OSS and CIA, “spy girls” find each other in retirement

By Ian Shapira

To her, it looked like a harmless piece of coal, about the size of her fist. She remembers passing it to a Chinese secret agent. She remembers later learning about the train, the bridge, the explosion. Sometimes she thinks she has suppressed many wartime memories, but even after almost 70 years, they can creep back.
Betty McIntosh, 96, says that is part of being a spy: the doubts about whether you did the right thing, and hearing about those who died because of what you did, and whether you had alternatives. But it was a war.

Her friend Doris Bohrer would understand, but even so, McIntosh still hasn’t divulged everything about every World War II mission. Even though it turns out that Bohrer, 88, was an operative in the war, too: OSS, then CIA, just like McIntosh.
To most other residents of the retirement community in Northern Virginia, these two elegant, well-coiffed widows, Betty and Doris to everyone, are just part of the anonymous parade of aged men and women who play mixed bridge, talk about the brand-new heart and vascular center down the road, the day’s menu at the dining hall, and their pets.



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Azerbaijan: Baku Confronting Issue of Early Marriages

Shahin Abbasov, Sitara Ibrahimova

Azerbaijan

 

At the age of 14, Kifayat Mammadova was married and already an expectant mother. A year and a half later, her marriage had failed, her child had died, and she was on the road to Baku from her village in the mountains of southern Azerbaijan in search of a new life.

Barely literate, 18-year-old Mammadova now works as a waitress at a Baku café. Her husband, six years her senior, left for Russia for work soon after the death of their child and did not return. “It was not possible to live with his parents, but my father did not allow me to return to our home,” she related. “I had to escape to Baku.”

Mammadova’s parents had forced her to get married at a local mosque, thus leaving her legally vulnerable. Her story is far from unique in Azerbaijan, and it’s part of a pattern that Azerbaijani authorities want to end by holding parents and mullahs criminally responsible for underage marriages.

State Committee on Family, Women and Children Chairwoman Hidjran Huseynova claims that an incorrect understanding of the teachings of Islam is the main cause of weddings before the legal age of marriage (after 17 years old). “Parents believe that Islam encourages early marriage and often force their daughters [to marry]. But a kid who is 15 to 17 years old is not ready to create a family, neither psychologically nor physiologically,” Huseynova said. 

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#Cuba - Raul's Paranoid Insecurity

How weak, paranoid and insecure must Cuban dictator Raul Castro be that he feels directly threatened by these two peaceful, defenseless, Afro-Cuban, female, pro-democracy activists?

Or conversely -- how powerful is the moral authority of these peaceful, defenseless, Afro-Cuban, female, pro-democracy activists that they threaten Raul Castro's absolutism?

Either way -- it doesn't bode well for Castro's dictatorship.

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#Muslim woman on the beach

From  Islam News

#NudeArt - Fashion for muslim women

Court rules boss must accommodate woman’s compulsion #orgasmic condition on the job

BRAZIL.- A woman aged 36 was enabled by the justice to masturbate in her workplace because she has a strange disease.

This is the story of Ana Catarina Bezerra Silvares, an employee of an accounting firm, a divorced mother of three who lives in the village Vila Velha, Espírito Santo.

The woman suffers from a rare condition known as “compulsion orgasmic”, caused by a chemical alteration in the brain region of the cortex, which leads her to masturbate several times a day to relieve the deep anguish that it causes.

Under this circumstance, Bezerra started legal proceedings with the company where she works that eventually won and that enables to masturbate for 15 minutes every two hours, besides using the computer to see erotic images that stimulate her desire.

The Brazilian newspaper North Regiao reported that the woman confessed, “There was a day I had to masturbate 47 times”, adding: “I began to suppose that this could not be normal, and decided to seek help.”

Currently, Bezerra follow a treatment that includes a potent cocktail of sedatives that “only” took her to masturbate 18 times.

Full story...

The Perfect #Vagina

What began as a wander through the wacky world of genital plastic surgery became a passionate documentary about modern femininity, The Perfect Vagina. After My Penis And Everyone Else’s, it’s now time to look at womens insecurities.

Women are undergoing surgery to create perfect genitalia amid a “shocking” lack of information on the potential risks of the procedure, a report says. Research published in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology also questions the very notion of aesthetically pleasing genitals.

Operations to improve the appearance of the sex organs for both psychological and physical reasons are on the rise. But surgeons said the report overplayed the risks of an established procedure. Researchers from University College London reviewed all the existing studies on cosmetic labial surgery – which generally involves reducing the amount of tissue that protrudes from the lips which cover the vagina. They found there had been little work to document any longer-term side effects.

Labioplasty, as it is known, costs about £3,000 privately and is offered for a variety of reasons: some women complain that wearing tight clothes or riding a bike is uncomfortable, while others say they are embarrassed in front of a sexual partner.

The perfect vagina from heather leach on Vimeo.

