US singles on PlayDate search for soul mate

Forget singles bars and the mad dash through the speed-dating circuit: Americans in search of love now can find that special someone across a Scrabble or Monopoly board.

Growing numbers of single Americans have discovered PlayDate, a popular new game night that is also the hottest new venue for meeting Mr or Ms Right.

"PlayDate is the alternative night life for people who don't want to go to the clubs," said Tony Sharpe, one of the organizers of the popular event in Arlington, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, DC.

The name is a play on words: American children often have "play dates" -- organized get-togethers at home with their toys or at a neighborhood playground -- arranged by parents who feel the need to take charge of their youngsters' social calendars.

At PlayDate events for grown-ups, however, many of the activities are the same ones that the would-be daters enjoyed in their childhood -- games such "Connect Four," "Operation" and "Hungry Hippo."

"I grew up playing board games, card games with my family," said Arlene Williams, 30, one enthusiastic PlayDater in Arlington. "I like going to the disco, but sometimes it's a little too much."

PlayDate events, organized by the group Timeless Entertainment Concept, began in the southern city of Atlanta, Georgia in 2005 and have spread quickly across the United States.

There are currently about 20 cities hosting PlayDate gatherings including Miami, Los Angeles, Denver, Seattle, Philadelphia, Chicago, and New Orleans -- with more being added all the time.

One reason the concept works so well, organizers said, is that prospective daters lose themselves in the fun and spontaneity of going head-to-head in a fun-filled competition against a prospective romantic interest.

What ensures a raucous good time -- whether or not participants find love -- are the board and floor games that evoke positive associations for most participants and which break down the inhibitions and self-consciousness that can make the typical dating scene so painful.

The founders of Arlington's PlayDate said the event doesn't replace going to clubs, but can be a nice change of pace.

"People are not bored with nightlife, but nightlife is the same scene over and over for the last 10, 20, 30 years," said PlayDate organizer Orin Gillian. "This is something a little different from the normal nightlife."

Arlington's PlayDate event, the first in the Washington, DC area, held in a chain-hotel ballroom one recent evening, drew several hundred people who paid 15 dollars (10 euros) per person admission.

PlayDate's organizers have not entirely forsaken classic dating fare: In addition to fun and games, there is a cocktail bar along with a dance floor at one end of the ballroom, complete with a DJ spinning classic soul tunes.

Eric Randolph, 42, said the unconventional date venue took some of the pressure off the typical singles scene.

"This is ... an opportunity to meet people in an environment that is completely different," he said.

Randolph knows that if he is lucky, he may just meet the girl of his dreams over a game of "Snakes and Ladders."

But if not, he said, he can still "just have some fun, play some games that I haven't played since I was a kid." (AFP)

African women remain undervalued: UN report

Women in Africa have yet to receive the financial recognition they deserve for the time and effort put into domestic and reproductive work, a UN report launched Friday concluded.

The place of women in statistics also needs to be sorted out on the African continent, where there are many gaps, the report said.

The 2009 African Women Report by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), launched in Gambia, warns that women remain a dominant force in the informal sector, particularly as unpaid family workers.

Financially, women come across very much as the second sex.

"In formal sector employment, they are segregated into the lowest echelons of employment, so that when taken together, women tend to have lower earnings than men," the report said.

The report is based on data from 12 African countries across the continent. It notes the improvement in women's representation in parliament in Mozambique, South Africa and Uganda, but says that on the whole there are far too few women in parliament.

Mozambique, South Africa and Uganda have achieved 30 percent representation, but the report notes that is largely due to the implementation of affirmative action policies by ruling parties.

"Nevertheless, for these countries and for the vast majority of countries, women's political representation remains abysmal on the whole as their presence dissipates at the levels of the judiciary, executive and even at community level", the report said.

The report, presented during the 8th African regional conference on women held in Banjul this week, urged African nations to improve their statistical systems and data collection methods to get a better view of gender inequality in Africa. (AFP)

Strong Asia presence at Saint Laurent auction

Buyers from Asia purchased all but one of the top 10 priciest items at the sale of the last belongings of late couturier Yves Saint Laurent and his partner Pierre Berge, Christie's said Friday.

As the four-day sale wound up, the auction house said that though only five percent of the bidders were from Asia, they accounted for 32 percent of the total raised at the auction -- which fetched 8.99 million euros (13.3 million dollars).

Countries concerned were China, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan, said Christie's, which refused to identify buyers.

Buyers from those countries bought nine of the most expensive items, from a pair of rare 19th century ball armchairs that fetched 241,000 euros to a 91,000-euro chandelier, and including a Fernand Leger gouache, at 181,000 euros (269,000 dollars).

"It seems Saint Laurent is a very strong presence in Asia," said an official who asked not to be named.

The four-day auction, held inside a plush theatre off the Champs Elysees boulevard, involved some 30 auctioneers and more than 1,200 registered bidders.

