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'THE Rudd government is planning to roll back the controversial shared parenting law passed in the final term of the Howard government, enraging men's groups, which say the laws have finally given them access to their children after separation.

Six inquiries into the shared parenting laws are now under way, which men's groups have interpreted as a sure sign that change is under way, too.

In a message to supporters, Sue Price of the Men's Rights Agency, has described the planned rollback as the "most sustained and concerted attack" on shared parenting that she has seen in 15 years.

Ms Price said the laws did no more than encourage "reasonable contact between perfectly good fathers and their children" and she is urging supporters to "convince the Rudd government that there are a million votes at stake" if they roll back the shared parenting changes.

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'Ms Banyard says that, despite having equal pay rights enshrined in law since the 1970s, a pay gap still exists and the law is not strong enough.

"As a result, companies are not required to check that they are paying equally, so it's absolutely crucial we have mandatory pay audits," she adds.

"The Equality Bill currently going through Parliament is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reform equal pay law we cannot afford to miss."

Yet Ms Pease has urged MPs not to wade further into the issue, as legislation now meant some employers believed hiring a woman was a "nightmare".

Long maternity leave and fears of costly discrimination action were just two of the issues Ms Pease highlighted as factors that deterred firms from taking on women.'

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'Some of what's in this report is a recycling of long-discredited data. Heather Boushey, for example, regurgitates the statistic that women only earn 77 cents on the dollar compared with men. But as the Hudson Institute's Diana Furchtgott-Roth and other economists have shown, this number conceals more than it reveals. It is only true on average. But when you begin to compare like with like, the discrepancies narrow considerably. Comparing men and women who both work 40 hours per week, for example, reduces the pay gap by 10 cents per hour. You have to look carefully at what is being compared. Among workers labeled "full time," hours worked by men tend to exceed hours worked by women. When men and women performing the same job are compared -- whether supermarket checker or first-year associate at a law firm -- the pay gap nearly disappears.'

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'David Cameron provoked a furious row with Tory backbenchers and grassroots members yesterday after reversing his party's opposition to all-women shortlists in a bid to boost the number of female Conservative MPs.

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'An American film that was rejected at last year's Jerusalem Film Festival because the Orthodox filmmaker demanded that it be screened exclusively in front of women will make its Israel premiere at next week's Jewish Eye World Jewish Film Festival in Ashkelon.

The musical, "A Light for Greytowers," was made by a group of Orthodox women who didn't want men to see them dancing or singing out of modesty. The film was originally scheduled to be shown at the Jerusalem Cinematheque last December but festival organizers canceled after they couldn't agree with the filmmaker over screening arrangements. "The 'women-only' issue definitely scared off other festivals interested in including the film," said Los Angeles-based Robin Garbose, adding the Ashkelon festival organizers contacted her after reading about it. "Upon submission, I clearly stated the film must be marketed to women only," she continued, saying the organizers almost got cold feet after they didn't seem to find a suitable venue for the screening.'

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'For decades, women have occupied a full range of roles within the Neapolitan crime syndicate, from bodyguard to boss, authorities say. In Naples, women are traditionally responsible for the finances within the household. They run the accounts and, according to anti-mafia investigators, have taken a major part in money laundering, cutting up drug deliveries for distribution and running numbers.

But wives and mothers have also been among the perpetrators of some of the worst violence in Naples, with the emancipation of women in Neapolitan society over recent decades mirrored inside the secretive world of the Camorra.
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"Today women appear on all of the multiple arrest warrants that we issue," she said. "It's more like we are shedding light on a phenomenon that was always there."

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'SANTA ANA, California – A female teacher who is alleged to have had sex with a male student in her school and then vandalized his car will be arraigned on Monday.

Naomi Perez, 33, of Brea, is charged with one felony count each of unlawful sexual intercourse, oral copulation of a minor, sexual penetration by foreign object of a minor, and one misdemeanor count of vandalism, said a statement by the Orange Country District Attorney’s office.

Perez is accused of meeting 17-year-old student John Doe while working as a teacher at Saddleback High School in Santa Ana.

Between June 1, 2007, and Aug. 27, 2007, Perez is accused of having an unlawful relationship with the victim on multiple occasions in her Brea home.

Two years after the end of the relationship, Perez is accused of vandalizing the victim’s car while it was parked outside of a family member’s home by scratching and denting the vehicle.'

