Government sponsors mass weddings in Egypt

Marriage is such an important social rite in Egypt and yet its costs can be prohibitive.  The Egyptian government is worried that those who don’t marry because they can’t afford it might become alienated and turn to religious extremism.  So the government and charities are now sponsoring mass weddings.  Read about it in this New York Times article and check out the accompanying slide show and video, describing how the youth of Egypt feel abandoned by their political system.

555 children and women removed from YFZ Ranch

Last week 555 women and children were removed from the YFZ Ranch outside of Eldorado, Texas after investigators responding to a call from a 16 year old mother found numerous girls either pregnant or already mothers of infants on the ranch, owned by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The Mormon polygamist sect, whose members have been excommunicated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was led by “prophet” Warren Jeffs until his conviction in late 2007 for being an accomplice to rape.

Although it is widely know that this religious sect engages in polygamy and pressures underage girls to have sex with their “spiritual” husbands, the sect’s geographical isolation in places like the Arizona Strip has kept them relatively protected from the law. Now Texas’ Department of Family and Protective Services must sort out who these children are, who their parents are, and find homes for them outside of the ranch, where, according to the DFPS affidavit filed to allow the removal of the children, “young female residents are conditioned to expect and accept sexual activity with adult men…upon being spiritually married to them.”