Women Affairs

Spears was taken to the UCLA Medical Centre about 1.30am Los Angeles time to be held against her will because she was deemed a danger to herself or others. A psychiatrist treating the singer contacted Los Angeles police to set the events in motion, celebrity website TMZ.com said, quoting law enforcement sources. A Los Angeles Fire Department ambulance transporting the 26-year-old was escorted by dozens of police on motorcycles, accompanied by a police helicopter, the Los Angeles Times said. The operation appeared to be thoroughly planned, it said. A motorcade the length of a football field surrounded the pop star and kept photographers and onlookers at bay. Spears was told of her impending confinement by her psychiatrist and did not resist when paramedics arrived and placed her on a gurney, TMZ said. The doctor told police of concerns about her reckless driving and erratic behaviour. Spears had not slept since Saturday, the website said. Continue Below Video By Reuters She was stripped...

According to the UN, 50 per cent of young women in the violent shantytowns of Haiti have been raped or sexually assaulted. Of the handful of victims who seek justice, a third are under 13. Alex Renton reports from a Caribbean hell crippled by poverty and torn by gang violence, and talks to the women who live in daily fear of sexual abuse Cité Soleil is called the worst slum in the western hemisphere. It's an ant hill of a third of a million people that seethes and swelters on the salt marshes between the blue Caribbean and the outskirts of Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince. Soleil lies, as third-world slums so often do, next to the international airport, under the irony-laden roar of jets taking off to leave the country. One of these, a small passenger plane, crashed into the slum in September, the day we arrived. No one died, but it was front-page news in Haiti's daily papers. They told how, within an hour of the crash, everything had been stripped from the plane: the luggag...

Translated from Chinese. Read original article below. Two 14-year-old girl held in Sao Paulo on the 26th of the United States Figure Skating Championships podium on the board finals, which become a future champion Cheung Chau won the national championship the following year low athletes. "I was too excited, Words can not express it," When the Japanese-American girl next Cheung Chau see Scoreboard on the show after his win, and said happily. Nagano Winter Olympic Games champion Tara Lipinski Head Maintained the former won the national championship the youngest records. Cheung Chau future national champion automatically receive the identity of this year's world championships held in March the entry requirements, but does not meet the minimum age requirement World Championships (15 years old), she had to watch her defer to the runner-up places. Rachel also can be runner-up and world championships because of age requirements of the 15-year-old difference of three ...

Robert Poole and Chikako Kato Serenely and alluringly, the lotus flower opens. Unabashed, the temptress strides out, brimming with sexual beauty and proclaiming that the age of the Japanese lolita has passed. She has blossomed instead into a modern Aphrodite, a woman whose physical beauty exudes power, confidence and charisma. The "kawaii" generation watches in awe as she transforms into something startlingly sexy yet still adorable. She is erotic yet cool — "ero-kakkoii." J-pop star and fashion icon Kumi Koda may be the omnipresent face of the new Japanese woman, but she certainly isn’t alone. R&B stars like Double helped bring Western-style sexiness in Japan, paving the way for independent-minded women to recognize that seductive needn’t be synonymous with submissive. TV actresses like Aya Sugimoto are reversing the tables by flaunting their extreme sexuality in middle age, symbolizing the feminine empowerment that’s been sweeping Japan. And if Aphrodite had a...

Sylvia Poggioli France is Europe's most rigidly secular society, relegating religion to the sidelines. Paradoxically, of all the Muslims in Europe, it's the French ones who most closely identify with France's values, despite widespread social discrimination. And it's French Muslim women who are in the forefront of grassroots political activism and in forging their own interpretation of Islam. Muslim Women Leading the Charge After taking office, President Nicholas Sarkozy announced the appointment of the first Muslim — who is also a woman — as justice minister. Rachida Dati, 41, was the 12th child of a Moroccan laborer and an Algerian mother. And she is not the only Muslim woman with a senior portfolio. The foreign undersecretary for human rights is Senegal-born Rama Yade. The undersecretary for urban affairs is Fadela Amara, an activist from the immigrant housing projects. Amara is visiting Epinay Sur Seine, one of the many immigrant ghettoes that encircle Paris. Here, ...

