Dating, Love & Relationships Around The World

Though this online dating site is devoted to relationships between men and women, I just couldn’t resist this very funny video from comedian Chris Rock.  I guess this is still about relationships – but between you and your local police……

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In a new calendar for 2010, gorgeous Latin actors and Latin models are featured in shocking poses sending home eco messages.

The Latin celebrities are hoping their contribution to the calendar will build environmental awareness.

A collaboration between the Azara Foundation and fashion photographer Gaby Herbstein, the calendar, �Huella Ecol�gica� (Ecological Footprint) showcases 12 famous Latin stars representing some of the most important environmental issues of our time.

Ricardo Darin, Alessandra Rampolla, Luciana Salazar, Ronnie Arias, Carla Peterson, Gonzalo Valenzuela and Dante Spinetta, were some of the artists representing global warming, water pollution and air pollution, loss of forests and the advance of deserts, overfishing, the rise of the oceans, species extinction, excesive consumption, diseases and depletion of drinking water.

The calendar and the campaign�s T-shirts can purchased through the website www.vitnik.com and all the money rised will be destined to the work of the foundation.

Technorati Tags: calendar, Latin actors, Latin models, Latin, environmental awareness, Azara Foundation, Gaby Herbstein, Latin stars, Ricardo Darin, Alessandra Rampolla, Luciana Salazar, Ronnie Arias, Carla Peterson, Gonzalo Valenzuela, Dante Spinetta, global warming, water pollution, air pollution, overfishing

Only in Canada would you be required by the Canadian Federal Government to cough up taxes on ill gotten gains.

It seems a RCMP clerk who managed a to steal more than $170,000 during a 19 month spree is now required to pay $21,422 back taxes on the stolen funds. [tag]Revenue Canada[tag] doesn’t give a damn if your earning are legal or not – they want their cut.

Technorati Tags: Canada, Canadian, RCMP

Look up in the sky. It’s a bird, it’s a plane. No, it’s — Captain Condom.

The safe sex superhero and several other caped crusaders will hit the streets of Vancouver next month, when the city hosts the world for the 2010 Olympics.

Behind the marching bands, clowns, condoms on stilts and general three-ring circus is a serious message about harm reduction during the Olympic fun.

A group of local, national and international harm-reduction organizations, dubbed SafeGames 2010, plan to hand out more than 250,000 “SafeKits” when the Olympic Games start next month in Vancouver.

The program, which has the blessing and $20,000 in funding from the City of Vancouver, is modelled after the Salt Lake City’s Safe Games 2002, where volunteers provided support to those visiting Salt Lake City during that city’s Winter Olympics.

Those handing out the safe sex loot will be dressed as “superheroes.” More than 200 outreach workers will distribute condoms, lube, lip balm, hand heaters, glow sticks, and other safety-related stuff at high-traffic intersections, special events and outside bars and hotels.

They also plan to distribute information about responsible drinking and drug consumption, public transportation schedules, and contacts for local support groups.

Technorati Tags: 2010 Olympics, SafeGames 2010, Olympic Games, Vancouver, Winter Olympics, safe sex

A huge Chinese tar sands investment has been formally approved by the Canadian Federal government. Canada and China have signed a deal that will see PetroChina, the market arm of the state-owned China National Petroleum Corp., investing $1.7 billion in two Canadian tar sands deposits in Alberta.. It’s up to Chinese engineers and managers, now, to make the oil extraction and distribution cost-efficient enough to get the desired financial returns.

Their plan is probably to pump Tar Sands oil over the Rockies, either directly across western Canada, or by routing south and then west toward American ports. You can count your Chinese cookies that the owners and managers of this Chinese project will be doing only the bare minimum for pollution control in Canada.

For Americans, this eliminates the once-comforting notion that they could solidly depend on their ‘friendly neighbor to the north’ (that’s us) to keep the cheap oil flowing to us. Wake up world as now China will get dibs in the event a global oil shortage or a North American oil price dip, relative to the global average. And to add to this, the privileged access to Canada’s massive oil and gas reserves by the US could be disrupted if Washington cancels the NAFTA accord.

The Alberta Tar Sands project has been dubbed by some as the most destructive project on Earth – scarring it visibly from space – there’s no doubt that the tar sands extraction industry has a huge environmental footprint, which even President Obama could not help but acknowledge during his visit to Ottawa early last year.

Did you know?

• Oil sands mining is licensed to use twice the amount of fresh water that the entire city of Calgary uses in a year.

• At least 90% of the fresh water used in the oil sands ends up in ends up in tailing ponds so toxic that propane cannons are used to keep ducks from landing.

• Processing the oil sands uses enough natural gas in a day to heat 3 million homes.

• The toxic tailing ponds are considered one of the largest human-made structures in the world. -The ponds span 50 square kilometers and can be seen from space.

• Producing a barrel of oil from the oil sands produces three times more greenhouse gas emissions than a barrel of conventional oil.

