Any female professional in Pakistan who is active on Twitter will find herself vilified and harassed online simply because she is a woman who works.
Category: Latest News
Welcome to our archive of news stories relevant to the project of fighting fashionable nonsense. The stories are drawn from the electronic pages of the world’s media. On this page, you’ll find links to those stories that have been featured on Butterflies and Wheels during the current year. At the bottom of the page, you’ll find links to separate archives of stories from previous years.
We’re always pleased to hear about news stories that you think should be featured on Butterflies and Wheels. Just send an email here, if you want to point one out to us.
A note about links
Inevitably links go out of date. We suggest, therefore, that you make hard-copies of the stories that particularly interest you.
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Haiti’s silenced victims
Despite new laws, few women will ever report a rape because of the prevailing social norms that blame victims for their own assault.
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The long decline
The US now has the highest percentage of low-wage workers—those who earn less than two-thirds of the median wage—of any developed nation.
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Karachi: 12-year-old Mehzar Zehra shot by the Taliban/SSP
Mehzar Zehra was being driven by her father, a government servant, to her school a few miles away, when gunmen fired at them, killing her father and wounding her.
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Infant male circumcision is genital mutilation
Just as we call sex without consent ‘rape’, circumcision without consent or reasonable justification should be called ‘mutilation’.
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Kolkata man beheads his sister
He told police he had killed his sister for “running off with a lover and dishonouring the family”, say sources.
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Woman prevents her son from getting cancer treatment
“She wants to work with [the doctors] but the medical profession want to do it all their way,” says her mother.
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Bristol University’s Christian Union is being investigated
“UBU has an equality policy which explains that we prohibit discrimination on grounds of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership” and more.
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Bristol University’s Christian Union bans women from speaking
Unless they are accompanied by their husbands.
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Jen Gunter on the ignorance of the Irish bishops
The statement from the Irish Catholic Bishops is medically nonsensical, contradictory, and immoral.
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Irish bishops issue statement on death of Savita Halappanavar
So sad. So so so so sad. Nothing to do with us. So so so sad.
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Nick Cohen on the liberal press and Deeyah
Had her tormentors been Norwegian neo-Nazis or the BNP, Deeyah would have become an anti-racist hero. They are Islamists, so the liberal media said nothing.
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Manchester infant bled to death after circumcision
The court heard that up to three children a month are admitted to the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital because of bleeding after home-based circumcisions.
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Nirupama Pathak wanted to marry a boy of a lower caste
She was found dead in her bedroom. The police have arrested her mother on suspicion of murder, while the family contends that the death was a suicide.
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Catholic officials knew all about a teacher’s abuse
A nun walked in on a rape and simply reminded the teacher not to lock the door.
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Ron Lindsay on shunning fellow atheists and skeptics
The list of individuals that CFI has been advised not to have any dealings with is long.
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Stop Uganda’s kill the gays bill
No, they haven’t dropped the “kill them” part. News reports on that got it wrong.
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Muslim radio presenter says gay people should be tortured
Also that non-Muslims are “filth.”
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Iranian blogger dies in police custody
Sattar Beheshti died after being held on charges of “actions against national security on social networks.”
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Football, “corrective rape” and murder in South Africa
On November 9th, Sihle Sijoki, a female football player, was fatally speared in the chest. She was attacked because she was a lesbian.