlor in Birmingham to free the
women. "They had their passports taken. "They were locked into the venue during the
evening to work and taken away during day and locked in a house." |
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Marriage, Kids, Career Hits Female Sex Drive: Survey. [England The sex drive of women plummets sharply as they juggle the
increasing demands of partners, children and careers, researchers said. One in 10 women questioned for a survey admitted
losing interest in sex for at least six months in the past year. Married women were shown to be much more likely than
single men or women to have sexual problems. Fifty-four
percent of women and 35 percent of men have problems but fewer than 11 percent of men and
21 percent of women seek help, according to the survey published in the journal Sexually
Transmitted Infections. |
| German
Conservatives Hail Merkel. [Germany] Germany's conservatives have launched the
main phase of their election campaign, confirming Angela Merkel as their candidate to
unseat leftist Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in the September 18 poll. Recent opinion polls have given the CDU a steady
lead of between 12 to 16 points over the Social Democrats (SPD), meaning Merkel, a
pastor's daughter and former physicist, looks a near certainty to become chancellor. The only question appears to be whether she will
lead a coalition with the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) or whether the combined strength of
the other parties, boosted by strong support in Eastern Germany for a new leftist alliance, will
force her into a "grand coalition" with the SPD. |
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Merkel Was Ignored By
Her Own People. [Germany] .
As an outsider
twice over - a woman and an East German - she was supposed to be a double sign of hope
appealing to two constituencies; instead, she proved to be a double riddle. Merkel, 51, an academic from the northern part of
the former East
Germany, was credited on the one hand with a pronounced instinct for
power, but faulted on the other as uncharismatic. Would
she be able to bring together a country that was reunited but still divided in people's
minds and in its economic performance? Would
she, a childless physicist, be able to challenge tradition and provide a role model for
German women, who still choose children over careers in numbers shocking by European
standards? For her part, Angela Merkel always
chose to evade these questions. Contrary to
her party's strategists, she believed that her popularity was due in large part to her
refusal to position herself as a woman or as an East German.
She never gave prominent play to the economic problems of the East. To this unmistakable absence, East Germans gave an
unmistakable answer: The Christian Democrats garnered a significantly lower percentage of
votes in the East than in the West. Merkel was ignored by her own people. The same thing happened with women. In an election featuring the first woman candidate
for chancellor, female turnout remained largely unchanged.
Even someone who argues under the feminist dialectic that equal rights will
be achieved when women and men are viewed as interchangeable would have a hard time
considering this a positive sign. |