Peruvian teens Can Now Have Sex At 14

Despite the fact that President Alan Garcia has said that he doesn't agree with the age of consent reform, he has agreed to take a closer look at the proposal that Congress has approved before giving his final word.
"I am the father of four girls, I don't believe that at the age of 14 they are in a state where they can approve and weigh the consequences, rationally and responsibly, of an adult's proposal," explained the Chief of State.
President Garcia has stated that the proposed reform has not reached the Government Palace yet.
He has said that he will study his arguments before he presents his observations and that under no circumstances will he let minors be unprotected or abused. "We shouldn't jump to conclusions, when the law arrives then I'll be able to give further information," he declared.
"No mother or father born in Peru will agree with this, it's possible that there are some older single men who like little girls and think this law will open the doors for them to do what they want, personally I don't agree." These were the President's statements when asked for his opinion by reporters.
The President also declared, "I will not let anything happen to the boys and girls of Peru that I wouldn't let happen to my daughters."
Congress ruled in favor (70-10) of an age of consent reform, written by a member of President Alan Garcia's center-left Aprista party, on Thursday June 21.

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Obscenity From The Indian Context

Every generation must redefine notions of obscenity in the context of their times. Ancient India, under the dominance of Hindu rulers, had no issues with nudity. Or sex. Konarak, Khajuraho, the Kamasutra are clear examples of how open minded we once were as a nation, as a culture.
The gorgeous Sunita Menon may not have been around but, even in those days, long before Ekta Kapoor, the most popular things began with K. And no, no one complained. No one saw them as obscene.
Then came the Muslim invasion. The early guys were fine but, as they settled in, the Mughal rulers got more and more uptight till Aurangzeb, clearly anticipating three centuries ago our home minister R R Patil's ideas, banned music, dance, alcohol and, despite his many wives, made sex into a dirty word, to be proscribed in public and suffered only in the bedroom.
The British, who came in next, were going through their prudish Victorian phase and promptly dittoed this. So obscenity became associated with sex and nudity, in a total reversal of our own traditions which celebrated both.
It may be time in India to re-examine this Semitic view of sex and tried to rediscover its timeless beauty, joy and magic. Instead of harassing artists, writers, film makers who try to take sex out of the closet, India should support them. It would likely reduce violence and hatred throughout society.
It will also hopefully diminish India's obsession with divisive forces like religion, caste, community, sect and revive the romance of the male-female relationship. Crimes against women will come down. For very few things have the seductive power to overcome the vulgarity of violence and the fetish of faith. Sex is luckily one of them.
So what happens to vulgarity? If sex is out, what will the obscenity hunters chase? I can suggest several alternatives. Let's start with what the Prime Minister referred to the other day the vulgarity of ostentation. Creating wealth is fine up to a point but, beyond that, wealth must serve the interests of the community. You cannot have 40 per cent of the people barely able to afford one square meal a day while the families of the ruling elite spend 60 per cent of their waking hours shopping around in swanky malls. For me, that's vulgarity. And, as you can see, this vulgarity of hyper consumerism is hurting India more than anything else. It's dividing us into two. Those who can flaunt the new lifestyle versus those who are barely surviving.
Vulgarity is the way we run our democracy where the corrupt buy and occupy every nodal office. Rajiv Gandhi once said that only 10 per cent of what the State spends on the common man ever reaches him. That was in his time. Today, we would be lucky if 2 per cent reaches the common man. Isn't that vulgarity? The fact that those who are hired or voted into office to reduce poverty actually spend all their time looting the state and collaborating with the rich. Maharashtrians complain that Mumbai has been taken over by outsiders. Not true. Mumbai has been taken over by builders, who (irrespective of where they come from) are a law unto themselves. It is these builders who have stripped ordinary people of their dignity and lured them to sell off their homes and forget their culture by tempting them with easy money. It is they who have created these artificial property prices that none of us can afford.
Vulgarity is forcing second hand booksellers off the streets. Vulgarity is fake encounters. Vulgarity is the all encompassing corruption we live with and often succumb to. Vulgarity is destroying the environment, vandalising our heritage, and outraging senior citizens. Vulgarity is rich, ostentatious weddings and dowries. Vulgarity is the fact that India produces 70 per cent of the world's fake drugs that kill millions. Vulgarity is intolerance, brutality, bloodshed. Vulgarity is raping the soul of Mumbai and trying to make it into a silly, fourth rate version of Shenzhen.
Sex is clean, noble, honest when practising safely. Irrespective of where you get it. In your bedroom. On the internet. In a dance bar. On a painter's canvas. Off the movie screen. Or in some lonely park after sundown. At least it brings two people together and does not tear them apart or destroy their homes, culture, dignity. So why give sex a bad name and allow much worse to flourish?