Most of the 1,180 objects up for grabs were from the pair's country hideaway on the Normandy coast, including even its pots and pans. But the YSL mystique sent prices through the ceiling, with a total 98 percent of lots finding buyers.

It was nonetheless a far smaller sale than the February auction of the pair's valuable 700-item art collection, a record-smashing affair dubbed the sale of the century which netted 342 million euros (491 million dollars). (AFP)

Poland restricts gambling outside casinos

Poland's parliament on Friday adopted a law that confines gambling to casinos and phases out the slot machines currently in many Polish cafes, clubs, shops and service stations.

"Barring any surprises, I hope the president will be able to affix his signature as of November 30," Prime Minister Donald Tusk said when presenting the project two days ago.

The Senate voted in favour of the project with 48 votes to 3, and 30 abstentions.

The law received the green light from the lower chamber on Thursday, and now requires the signature of Polish President, Lech Kaczynski, before it can come into effect.

Gambling will be made illegal for individuals below 18 years of age under the law.

The decision by parliament comes nearly a month and a half after Tusk was forced to sack several key ministers and political allies over allegations of influence peddling within his cabinet regarding the gambling legislation. (AFP)

Prostitutes fear S.Africa's World Cup clean-up

Jabulisile works the streets in Hillbrow, a rough area normally avoided by tourists, but just a stone's throw from one of the World Cup stadiums that she hopes will bring in visitors looking for sex.

"The World Cup will be good for business," said the 48-year-old, who said she turned to prostitution to feed her two children.

Every day, her work brings the risk of arrest -- for her and her clients.

She hopes the authorities will let her work in peace during the World Cup, which runs June 11 to July 11, when she dreams of earning enough to build a little nest egg that would let her leave prostitution.

"I am going to quit after the World Cup. I won't be a sex worker until 65," she said.

But Jabulisile could be disappointed. Despite calls to decriminalise prostitution, South Africa could instead try to crack down.

In September, Cape Town set up a vice squad tasked with "cleaning up" the city's brothels and prostitutes -- a move applauded by religious and family groups.

"There is quite a sense of religious and sexual moralism on the subject that does not help in term of public health and human rights," said Marlise Richter, a researcher who collaborates with sex worker advocacy groups.

"Making sex work more invisible makes it harder for sex workers to negotiate safer sex, and it will have greater influence on HIV prevalence."

South Africa already has the world's biggest HIV caseload, with 5.7 million of its 48 million people infected. An estimated 45 percent of prostitutes have the disease, according to a 1998 study.

Branding their work as a crime also leaves prostitutes vulnerable to abuse from their clients, pimps, and the police, Richter added.

"The police are harassing us, they ask for money," Jabulisile said. "We give the money, and if we don't, they sleep with us. You sleep with them because you are scared that they will put you in jail."

South Africa in 1997 revised its sex crimes laws, inherited from the racist and puritanical apartheid government.

Parliament decriminalised homosexuality, and toughened penalties for rape and paedophilia. Early next year, lawmakers are due to consider a human trafficking law.

But criminal penalties for adult prostitution remain unchanged. The Law Reform Commission, which is due to release a report on the subject in 2011, voluntarily excluded prostitution from the initial reforms.

"We did not include adult prostitution (in this review) because it is quite contentious on its own and we did not want to hamper the process," said Dellene Clark, an official at the commission.

Without new legislation in place before the World Cup, prostitutes are seeking a moratorium on enforcement during the competition. For the moment, the government isn't taking a decision.

Sibani Mngadi, spokesman at the ministry for women, said government had taken "no position at this stage".

"There are ongoing discussions involving various groups to look at what should be the appropriate situation in South Africa, what would be in the best interests of women," he said.

The government won't wade into the issue soon, said Chandre Gould, a researcher at the Institute for Security Studies, who authored a study on prostitution.

"It is such a difficult matter, and the chances are that it will generate so much controversy, that I don't think anybody in the ruling party is going to be pushing for this issue to be debated by parliament before the World Cup," Gould said.

"We know that South Africa has put a lot of energy in tidying up and making South Africa look much more pretty and tourist-friendly," Richter said.

"If you follow the signs from Cape Town, our fear is that these vice squads will be rolled out in other big areas as well." (AFP)

No reply this Christmas as US blocks Santa mail

No matter if children are naughty or nice, they won't get a reply from Santa this year, as the US Postal Service has blocked mail to a tiny Alaska town that answered Christmas letters for decades.

Since 1954, thousands of volunteers in the Christmas-crazy town of North Pole have run the heart-warming tradition of replying to letters addressed "Santa Claus, The North Pole" forwarded to them by the USPS. But no more.

Officials cut the tradition after an "Operation Santa" volunteer working on the program in Maryland was revealed last year to be a registered sex offender.

Doug Isaacson, mayor of North Pole -- where streets have been given names like Santa Claus Lane or St. Nicholas Drive -- slammed the move as "Grinch-like."

