Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Slate
The perils of charging rape
The Australian
Carla Bruni baby game on
Matthew Campbell talks about the curious events involving an Indian mystic and an approaching election that have thrown France into a fever of speculation over its first couple. It focuses on whether President Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni are planning to have a baby to boost his re-election campaign. He speaks of how France has been obsessed with the baby question ever since the 55-year-old Sarko married Bruni three years ago. The latest speculation was triggered during the couples visit to India,where Bruni prayed for a child at the shrine of a Sufi saint. Campbell writes that the reform of the pension system and measures that forced the French to work longer and harder have seen a dip in his popularity ratings. An infant in the Elysee,say political pundits,would help give Sarkozy a more youthful image.
The Huffington Post
Kindness and heart disease
David R Hamilton writes that if someone were to suggest that helping an elderly person to carry their shopping bag could cut the risk of heart disease,most peoples minds would jump to the thought of the exercise theyd be getting. But there might be another reason that has less to do with exercise and more to do with the act of kindness itself. That reason lies with the hormone oxytocin which plays a key role in the brain as a neurotransmitter and facilitates social bonding, he says. So next time you hold that door for someone,be sure to smile8230;it might be doing some good for both of your hearts, he says.
Time
Foreign teachers and HIV
Emily Rauhala writes that King Gojong,Koreas last monarch,didnt think much of foreigners. Uneducated louts,he called them. But that was 1882. More than a century later,South Korea is coming to terms with a different sort of outsider: foreign English teachers. And with it,a new fear. Every year,20,000 foreigners come to Korea to meet the countrys demand for English teachers. After rumours spread in 2007 about foreign teachers spreading HIV/AIDS,the government made it mandatory for them to undergo tests. Three years later,the law persists,though ethnic Koreans are exempted,regardless of where they are born or raised. The program has been widely criticised as ineffective and discriminatory. Last month,Ban Ki-moon,secretary general of the United Nations,urged his country to abolish the program. But for now,the testsand the stigmastay, she says.