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Hamas: Keep Our Schools Free From Books With Sexual Innuendo.

The Hamas-run Education Ministry has ordered an anthology of Palestinian folk tales pulled from school libraries and destroyed, reportedly over mild sexual innuendo, officials said Monday, in the most direct attempt by the Islamic militants to impose their beliefs on Palestinian society.

Horses made of roots

The book ban angered and worried many Palestinians, who long feared that Hamas would use its victory in last year's parliamentary election to remake the Palestinian territories according to its hardline interpretation of Islam.

West Bank novelist Zakariya Mohammed said he feared Hamas' decision to ban "Speak Bird, Speak Again," a collection of 45 folk tales, was only the beginning and urged intellectuals to take action. "If we don't stand up to the Islamists now, they won't stop confiscating books, songs and folklore," he said.

The Education Ministry declined immediate comment. A senior ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to discuss the issue with reporters, confirmed that 1,500 copies of the book had been pulled from school libraries and destroyed.

Hanan Ashrawi, an independent lawmaker and former Cabinet minister, said the decision to pull the book was "outrageous."

"If this is what is to come, it is extremely alarming," she said.

With Hamas slated to retain the Education Ministry under a power-sharing agreement with the secular Fatah party, Ashrawi called for the creation of an independent body to deal with issues related to arts and education.

"Education and culture and social issues should not be handled by anybody that has a closed, ideological, doctrinal attitude," she said. "It should be in the hands of professionals."

Since taking office last year, Hamas, which advocates an Islamic Palestinian state, has largely shied away from trying to force its mores on Palestinian society, as rights activists had feared. Some analysts speculated that the group was too busy trying to fend off international sanctions and keep its government from collapsing to focus on banning alcohol or other measures.

However, in recent months the Hamas-controlled ministries have begun forcing women to don headscarves to enter. And two years ago, Hamas officials in charge of the West Bank town of Qalqiliya sparked fears of a culture crackdown by banning a local music festival, arguing that the mingling of men and women at such an event was "haram," or forbidden by Islam.

In a letter sent to the Nablus school district last month, the Education Ministry said "Speak Bird, Speak Again" must be removed within a week, and asked school officials to notify the ministry once they had complied. The letter did not explain why the book was considered objectionable. Excerpts of the letter were read to The Associated Press by a Nablus school official who spoke on condition of anonymity, for fear of retribution.

Palestinian folklore

The 400-page anthology of folk tales narrated by Palestinian women was first published in English in 1989 by the University of California at Berkeley. It was put together by Sharif Kanaana, a novelist and anthropology professor at the West Bank's Bir Zeit University, and by Ibrahim Muhawi, a teacher of Arabic literature and the theory of translation, the AP reports.

A French version, published by UNESCO, followed in 1997, and an Arabic one in 2001, said Kaanana, who lives in the West Bank town of Ramallah. At the time of the first publication in Arabic, the Palestinian Culture Ministry requested 3,000 copies and had them distributed in schools, Kanaana said Monday.

Kanaana said that two of the 45 tales contained what some might consider vague sexual innuendo, referring to body parts in colloquial Arabic. "This is our heritage, this is our life," he said of the folk tales.

One of Kanaana's neighbors, pharmacist Nabil Nahas, 60, said the book was a treasure, and that he was deeply upset by what he said was Hamas' attempt to silence other opinions.

The author said the stories shouldn't be altered because this is how they were transmitted from generation to generation. He didn't mind having a revised version for young children, but the original should be freely available, as a historic record, he said.

"It's not their right to judge this book," Kanaana said. "It's a scientific, academic book."

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