I’ll try to remember all this the next time I leave one of my three cars running in the driveway to warm up!

Technorati Tags: Chinese, Canadian, PetroChina, Canadian tar sands, Alberta, Tar Sands oil, western Canada, American, Chinese cookies, pollution, Canada, Americans, cheap oil, oil shortage, North American oil, US, NAFTA, Alberta Tar Sands, President Obama, Calgary

It’s a well know fact that Saudi human rights groups have been pushing the government to put an end to marriages involving the very young and to define a minimum age for a Muslim marriage. In the past few months, Saudi newspapers have highlighted several cases in which young girls were married off to much older men or very young boys.

The government-run Human Rights Commission has condemned marriages of minor girls, saying such marriages are an “inhumane violation” and rob children of their rights.

In a recent case, an 8 year old girl was divorced from your 50+ year old husband. The girl’s marriage was arranged by her father and backed twice by a judge on the condition that it was not consummated until she reached puberty.

The case was widely publicized and prompted heated debate in the Saudi Arabia, which is currently giving more rights to women than have previously been granted. It was also condemned by human rights groups abroad.

King Abdullah, seen as a reformist, appointed the first ever woman deputy minister earlier this year.

One of his advisers, Mohsen al-Obaikan, an Islamic scholar, went public to demand that a legal age for marriage be set at 18. The justice ministry said it was considering reforming the law, which until now has given no minimum.

The justice minister said he wanted to end the “arbitrary” control of marriages by girl’s fathers.

However, the country’s highest religious authority, the Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Shaikh, said that marrying girls even under the age of 15 was not against Sharia – Islamic law which forms the basis of the Saudi legal system.

The Saudi Gazette reported that the marriage of the eight-year-old, who has never been named, was annulled in a private out-of-court settlement between the two families in the city of Onaiza.

There are no statistics to show how many marriages involving children are performed in Saudi Arabia every year. And it’s also not clear whether these unions are on the rise or whether people are hearing about them more now because of the prevalence of media outlets and easy access to the internet.

Activists say the girls are given away in return for hefty dowries or as a result of long-standing custom in which a father promises his infant daughters and sons to cousins out of a belief that marriage will protect them from illicit relationships.

Popular attitudes also play a role in the acceptance of child marriage, according to women’s rights activist Wajiha Al Huweidar, who has called for banning child marriage.

People often refer to girls being in their “full moon age” when they are 14 and 15, meaning they are then most physically desirable. Poets “are always talking about a girl at that age of the ‘full moon,’” Al Huweidar said, adding that “deep inside, both men and women, believe this is the best age to be married.”

Such attitudes are reinforced by the “myth” among elderly men that when they “get married to a very young girl they will get their youth back,” she added.

But perhaps more importantly, many people “think they are following the Prophet’s footsteps” because Muhammad is said to have married a 9-year-old girl named Ayesha, Al Huweidar said. “That’s why it’s hard to change.”

Actually, child marriage violates Islamic law, or shari’a, on two counts, critics of the practice say. First, a marriage contract is only valid if husband and wife voluntarily consent, which a minor is unable to do. Secondly, the dowry paid by a husband is the property of the wife, not her father, who would control it in the case of a minor.

Technorati Tags: Saudi, Muslim marriage, Saudi Arabia, child marriage, Islamic

IDS Tags: child marriages, Islamic, muslim marriage, Saudi Arabia

Turkey, a secular Muslim country has turned out to be the real turkey as they have banned Justin Timberlake’s new music video, Love Sex Magic due to it’s sexually explicit content.

The pop sensations’ video features a scantily clad Ciara licking Timberlake’s ear as the two singers dancing closely together, and it’s caused a fury among Turkish censors.

I guess we should be glad they didn’t ban youtube altogether like they did back in 2007 when the government found a video slandering a founder of the Turkish replublic. World has it the Turkish government has banned over 1,000 sites  on the net.

Youtube’s parent, Google, decided to selectively prevent access to the offending videos to users in Turkey in order for the entire site not to be closed down. Turkish prosecutors, not content, demanded a global block in order not to offend Turkish users abroad. Google did not comply

Government officials defend these blocked sites -  “Practices are needed to protect young people and the public at large from harmful material online.” The newspaper Taraf said that the persistent banning of Web sites can be attributed to judges inexperience in dealing with the Internet

Turkey anyone?

Technorati Tags: Turkey, Muslim, Justin Timberlake, music video, Love Sex, Turkish

IDS Tags: Justin Timberlake, Muslim, Turkey, video

Nearly a year and a half after a New Zealand husband lost his wedding ring at the bottom of Wellington Harbour this Lord of the Rings has found his lost treasure.

At the time he lost his ring, Aleki Taumoepeau had been married for just three months when he lost the wedding ring while conducting an environmental sweep of the harbour. He had the foresight to throw an anchor overboard to mark the spot. He later used Google Earth and a GPS system to find the ring.

Sometimes love gets Divine intervention!

