Europe
| Conception Travel Spreads as Infertility Soars. [Denmark] Couples wanting babies are criss-crossing the globe in search of treatment as infertility in the developed world looks set to double within a decade, scientists say. |
| The Gender Equation and Artistic Recognition. [England] The major prizes in the creative arts, in Europe as in the U.S., are still awarded without gender considerations. However, while women no longer regard the creative arts as a male province, when it comes to winning or even making the shortlist of prizes in fiction, poetry, art, architecture and music, they still fare poorly. |
| Opera's Finale: A Female Suicide Bomber. [England] The finale to the English National Opera’s production of Richard Wagner’s “Twilight of the Gods” is just the latest in a series of shock tactics by the company that brought pole dancing, gang rape and multiple stabbings to the sometimes staid world of opera. |
| U.K. Pilot-Mom Wins Fight for Half-Hours. [England] The chief of British Airways has vowed to fight a labor ruling that allows female pilots to fly half the normal hours so they can be with their children. |
| For Lobby Group, A French Revolution. [France] Laurence Parisot became the first female president of Medef, the Movement of French Companies, which represents more than 750,000 businesses. Her election is a small revolution in a country where women occupy only 5% of board seats for companies listed on the CAC40 stock index. |
| French Woman Ordains Herself a Priest. [France] A French woman defied a threat of excommunication by the Roman Catholic Church and held a ceremony proclaiming herself a priest. In a small ceremony on a boat, Genevieve Beney was joined by other women from around the world who have taken similar dramatic action to draw attention to the church's policy against women priests. |
| The Mouse that Roared. [Germany] Angela Merkel could be the first woman to run Germany. |
| Human Trafficking Ring Smashed. [Italy] Italian police swooped on an Italian-Bulgarian human trafficking ring suspected of selling newborn babies and forcing women into prostitution and men into slavery. |
| Faked Orgasms Don't Fool Brain Scans. [Netherlands] Researchers at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands have used scans to show that different areas of the brain are stimulated during an orgasm but are not activated when a woman fakes it. |
| HIV-Positive Pregnant Women, Babies Face Discrimination. [Russia] Pregnant women and mothers who have tested positive for HIV face discrimination in Russia, and their children are often segregated for no medical reason, Human Rights Watch said. Russia has some 300,000 HIV-positive people according to government data, but Russian and foreign experts say the true number is closer to 1 million. A recent study by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington estimated the number of AIDS deaths in Russia at 13,000, against the official figure of 4,800. |
| Home, Professional Chores Mean Women Work One Hour More Than Men. [Spain] Spanish women dedicate one more hour to work than men per day, taking into account work on the job and in the home. The figures come from a study released by the Council for Scientific Research (CSIC), in collaboration with the National Statistics Institute (INE) and Eurostat, the statistical wing of the European Union. |
| The Scandinavian Model. [Sweden] 'Women hold up half the sky," said Mao Zedong, though by and large, in Communist China women had a tough time playing second fiddle to the men. Here in Sweden women do almost hold up half the sky. If Anna Lindh, who was foreign minister, had not been murdered last year, there might well be a female prime minister in power. For a decade half the cabinet have been women, and women occupy nearly 50 percent of the seats in Parliament. |
| Women's Campaign Group Keeps up the Fight. [Switzerland] For the past two decades a Swiss organization has been fighting all forms of exploitation of immigrant women, including trafficking and violence. |
| Sex Trade Entraps Slavic Women. [Turkey, Russia, Eastern Europe] Turkey, with its booming economy and lax visa requirements, is becoming the world's largest market for Slavic women, one of the most visible exports from struggling former Soviet states. Most come of their own free will, but many end up as virtual slaves, sold from pimp to pimp through a loosely organized criminal network that stretches from Moscow to Istanbul and beyond. |
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| Legislation on Women's Rights. [Turkey] Respecting human rights, including women's rights, is a sine qua non for membership of the European Union. Human rights, including women's rights, should be right at the top of the agenda for the negotiations with Turkey, says the Parliament. Women's rights and gender equality are embedded in the Community's basic principles and in much legislation which Turkey has to accept if it is to join the EU. |
| Pope Benedict XVI Chastises Europe in Book. [Vatican City] Pope Benedict XVI rails against Europe in his first book published since becoming pope, chastising a culture that he says excludes God from life and allows innocent lives -- the unborn -- to be taken from God through legalized abortion. |