Tetas naturales

 Historias

Galeria de fotos

#Burqa Ban: #Muslim full-face cover now crime in #France

In France, women are now officially banned from wearing full-face veils in public, after a controversial law came into effect. While the government says the move is aimed at helping Muslims adapt to the local community, critics accuse President Sarkozee of persecuting Islam, to win back votes from the right. But in a country with Europe's biggest Muslim population, the law risks igniting social tensions, as Daniel Bushell reports.

Rapes of Women Show Clash of Old and New India

Prakash Singh/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Women from northeastern India protested last November after a girl was raped in New Delhi.

By LYDIA POLGREEN

GHAZIABAD, India — The young lovers met at a secluded spot next to a field of wheat at the edge of this sprawling suburb of New Delhi, where the timeless India of mustard fields and bullock carts abuts the frantically rising apartment towers of the budding middle class. They went seeking solitude, but instead found themselves at the violent cusp of old India and new.  

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"A Black Woman Speaks"/ Documentary

International Women's Day - Interview with Widney Brown

One hundred years ago, more than a million people marched in streets across Europe on the first International Women's Day, calling for an end to discrimination and for women to have the same rights as men to work, vote and shape the future of their countries.

One hundred years on, the reality is that women are still much more likely to be poor. They are more likely to be illiterate. They earn only 10 per cent of the world's income but do two thirds of the world's work. They produce up to 80 per cent of the food in developing countries but own only one per cent of the land. A lot has changed in the last 100 years, and yet many of the same problems remain. In many countries, government commitments to reforms have lagged behind needs. Discrimination still cuts deeply across societies, leaving a trail of inequality in its wake.

The call for equality, fairness and respect was at the heart of the first International Women's Day. A century on, it still is.

The Arab Woman You Don't See/ Queen Noor of Jordan

Throughout the extraordinary events of the last few months, across the Middle East and North Africa, long-silenced voices demanding change are being heard worldwide -- and stalwart among them are the voices of women. From the bereaved mother of the first tragic Tunisian protester, to Asmaa Mahfouz, the 26-year-old whose ...More

The Arab Woman You Don't See

Panel Wants Women in Combat Arms

A Pentagon commission is recommending that ground combat units be open to female troops, arguing women are already engaged in combat and that keeping them out of operational career fields puts them at a disadvantage when it comes to promotion. It also presses for a military force more closely reflecting the country's demographics.
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Amelia Earhart Clue Found in Clumps

Amelia Earhart Biography

Scientific investigations have revealed that human DNA may be present in fragments of material which could provide crucial information about the fate of Amelia Earhart, the legendary pilot who disappeared 74 years ago while flying over the Pacific Ocean in a record attempt to circle the world at the equator.
Collected on Nikumaroro, an uninhabited, waterless tropical island in the southwestern Pacific republic of Kiribati where Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan might have made an emergency landing, the material consisted of a tiny bone fragment and clumps of material resembling soil or feces.

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Amelia Earhart Clue Found in Clumps

Iraqi Women Work to Halt Bombers, but Paycheck Is Elusive

Andrea Bruce for The New York Times

The Daughters of Iraq are tasked with thwarting female suicide bombers. Some of the women in the group quit after their $250 monthly pay dried up.

By JACK HEALY and YASIR GHAZI

BAQUBA, Iraq — The women charged with thwarting Iraq’s female suicide bombers spend their days in cramped metal sheds at police checkpoints and lobbies of government offices, running their hands over the black-robed bodies of other women.
The Iraqi authorities say the searches have helped to curb female suicide attacks, once a scourge of this still-dangerous city. And they say the teams of women, known as the Daughters of Iraq, play a crucial role in a country where rigid divisions between the sexes make it awkward, sometimes unthinkable, for male police officers to frisk women and girls in search of the telltale lump of a gun or an explosive belt.

Full story

Iraqi Women Work to Halt Bombers, but Paycheck Is Elusive

Diario de mujer: Vacaciones en crucero/ Humor

VACACIONES EN CRUCERO

                              Mi diario... Día 1
Ya estoy preparada para este maravilloso crucero.
He cogido mis mejores vestidos.  ¡¡ Estoy excitada!!
 
                 Mi diario... Día 2
Hemos estado todo el día en el mar.
Estaba precioso, vi algunos delfines y ballenas.
¡¡Qué bien empiezan las vacaciones!!
Hoy encontré al Capitán y me pareció un hombre interesante.

                  Mi diario... Día 3 He estado todo el día en la piscina, haciendo surf y dando bolas de golf.
El Capitán me ha invitado a su mesa a cenar.
Fue un honor y me lo pasé maravillosamente.
Es un hombre muy atractivo y atento.

                  Mi diario... Día 4
He estado en el Casino del barco y gané 110 € ? .El Capitán me invitó a cenar con él en su camarote.  Tuvimos una cena lujosa y espectacular con foie, ostras, caviar y cava..
Me preguntó si me quedaba con él y decliné la invitación.  Le dije que no quería serle infiel a mi esposo.

