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☆ More Chinese Women Choosing Singledom as Economy Stutters
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-06 | by ( March | At P.M. | ) www.usnews.com time to read: +6 min

Chinese Premier Li Qiang also vowed to "work towards a birth-friendly society" and boost childcare services in this year's government work report. In Shanghai, this figure reached 30.6 for men and 29.2 for women last year, according to city statistics. Long-term single lifestyles are gradually becoming more widespread in China, giving rise to online communities of mostly single women who seek solidarity from like-minded people. Decades of the one-child policy have led to 32.3 million more men than women in 2022, according to official data. "Well-educated women in search of supportive life partners find fewer suitable men who also endorse women's rights."

Persons: Laurie Chen XIAN, Chai Wanrou, didn't, Xi Jinping, Li Qiang, stigmatised, influencers, China's Instagram, Liao Yueyi, I've, Xiaoling Shu, Davis, Shu, Laurie Chen, Farah Master, Miral Fahmy Organizations: Reuters, Communist Party, Communist Youth League, University of California Locations: China, Xian, Shanghai, United States, Xiaohongshu, Nanning, Hong Kong

☆ Returning Syrian Refugees Face Abduction, Sexual Abuse: UN
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-13 | by ( Feb. | At A.M. | ) www.usnews.com time to read: +2 min

GENEVA (Reuters) - Syrian refugees who fled the war are facing gross human rights violations such as torture and abduction on their return home while women are subject to sexual harassment and violence, the U.N. human rights office said in a report on Tuesday. "There are reasonable grounds to believe that the overall conditions in Syria do not permit safe, dignified and sustainable returns of Syrian refugees to their home country," she added. A Syrian government spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. "Women are nowadays forced to do all sorts of things in order to go on with their lives. "In some cases, they are even divorced by their husbands and disowned by their own families," the report said.

Persons: Elizabeth Throssell, Emma Farge, Ros Russell Locations: GENEVA, Syria, Geneva, Israel, Gaza, Ghouta

Energy ministers from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Iraq, the three largest members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), have gathered in the Saudi capital Riyadh for the U.N. MENA climate week. The UAE will host the COP28 climate summit scheduled to take place in Dubai between Nov. 30 and Dec. 12. He has argued for a more inclusive COP that brings the oil and gas industry into the climate debate and allows it to be part of the solution through decarbonisation initiatives. Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman also said the industry should not be stigmatised and the world still needed hydrocarbons. "There is a case for us to be in oil and gas," he told the audience.

Persons: Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Ueslei Marcelino, Jaber, Suhail, Mazrouei, Sultan al, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, Aziz El Yaakoubi, Pesha Majid, Maha El, Toby Chopra, Barbara Lewis Organizations: UAE Industry, Amazon, REUTERS, UAE, Energy, United Arab, Organization of Petroleum Exporting, UAE Energy, Saudi Energy, Thomson Locations: Hangar, Belem , Para State, Brazil, RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Saudi, Riyadh, UAE, Dubai, OPEC, COP28

European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde speaks to the media following the Governing Council's monetary policy meeting at the ECB headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany, July 27, 2023. Lagarde stigmatised the leak at the start of the two-day meeting, a criticism that was echoed by several colleagues. But as borrowing costs were pushed higher, more policymakers expressed reservations about further hikes, the sources said. Lagarde has spared no effort in trying to woo her colleagues. In return, she asked for governors to stop trashing policy decisions once taken, keep internal disputes out of the media and put their phones away while colleagues were speaking.

Persons: Christine Lagarde, Kai Pfaffenbach, Mario Draghi, Claudia Buch, Andrea Enria, Lagarde's, Lagarde, Weeks, Draghi, Francesco Canepa, Mike Harrison Organizations: European Central Bank, ECB, REUTERS, SANTIAGO DE, Central Bank, Reuters, Governing Council, Single, Thomson Locations: Frankfurt, Germany, FRANKFURT, SANTIAGO, SANTIAGO DE COMPOSTELA, Draghi

Under current guidelines, single women are barred from freezing their eggs, with assisted reproductive technologies only available to married women with fertility issues. In recent months, some provinces have extended childbirth benefits for unmarried women, and in the southwestern province of Sichuan province single women are increasingly undergoing IVF treatments in private clinics. SOCIAL STIGMALike many Chinese women, Xu spent her twenties and early thirties focused on career development, but was constantly reminded of women's fertility decline with age. "I think society should stop this stigma and recognise the diverse circumstances of single women, as well as their courage and independence." "I hope that all single women can achieve bodily autonomy and reproductive autonomy, and that everyone is allowed to have the space for making independent choices," she said.

Spain has one swimming pool for every 37 residents, and these, too, are now in the spotlight. While her swimming pool has been empty for five years since her children grew up, Garcia, 61, said the town has been stigmatised unfairly for its pools. Pools are being used as a scapegoat for a lack of coherent water policy in Spain, she said. It is a sentiment shared by Gonzalo Delacamara, director of the IE Centre for Water & Climate Adaptation in Madrid. While the use of water to fill swimming pools during a drought is irresponsible, the bulk of Spain's water resources are taken by the agriculture sector, accounting for 70% of water usage, he said.

☆ German artist nearing 100,000 cobblestones to mark victims of Nazis
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( Tilman Blasshofer | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

By placing Stolpersteine ("stumble stones") outside the victims' last known address, 75-year-old Gunter Demnig aims to draw attention to the fate of individuals in the Holocaust. Nearly 100,000 cobblestones later, they can be found in 30 countries across Europe, from Finland to Italy, Hungary, Russia and Ukraine. "I never dreamed of this," Demnig said, saying he had expected a few hundred or maybe 1,000 stones. They commemorate all groups of the Nazis' victims, including Jews, Sinti and Roma, political opponents, gay people and "antisocial elements", or criminals. Both were murdered," said Demnig as prepares to lay two stones outside the house in Cologne where they lived.

Two health workers at the hospital in western Uganda have died from Ebola in this outbreak. Nationwide, 15 health workers have tested positive and six have died. Intensive care staff work maximum eight-hour shifts and personnel from Ebola-free regions are rotated in, he said. "There are facilities where doctors and health workers are still touching patients without gloves because they (gloves) are not there," Nahabwe said. Case numbers remain low compared with a 2013-2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa that killed at least 11,300 people.

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