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Day: February 26, 2018

Combating online bullying is different for girls and boys: here’s why

Bridge Agents

(Conversation) – Demands for improving online safety continue to capture headlines, often for the worst reasons.. While this outcry has signalled renewed interest in “stamping out” cyberbullying and reinvigorated health and wellbeing protocols for young people, interventions continue to fall behind the fast-paced development of communication devices and the take-up of new social media by teenagers. The focus on gender in “next step” interventions is noticeably absent. Intervention protocols have viewed teenage girls’ and boys’ online interaction as more or less the same. This is a mistake. Teenage girls, especially…

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Australian Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce Quits As Private Affair Becomes Public Scandal

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(GV) – Colourful, unconventional and controversial Australian politician Barnaby Joyce has announced his resignation as leader of the National Party and Deputy Prime Minister of Australia effective on Monday, 26 February 2018. This follows a series of crises over recent months. The saga of both private and political scandal has dominated both mainstream and social media. Dual Citizenship Debacle In October 2017 the High Court ruled that his dual citizenship from Australia and New Zealand made his election to the House of Representatives in 2016 invalid. Nevertheless, he achieved a…

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Iran: Stop Prosecuting Women Over Dress Code

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(HRW) – Iranian authorities should drop charges and stop prosecuting women for peacefully protesting Iran’s compulsory dress code (hijab) laws, Human Rights Watch said today. At least three women who peacefully protested the hijab law have been arrested since the end of January 2018. Iranian officials arrested Nargess Hosseini on January 29 as she took off her headscarf to protest Iran’s compulsory hijab while standing on top of an electric utility box on a street in Tehran. They arrested Azam Jangravi on February 14 and Shaparak Shajarizadeh on February 21…

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US Supreme Court Rejects Case on Ending DACA

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Washington, DC (Sputnik) – The US Supreme Court on Monday denied hearing a case from the Trump administration that sought to end protections for immigrants brought to the United States illegally as children also known as “Dreamers,” court documents said on Monday. “The petition for a writ of certiorari before judgment is denied without prejudice. It is assumed that the Court of Appeals will proceed expeditiously to decide this case,” the document said. The Trump administration is appealing a lower court decision that blocks them from rescinding the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. The DACA program…

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#ThemToo: Syrian Women Tell Stories of Rape in Regime Prisons

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Syria (GV) – In December 2017, a French documentary broadcast by TV channel France 2 featured a group of women who had survived rape and torture in the secret prisons of Syrian President Bashar al Assad. In the 72-minute film titled “Syrie, le cri étouffé” (Syria, the Muffled Cry), the survivors, who are now refugees in Turkey, Jordan and throughout Europe, speak about their arrest and subsequent detention, describing how the Assad regime used rape to settle scores with opponents and subjugate communities opposed to its rule. The documentary emerged at…

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Funding Planned Parenthood

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Planned Parenthood is in the media spotlight as “Republicans push to block funding for the group because it provides abortions for women.” (CNN). Planned Parenthood receives $500 million a year in funding from the government that ends up being 40% of Planned Parenthood’s total $1.3 billion in revenue for the year (NPR). Without this funding from the federal government the organization could be facing some financial trouble and struggle to keep providing the services it does. The “public funds come from two programs: Medicaid, the health care program targeted at…

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