News Makers

Pakistani rape victim marries

Pakistani gang-rape victim, Mukhtar Mai, who shunned custom and rose to global fame by speaking out about her case has defied another local taboo - she just got married.

Mai is now the second wife of Nasir Abbas Gabol, a police officer who was assigned to protect her as her case gained notoriety. He said she was reluctant to accept his offer and that he threatened suicide when she turned him down.

Mai was gang raped at the order of a tribal council in the eastern province of Punjab in 2002 to punish her family for her brother's alleged affair with a woman from a higher-caste family. Rape victims in Pakistan face severe social stigma and diminished marriage prospects.

Mai said after the nuptials that she'd never completely ruled out marriage. "When you do marriage you have to have faith in your partner," she said.

Her new husband said on Wednesday that he was enraptured by Mai's "extreme" courage. "I will do whatever is possible to help my wife in her efforts aimed at raising her voice for the rights of women," he said.

Now, a cancer diary by Jade Goody

Cancer-stricken British television star Jade Goody is to publish a diary of her dying days, her publishers said on Tuesday.

The 27-year-old has allowed magazines and TV crews to cover her plight in return for money she says will secure the future of her two sons, and the book, Forever in My Heart, is a "love letter" to the five- and four-year-old boys.

"This is Jade in her own words," said Belinda Budge, the managing director of Harper Non-Fiction. "It is impossible not to be moved by her heart-warming voice which comes through loud and clear on every page of this last diary."

The ex-dental nurse from south London found fame on the Big Brother reality television show in 2002, and has been in the public eye .

Dylan's toilet smell blows in the wind

Bob Dylan has sung about wind many times - winds of change, the Idiot Wind and the winds that hit heavy on the borderline.

But a family living near the 67-year-old rock and folk icon's house California's Malibu have complained to city officials about an outdoor portable toilet, which is apparently used by guards on Dylan's compound.

Cindy and David Emminger say the toilet wafts fumes from waste treatment chemicals, and that the smell carried by breezes from the Pacific Ocean makes their family feel ill.

Malibu Mayor Andy Stern said other neighbors report smelling nothing, and that he has left the matter to the enforcers of the city's code on objectionable odors.

AP-AFP-Reuters

(China Daily 03/19/2009 page10)