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'SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - A wrongfully convicted man has been appointed to a board that advises the Illinois Department of Corrections.

Wilder “Kendric” Berry of Chicago is among members appointed this week to the Adult Advisory Board by Gov. Pat Quinn.

The Center for Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University says Berry went to prison because of a false rape accusation. Released and exonerated, he now works as a paralegal at a Chicago law firm.

The board advises the department on policies and programs affecting people in prison and on parole. Its other members include a suburban police chief, a county sheriff and a probation officer.

Illinois Department of Corrections Director Michael Randle says he welcomes the newly appointed members of the board.'

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'Student journalists recently got an inside look at the coverage of the false rape incident that occurred on the University campus a few weeks ago.

At an event hosted by professors Peter Goodman and Geoffrey Roth of the Department of Journalism, Media Studies and Public Relations last Thursday evening, the New York Post’s Kieran Crowley, WCBS-TV’s Jennifer McLogan and Carol D’Auria of 1010 WINS spoke to students about the various approaches they took to cover the story and what they felt could have been done differently.
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McLogan said that from the start, it was her instinct to question the accusation. “The police were sure of the rape,” McLogan said, “but I said to myself, I hope this girl’s credible.”

She gave more personal insight on her perspective while covering the story. “We want to proceed cautiously,” she said. “I’m a mom with three kids in college; two girls and a boy. I wouldn’t want my daughters to be the victim, but I wouldn’t want my son railroaded either.”

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'An out-of-control young New Plymouth woman sentenced to jail whooped and leapt noisily down the stairs to the court cells, leaving her mother sobbing in court.

In the New Plymouth District Court on Thursday, Danielle Coombe, 18, of New Plymouth, admitted a series of offences including a false rape claim, resisting police and failing to appear for a court hearing earlier in the month.
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Coombe had made an allegation of sexual abuse to police but had no memory of the night.
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Coombe was sentenced to three months in jail, ordered to pay $60 reparation for theft and her fines of $675 were remitted.'

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'Liberal feminists have seized on the massive loss of jobs held by men to declare that "A Woman's Nation Changes Everything." That in fact is the title of "The Shriver Report," whose raison d'être is the fact that men have lost so many jobs that women have become almost half the labor force. (If anyone out there actually believed them when feminists claimed they were sorry, truly sorry about the plight of male workers in this recession, now you know.)

Maria Shriver, California's First Lady, has gotten together a passel of like-minded people and they've written a report which is really a book. And because it's a book, I haven't yet read the whole thing, so I'll have to blog about it piecemeal.

So here's the blog about the Executive Summary.

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'A FORMER Hampshire traffic warden cleared of rape has failed in a new legal bid to bring a £300,000 damages claim against his accuser for malicious prosecution.

Lawyers for Anthony Hunt, 66, had told three civil appeal judges that he wanted to “vindicate his reputation” by obtaining a judgment against the woman, referred to as AB, who had asked him into her home for a cup of tea and, he claimed, consented to sex.

But the Court of Appeal ruled that AB could not be sued for malicious prosecution as she was not “the prosecutor”.

She had not gone straight to the police and had not made it clear that she wanted Mr Hunt prosecuted – and even if she had done so, the intervention of the police and Crown Prosecution Service would have made them the prosecutors and not her.'

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'The attorney of former Penn State running back Austin Scott has filed suit against the university, Penn State Police and Centre County on Tuesday, claiming a dropped rape case against him damaged a potential NFL career.

Prosecutors dropped rape, sexual assault, simple assault and indecent assault charges against Scott in April 2008, saying it would be unlikely to convince a jury to convict if revelations from the woman's past were admissible in court.

The charges stemmed from an October 2007 incident in which a woman reported to authorities that Scott had sexually assaulted her at his on-campus residence. Scott's lawyers, who maintained that the encounter was consensual, said the woman had made a false rape accusation in the past, making her claim against Scott less credible.

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'A 14-year-old female juvenile was arrested last Friday for filing a false police report in a rape case, Harrison Police Capt. Paul Woodruff said.

Woodruff said the girl had earlier this year told police that she’d been raped by a man in his early 20s, going so far as identifying the suspect by name.

When the suspect was brought in for an interview, he denied the allegation. So, police collected a DNA sample from him to be compared with DNA evidence collected from a medical examination of the girl immediately following the alleged incident.
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The girl was arrested for felony filing a false police report and released to her mother, he said.'