                   Mi diario... Día 5
He vuelto a la piscina y me he quemado un poco al sol.
Me he ido al piano bar a pasar allí el resto del día.
El Capitán me ha invitado a unas copas, la verdad es que es un hombre encantador.  
Me preguntó otra vez si quería pasar la noche con él y le he vuelto a decir que no.  A lo que me contestó que si seguía negándome a estar con él, hundiría el barco.
Me he quedado aterrada.

                    Mi diario... Día 6
Hoy he salvado a unas 1.600 personas... ¡¡¡¡cuatro veces!!!!

                   ¡Estoy más contenta . . . !

Woman, 61, gives birth to her own grandchild

Sara Connell, left, and her mom Kristine Casey admire baby Finnean Connell
at Prentice Women's Hospital in Chicago on Feb. 10, 2011. Casey served as
a surrogate for her daughter, who had been trying for years to have a baby.

Stacey Wescott/MCT
Deborah L. Shelton Chicago Tribune

CHICAGO—Almost 39 weeks ago, Kristine Casey set out on an unusual journey to help her daughter and answer a spiritual calling.
Her goal was achieved when she gave birth to her own grandson at age 61.
Casey, possibly the oldest woman to give birth in Illinois, was a surrogate for her daughter, Sara Connell, who had been trying for years to have a baby. Connell and her husband, Bill, are the biological parents of the child Casey carried, which grew from an embryo created from the Chicago couple’s egg and sperm.
Crying and praying, Connell and her mother held hands as Finnean Lee Connell was delivered by cesarean section at 9:47 p.m Wednesday.
When the baby let out a cry, “I lost it,” said Sara Connell, the first family member to hold him.
The doctor who delivered Finnean said there wasn’t a dry eye in the crowded operating room.
“The surgery itself was uncomplicated, and the emotional context of this delivery was so profound,” said Dr. Susan Gerber, obstetrician and maternal-fetal medicine specialist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
Childbirth remains a rare event for post-menopausal women, but the number of such births has risen in recent years because of wider use of in vitro fertilization and other technologies. According to state health department records, the oldest woman to give birth in Illinois was 58 when she had her baby in 2006. But data on births after 2008 are not yet available.
Older women face greater risks during pregnancy and delivery, and experts say many women would not be good candidates.
“It’s going to be more risky for somebody who’s got underlying conditions,” said Dr. Alan Peaceman, chief of maternal-fetal medicine at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, one of Casey’s doctors.
The Connells decided in 2004 to try to have a baby, but Sara, now 35, soon discovered she wasn’t ovulating. After undergoing infertility treatment at the Reproductive Medicine Institute in Evanston, she got pregnant but delivered stillborn twins, and later she had a miscarriage.
Casey’s previous three pregnancies — her last was 30 years ago — went smoothly, resulting in three daughters. After Casey retired in 2007, she filled her time walking, meditating, taking classes and socializing with friends. But she felt she had a deeper calling.
“At the beginning of 2009,” she said, “I decided for once in my life to take some time to think about my life and find something that seemed right for me — where there was no pressure to do a specific thing.”
During a visit to Chicago — she lives in Virginia — Casey participated in a workshop led by Connell, a life coach, writer and lecturer on women’s empowerment. In one class exercise, she used pictures cut from a magazine to create a collage depicting a life’s goal. One picture grabbed her attention: an ostrich with an expression of wonder and joy.
Casey wanted to experience the exuberance captured in the picture.
“I found something that would make me feel like that ostrich,” she later wrote to the Connells offering to be Sara’s surrogate.
Casey underwent multiple tests to evaluate her medical and psychological health, as required by Illinois law on surrogate births. The family also drew up a mandatory legal agreement.
Then she took hormones to prepare her uterus for pregnancy. She got pregnant on the second cycle of in vitro fertilization with an embryo transfer.
Josephine Johnston, a research scholar at the Hastings Center, a bioethics research institute, had no ethical objections to the idea of a 61-year-old having a baby, as long as she had undergone a thorough medical and psychological evaluation.
“It seems like an unquestionably loving and generous thing for a family member to do,” she said.
“It’s a great story to tell the child,” Johnston added. “It’s one of those situations where outsiders might wonder if it’s OK or healthy. But the experience of that child and his family will be that it’s good. . . . If they treat it as good, it will be experienced that way.”
Casey plans to return to her Virginia home with her husband in about two weeks, where she is ready to adopt a more conventional grandmother role. Finnean is her first grandchild.
“From the very beginning, the moment I’ve wanted is the moment the baby is in their arms,” she said at her daughter and son-in-law’s home weeks before the birth.

Simplemente Gwyneth

The amazing appearance transformation of the actress Gwyneth Paltrow. She has changed a lot through the years.

source

Viva Egipto! [topless]

Desde LaPatilla
Agentes de policía tratan de disuadir a una activista de la organización defensora de los derechos de la mujer Femen que protesta con el torso desnudo y el mensaje escrito “Viva Egipto” para pedir la renuncia inmediata del presidente Hosni Mubarak, frente a la Embajada de Egipto en Kiev (Ucrania), este miércoles.

(Foto Efe)

(Foto Efe)