In a way, Sueanne Winn has already won Saturday night’s Miss America pageant. In fact, she’s all the runnersup — or at least on them. Winn’s custom-swimsuit company, Winnwear Designs at 9242 S. Sheridan Road, is the national swimsuit sponsor for Miss America 2008. And you can see her suits for yourself during “Miss America Live 2008,” which is broadcast from 7 to 9 p.m. Saturday on TLC, cable channel 56. Winn has a history with pageants, she told us recently before leaving for Las Vegas, where the new Miss America will be crowned at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino in Las Vegas. She’s been designing swimsuits for 13 years, she said, but her background in fashion goes back farther than that. While a student at the University of Tulsa, she competed in pageants and, of course, wore the required swimsuits for each one she competed in. For 10 years, she operated her own store, specializing in pageantry attire, prom and special occasions. During that time, she developed her own line of s...

KATHLEEN HENNESSEY She's been dressed up, dressed down, relocated and updated. Now she's being mocked. The latest chapter in Miss America's ever-evolving search for viewers and cultural relevance finds the heroine at the butt of the joke. Her hair is too big, her hairspray totally '80s. Her makeup is clownish. Her gown belongs on an ice skater. This year's 52 Miss America contestants haven't just been getting judged, they've been getting zinged in "Miss America: Reality Check," a four-part reality series leading up to Saturday's 8 p.m. EST crowning on TLC. The series, whose final installment airs Friday, has tracked the transformation of beauty queens from old-fashioned "Pageant Pattys," as some in the pageant world say, to modern "It girls." It's out with the bouffant hair, the canned smile and the parade wave. Time to knock the beauty pageant on its sash, the show's tag line goes. The live crowning also ...

Ellen Connolly Career women in Sydney are creating a nationwide sperm shortage as they race to have a family before turning 40. With demand for sperm growing rapidly - particularly from single Sydney women - clinics are importing vials from the US on a monthly basis. "The demand is incredible and continually rising," said John Braine, from Fertility East in Bondi Junction. The most surprising trend has been a 40 per cent rise in the number of single women seeking sperm donors. "These are women, aged from 35 to 40, who are single, attractive career women, who cannot find a man to have a baby with," he said. While Sydney's man-drought had compounded the problem, new laws giving children the right to know the identity of donor parents was a big factor in the decline in donor numbers. As a result, there are fewer than five registered sperm donors in NSW. Sydney couple Catherine and Stefanie, (pictured), have two children, aged two and 11 weeks, thanks to a donor. ...

Pierre Coda Bobby from Gainesville, Florida, writes, "I am pretty sure that I am a victim of my wife's adultery. I haven't made an effort to catch her. I have tried to talk to her about it and she denies it. Despite the fact that I'm not perfect, I feel I give her the things that she needs emotionally and physically. She has also admitted that I completely satisfy her. How can I find out why she is committing adultery and what should I do about it?" Adultery can have disastrous consequences on the relationship, particularly the impact it will have on your children, if you were to get a divorce. Thus, you are doing the right thing by trying to find what the reasons are so that something can be done about it. While you feel that you are doing everything that a good husband is supposed to do, there are still several reasons why a woman might resort to adultery: 1. She lacks moral values 2. While you feel that you provide her with what is needed, she feels otherwi...

There was more than a touch of irony in Cate Blanchett's win at today's strike plagued 65th Annual Golden Globes for her best supporting role in the film, I'm Not There. Blanchett was not there to pick up her statuette. Nor were any of the other big winners thanks to the two-month screenwriters' strike that has crippled film and TV production in the US. Johnny Depp, Daniel Day-Lewis, Javier Bardem, Glenn Close, David Duchovny and Ricky Gervais were also no-shows inside the Beverly Hilton Hotel's ballroom, despite all winning Golden Globes. In fact the most famous people in the room were the US entertainment show hosts invited to announce the winners during the 30-minute press conference that replaced the traditional three-hour star studded awards dinner. With no stars, no red carpet and no long-winded acceptance speeches, the presentation had all the appeal of watching paint dry. "I wish circumstance would allow me to be there," said Blanchett in a stateme...

