Free Republic

A VILLAGE council in India has issued a Taliban-like diktat banning women under the age of 40 from falling in love, using mobile phones or going out in public unescorted. The “fiat” issued by the Asara village council in Baghpat district of Uttar Pradesh province, 40km northeast of the capital New Delhi, has outraged women’s rights activists across India. It also requires women to cover their heads while away from their homes. Anyone defying the order would be ostracised and then expelled from the village, council member Mohammad Mokam said yesterday. He added there were “other ways” to make the...

WASHINGTON – Freddie Mac secretly paid a Republican consulting firm $2 million to kill legislation that would have regulated and trimmed the mortgage finance giant and its sister company, Fannie Mae, three years before the government took control to prevent their collapse. In the cross hairs of the campaign carried out by DCI of Washington were Republican senators and a regulatory overhaul bill sponsored by Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb. DCI's chief executive is Doug Goodyear, whom John McCain's campaign later hired to manage the GOP convention in September. Freddie Mac's payments to DCI began shortly after the Senate Banking, Housing...

Dozens of children are missing from school amid fears they have been forced into arranged marriages, it was revealed yesterday. In Bradford, 33 children remain "unaccounted for" after being off school for at least two months with no explanation. The Government is also concerned about another 14 areas of the country where it is feared children under 16 could also be missing from school rolls. The figures were disclosed yesterday by Children's Minister Kevin Brennan during evidence to the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, which is investigating the controversial issue of forced marriages. He revealed the results of worrying inquiries...

My name is Yagmur (it means "rain"). I was born in rural Turkey, in a village. Generally Turkish women enjoy many freedoms, which our Arab sisters can’t even think of. Rural Turkey is a different story. Honour killings take place every day, women don’t have much say (if any) in household matters and female employment is out of question. However, much hard work is done by women because men don’t want to strain themselves; women are like cattle or slaves. If husband tells you to do something, you have to obey. My mother was a fairly-educated woman, she taught me...