A Saudi City Exclusively for Women

  Nic Robertson explains why Saudi Arabia is planning a city exclusively for working women.   Saudi Arabia plans to build a women-only industrial city in its eastern province of Hofuf, apparently the first of such enclaves creating jobs for women in sectors like textiles, pharmaceuticals and food processing. In such cities, firms and production lines will only […]

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Why Do Olympians Bite Their Medals?

  Olympians sometimes pretend to bite their medals while posing for pictures, Olympics expert David Wallechinsky says that photographers actually request the pose.A possible reason for the beginnings of this trend is emulating the biting of coins that handlers used to do, as to verify the authenticity.  Gold medals for the 2012 Olympics contain only 1.34% gold or about 6 grams.   The […]

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Olympic Flame Extinguished – While the Torch Was Being Carried on a White Water Rafting Boat

   It’s quite remarkable, in hindsight, to think no one predicted the outcome of this stunt. As the Olympic torch splashed through the canoe slalom venue in Hertfordshire today on board a raft as part of its journey around the country, spraying water splashed out the famed Eternal Flame. Day 50 did not go smoothly for […]

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Human Rights Watch Report Describes the Brutal Torture Seen in Syria

Human Rights Watch has released a report on Syria’s state policy of torture, which includes testimony from former prisoners and security officers, while also revealing that among the victims are women, senior citizens and children. However, Syria’s government routinely denies all allegations of any such abuse.   “Basat al reeh.” “Dulab.” “Falaqa.” They are Arabic names for torture […]

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Former Harvard Professor of President Obama Say’s it Would be Detrimental to Re-Elect the Incumbent

  A former professor of Barack Obama, Roberto Unger,  has turned against his one-time student and publicly urged voters not to re-elect him and posted  a video on YouTube detailing the reasons why.   Throughout the last election, the prominent Brazilian politician was on the president’s speed dial, but now is urging American voters to turn away from the […]

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Syria: In Search of the Rape Victims Among the Refugees

Everybody, it seemed, had heard the stories, and could relay the same horrific details about Syrian soldiers allegedly raping women and girls with cruel impunity. There were ugly accounts, told by many refugees from the northern Syrian town of Jisr al-Shughour, some of whom had crossed into nearby Turkey, and by others who remained in a strip of Syrian territory hugging the Turkish border

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TURKEY: The Choice

Turkey's importance at this stage of the war is geographical. The rugged plateau of Anatolia, insufficiently equipped though it is with roads or railways, is a bridge from the Middle East to one of Europe's softest spots, the Balkans.

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How Syria and Libya Got to be Turkey’s Headaches

With neighboring Syria in crisis, the Arab Spring has finally arrived on Turkey’s doorstep — and with it, one big headache for a government that has spent recent years staking its political fortunes on the region. Since coming to power in 2002, the Islamic-rooted government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has sought to become a kingpin in the Muslim world, driven by shared religious sensibility and economic expansionism

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