Technorati Tags: New Zealand, wedding, Lord of the Rings, wedding ring, Google Earth, GPS, love

What woman hasn’t fantasized about being in a foreign country and meeting a handsome local who’ll sweep her off her feet. I have spent countless thousands cruising, touring and vacationing in all corners of the globe with little or not luck in this area.

I’ve just discovered that I should have been visiting TURKEY! A Turkish holiday resort hotel has sacked its entire male staff over their affairs and seductions with female guests.

Manager Pelin Yucel was quoted as saying: “It got beyond a joke. The last straw was when I caught my bartender coming out of a toilet with a woman guest.

“She was embarrassed but he was beaming all over his face.”

The 27-bedroom Image Hotel in Marmaris, where most of the guests are British or Russian, now employs only female staff.

Pelin added that she could rarely reach her night porter because “he was always in bed with one of the customers.

“The waiters would prey on older English women staying at the hotel. They would wait for them to come back from nights out — often drunk — then seduce them.

“They would have one guest one week, wave goodbye to her, and eye up the new guests as they arrived. It was hell.”

It’s a hell I’d have like to spent a week at!  These Turkish gigolo’s shouldn’t have any trouble finding another resort willing to cater to the loneyRussian andBritish women!

Technorati Tags: TURKEY, Turkish, gigolo, Russian, British

There are many fine matchmaking sites for Muslin singles such as Muslima or Shaadi but we now have a new twist for single muslin men and women.

Despite its fearsome reputation around the world, Hamas is known in Gaza for its cradle-to-grave welfare programs for the poor. It is a cornerstone of its political support in Gaza, where poverty is deepening as Israeland Egypt maintain an almost two-year blockade of the Hamas-run territory. Now, the group is branching out into matters of the heart.

Pictures of single Muslim women can be found in the files of the Tayseer Association for Marriage and Development in Gaza. Photographs stapled to the files show Muslim women in headscarves, some wearing makeup, some smiling, others looking startled. They all want a husband, and the Hamas loyalists running the association are intent on finding a man for each.

“This is our vision of humanitarian work,” said Wael Zard, director of the Tayseer association. “This makes people close to Hamas and makes Hamas close to the people.”

While Tayseer’s matchmaking service helps both men and women, it is particularly important for women since staying single is a cruel fate for them in Gaza. They are often treated as unpaid maids by their extended families and, says Gaza sociologist Naser Mahdi, increasing economic hardship has made the marriage market even harsher.

The dwindling number of middle-class men with steady incomes can have their pick of the prettiest women, leaving others to work hard to find a suitable husband. Meanwhile, poor families are reluctant to marry off working daughters, hoping to keep their salaries.

About 40 marriages have been arranged since Tayseer opened its matchmaking department in 2007. Most women apply in secret because it’s taboo for women in Gaza to seek husbands outside the traditional route. Most girls are married in matches set up by their mothers. Dating is nearly nonexistent and love marriages are a novelty.

But in a nod to Gaza ’s grinding poverty triumphing over its conservative culture, there is a special file for women with jobs. Bringing home a salary in Gaza can trump any other category, matchmakers say.

In the women’s application, they describe their ideal man. Most ask for a devout Muslim with a job and his own apartment, a top find in crowded Gaza.

Women also must describe their appearance and answer a killer question: “Do you consider yourself pretty according to Gaza standards?” The ideal of beauty in Gaza means tall and fair-skinned with blue or green eyes and light-colored hair – and that’s what men usually ask for. But most Gaza women have dark hair and bronze skin.

The one other matchmaking service in Gaza is little used. The Tayseer association was originally founded to fund and organize mass weddings, a service for poor or disabled Gazans who often can’t afford the costs of a ceremony. Next month, a mass wedding is planned for more than a dozen blind Palestinians.

While Hamas is considered a terrorist group in the West because of its attacks on Israel – including suicide bombings – it also provides Gaza’s poor with food coupons, medical care and other services. Its social network helped make the group popular, gaining it victory over its Palestinian rival Fatah in 2006 parliament elections. The following year, Hamas seized power in the Gaza Strip in clashes with Fatah.

Around 40 men a month turn to Tayseer in search of a wife. When association employees think there’s a match, they quietly organize a meeting, with employees acting as chaperones in compliance with Islamic law. If the couple like each other, Gaza’s traditional courtship kicks in.

The man’s relatives visit the woman’s family, saying that a well-meaning stranger told them of a girl wanting to marry. If the woman’s family accepts, a wedding is planned. The matchmakers are not mentioned, because their role is still taboo.

Muslim tradition says Khadija proposed to Muhammad – and was years his senior. It’s a powerful message to women: Islam’s first lady bucked conservative Arab tradition more than 1,400 years ago and they can defy Gaza tradition now.

Technorati Tags: matchmaking, Muslin singles, single muslin, Hamas, Gaza, Israel, Egypt, Muslim women, Dating, marriages, Muhammad, Islam, Arab