A 10-year-old girl who was allegedly raped by her stepfather will give birth later this year, after authorities in Paraguay ruled out an abortion.
Paraguay has some of the world’s strictest abortion laws. Terminating a pregnancy is a criminal offence, publishable by long jail terms.
The Guardian reports that the child’s mother requested permission to have her daughter’s pregnancy terminated on the grounds that she had been raped and abused; that her 10-year-old body may not be able to cope with a full-term pregnancy; and that she has no means to care for the child, but the request was denied.
The pregnant 10-year-old is 22 weeks along.
A government official, Lida Sosa, told the Guardian: ‘Right now, there is no reason to interrupt the pregnancy. In fact, given the stage of the pregnancy, it’s even more dangerous for the girl to undergo a procedure.’
In other news you may have missed…
IT is Budget time and we all know what that means: time to hold onto your wallet.
Things may be a little different this year. The Australian is reporting that retirees with “modest assets” might get a small increase in their payments.
Also, if you already get concessions on medicine, medical treatment and transport, you will probably be able to keep them.
On the other hand, retirees with more than a million in savings and investments are likely to face higher taxes and penalties, because there’s nothing like hammering people who have worked hard all their lives to ensure they’re not a burden on the taxpayer.
DID Tony Abbott – or, more likely, one of his staff – tell the male partner of one of Australia’s top male diplomats to get off the airport tarmac during the PM’s recent visit to Paris?
The Sydney Morning Herald reports Australia’s ambassador in Paris, Stephen Brady, and his partner of 32 years, Peter Stephens, were waiting for Mr Abbott’s plane on the tarmac in Paris on Anzac Day when word came that Mr Stephens should go wait in the car.
Mr Brady told his partner to stay put, and stay put he did.
The story is odd, because Tony Abbott’s hosted a dinner for the couple when they left Canberra to take the job in Paris. The PM also has a gay sister, so it’s not like he doesn’t socialise with gay people.
Two theories have emerged: the man asked to wait in the car used to work in Kevin Rudd’s office, and had some run-ins with coalition staff in the past. Also, the PM’s wife, Margie, wasn’t on the plane, and apparently it’s not protocol for ambassadors to have their partners there, when the PM’s own partner isn’t there.
All very odd. The PM’s office today says it was happy to see Mr Stephens standing there, and Mr Brady’s offer to resign has been refused.
THE girlfriend of Sydney balcony killer Simon Gittany has split up with him.
The Telegraph reports that Rachelle Louise no longer considers herself Simon’s other half, because he sits in a prison cell.
Ms Louise had promised to wait for him for maybe five years, depending on how his appeals were going, but yesterday said: “I think it’s very difficult to sustain a relationship with someone who is in jail.”
Quite apart from this, Ms Louise is suing the Telegraph, saying it has inferred that she’s an airhead and bimbo for standing by him for as long as she did. Gittany has been convicted of throwing his girlfriend, Lisa Harnum, off the balcony of their luxury high rise after she announced that she was leaving him.
IT was the moment everyone has been waiting for: strange signals detected by the Parkes telescope. Could they be from alien life?
Well, no.
The ABC reports that staff at Parkes – who would just kill for a little intergalactic communication – detected what they first thought were ‘fast radio bursts’ and although everyone was at first extremely excited, they were found to be coming from the microwave in their office kitchen.
PhD student, Emily Petroff, told the ABC: “We were getting some strange signals that appeared to be coming from very nearby” but alas, “we were actually able to trace them back to the microwave.”
So it’s back to waiting and hoping, calling out and – so far – never being heard in this giant universe, where we are still all alone.
FASHION police have had a day to think about it and now declare Rihanna to be Best Dressed at the Met Gala in New York.
The theme was ‘China: through the looking glass’ which plenty of the stars took to mean ‘looking through my dress.’ (See: Beyonce, J-Lo and – of course! – the always barely dressed Kim Kardashian.)
In the humble opinion of your correspondent, Rihanna looked like Spongebob, or else like a large fried egg. She couldn’t walk without assistance. She told Vanity Fair that she found the designer Guo Pei by researching ‘China’ and ‘couture’ on the Internet.
The designer said she hoped the dress would encourage people would see China anew.
YOU know those guys who reckon they work an 60, 70 even 80 hour week? Many of them are faking it. A new study
shows that men routinely overstate the hours they work, and are generally rewarded for their deception, with promotion.
Also – and there’s a tip here for working Mums – blokes are also far more likely to deceive the company about the number of times a year they knock off early to attend some kid function.
To explain: Mums who want time off to go watch their children in the school play tend to ask for time off, and everyone notices. A bloke just says he’s off to a meeting, and veers home via the kid’s soccer game, without saying anything to anyone.
ROBIN Thicke still wants credit for writing the rapiest song the year.
The LA Times reports that lawyers for Thicke, and the happy man with the big hat, Pharrell Williams, are demanding a new trial, having lost the first trial over who actually wrote Blurred Lines.
A jury in the first trial ruled that Thicke and Williams infringed the copyright of Marvin Gaye’s ‘Got To Give It Up.’ Hardly anyone in the music industry agrees, saying all songs are on some level similar.
Gaye’s heirs won $US7.4 million in compensation.
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