A 17-year-old Egyptian woman reported her husband to the police for secretly selling her kidney in cahoots with a doctor at a private hospital, press reports said. The wife, Warda Al-Sayed, said her husband was going through financial difficulties. She told police he drugged her by putting sleeping pills in her juice, then took her to hospital, where he took away her jewelry and the doctor removed her kidney. When she came to, the husband made her believe she had a car accident, Al-Sayed told the Egyptian daily Al-Masaa last Wednesday. The young woman said she was not aware of what happened until 20 days after the surgery, when she suffered complications and went to see a doctor, who told her that her right kidney was missing. High poverty rates in Egypt coupled with other social problems has prompted many people to sell their organs for money, giving rise to a human organ trafficking mafia. British daily The Guardian reported that organ trade goes by a set price list – kidneys, the mo...

A JUDGE has refused to restore Britney Spears' right to visit her two sons, a court spokesman said, after the troubled pop star showed up outside court but never made it into the hearing. Superior Court Commissioner Scott Gordon left in place a ruling that barred Spears from visiting with her young sons at least until another hearing on February 19, lawyers for her ex-husband Kevin Federline said outside court. Mr Gordon issued the original order earlier this month, after police were summoned to the troubled pop star's home when she became distraught and refused to return the boys to Federline's representatives. Spears, 26, was taken away on a stretcher and hospitalised for two days. She arrived hours late for today's hearing and was mobbed by photographers as she stepped out of a sport utility vehicle outside the downtown Los Angeles courthouse. But instead of heading into the building where the hearing was under way with Federline in the courtroom, Spears climbed quic...

NIALL FIRTH She might be tasty, but his stunning girlfriend Daria Zhukova proved too good for Roman Abramovich to resist as the couple went for a dip off the billionaire's luxury yacht. The Chelsea owner couldn't help taking a cheeky bite out of his 26-year-old girlfriend's behind as they climbed up the ladder of his super-yacht Ecstasea, anchored off the port of a Caribbean holiday island. Abramovich was spotted with the former Russian model in the port of Gustavia, on the French West Indies Island of St Bart's, a favourite holiday destination for the rich and famous. After strolling around the seaside resort, where the two are said to be property hunting, the heavens opened and they had to beat a hasty retreat to the comfort of Abramovich's luxury yacht anchored in the harbour. Born in Moscow and privately schooled in Britain, socialite and former model Zhukova studied homeopathy at the London College of Naturopathic Medicine, and has launched a clothing line that...

Britney Spears has fled the U.S. after fearing her family were about to take drastic action to force her into emergency psychiatric care. The singer hit the road with her Brummie photographer boyfriend and apparently resurfaced in Mexico. The star was with Ghalib and at least one of his colleagues. And late last night video of Britney and the photographer hit the internet and appeared to show the pair in Mexico. Britney's camp staged an elaborate plan in an attempt to throw the media off her scent. The word went out that the pop superstar was flying to New York - as well as Hawaii, Las Vegas, Barbados and Mexico. It involved at least two private jets, several teams of security, numerous limos - and even police. One insider said: "She has lost contact with her two sons and her family is so scared for her mental health they fear she's a suicide risk and she's out flying or driving around the world playing games. "It's just beyond belief." Britney and Adnan ...

SARAH SANDS For the French President, it was hardly the endorsement he had been looking for. As Nicolas Sarkozy grew ever more publicly vocal this week in his protestations of love for model Carla Bruni his former wife delivered her own, damning, verdict. Sarkozy is "ridiculous, badly behaved and not fit to be president" Cecilia Sarkozy says in a new book, adding for good measure that the women in his life are just a 'bunch of slappers' (or des petasses fardees, as the French would have it). Even the president's female political colleagues do not escape her barbed tongue: they are just "boring wallflowers, and now that there is no First Lady, he needs to surround himself with pretty young things dressed in Dior". It has taken just a few short weeks for the revenge of Cecilia to begin. Sarkozy, 52, began dating Bruni, 40, just one month after his divorce from Cecilia following a 12-year marriage and his election last May as France's new president. Now...