He noted that in five decades the letters -- some 150,000 last year -- have been answered without incident.

"North Pole, Alaska, is known as the city where the spirit of Christmas lives year round," Isaacson lamented to CNN on Friday.

The new policy is a privacy issue, safeguarding young children from their personal information being given out, said Postal Service spokesman Ernie Swanson.

"There's been concern on the part of outsiders about the Postal Service just handing out this information to people and what could happen," he told the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner.

Isaacson said children could still get around the new policy by addressing letters to a specific address in his town of 2,100: "Santa Claus House, North Pole, Alaska" or even simply the city hall, and they will get a reply with a North Pole postmark.

"But if you just send it to Santa at North Pole, Alaska... the grinch might steal it," he warned.

Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski wrote to US Postmaster General John Potter protesting the cut hitting a town whose very identity is tied to Christmas.

"Children across the world will be anticipating a letter from Santa," she wrote.

"I believe that a small action by the Postal Service to continue the tradition... could go a long way to bring joy to these children and their families." (AFP)

Uganda's gays: from advocates to outlaws

If Uganda?s recently tabled Anti-Homosexuality Bill becomes law, Frank Mugisha and other individuals found campaigning for gay rights will face the choice of going to jail or leaving the country.

Mugisha heads Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), a leading sexual rights advocacy group that could soon be classed a criminal organization.

"I have never really considered moving out of Uganda. But if I cannot work within the country, then I will have to leave," said Mugisha.

The bill has baffled legal experts who read it as the product of an over-zealous Evangelical community that is clueless about both Uganda?s constitution and international law.

But for the bill?s proponents, chief among them Ethics and Integrity Minister James Nsaba Buturo, who has repeatedly alleged that there exists an organized, western-backed plot to recruit people into homosexuality, the law is necessary to confront a national emergency.

Homosexuality is spreading, Buturo argues, and if people like Mugisha aren?t stopped they will continue to lure impressionable youths into their sinful lifestyle and thereby threaten the perpetuation of the Ugandan people.

"Who is going to occupy Uganda in 20 years if we all become homosexuals? We know that homosexuals don?t reproduce," Buturo said last year when announcing plans to table the bill.

In one of its most curious provisions, the draft law calls on Uganda to nullify any international treaty or convention that is inconsistent with the spirit of anti-homosexuality.

"You cannot as a country say we will nullify all the treaties we have ratified in the past," Sylvia Tamale of Kampala?s Makerere University Law School told AFP.

For Tamale, the bill?s composition reveals an absence of qualified legal input and an unhealthy amount of input from people like Martin Ssempa, a prominent Evangelical pastor and internationally known anti-gay crusader who has confirmed having contributed to the bill.

"It would be political suicide for any Ugandan politician to vote against this. Leaders will have to ask themselves, do I listen to my own people, or ... to top down orders coming from New York and the UN," he added.

Ssempa seems to relish the criticism hurled at him by western rights groups, but he is concerned the proposal will create a fissure within the Evangelical Church.

"The western church is going to find itself increasingly at odds with the African church and find itself in a situation where there is a split like in the Anglican Church," he said.

Ssempa told AFP he was disappointed by a recent statement by American mega-Pastor Rick Warren, who delivered the convocation at US president Barack Obama?s Inauguration.

Warren did not mention the Anti-Homosexuality Bill specifically, but said he and his wife ended their relationship with Ssempa, "when we learned that his views and actions were in serious conflict with our own".

Mugisha is an unlikely candidate to be at the centre of such politically charged debate.

From SMUG?s humble three-room office in a Kampala suburb he explained he never wanted to become a political advocate.

While in university, he volunteered as an undercover health researcher, finding out which clinics could treat certain conditions and where gay men could access the things necessary for safe sex.

He distributed the information on-line and through a small support group he founded.

When SMUG?s leadership learned about his work, they lobbied him to get involved.

At first reluctant, he eventually gave in, and was appointed chairperson of the group in 2007.

He smiled when recounting his earlier health work.

"These young boys, they didn?t know anything about being protected," he said, half-laughing.

If the new bill had been in place at the time, Mugisha?s attempts to promote safe sex could have qualified as a crime. "Aiding and abetting homosexuality" attracts seven years in prison. (AFP)

Women run in style in Paris stiletto race

Dozens of shoe addicts have taken part in the National Stiletto Championship on an indoor track in the old stock exchange building in central Paris.

The only rule on Friday evening was to be perched on heels at least eight centimetres (three inches) high -- the prize is boxes and boxes of shoes.

The race -- a three-part relay over 180 metres (yards) -- was won by a three young Parisian women who called themselves "Les Cocottes Codec" or "The Darling Chicks".

"Walking on heels is no piece of cake," said Caroline Gentien, who works for the online shoe-sale site that came up with the idea, Sarenza.com.

The 96 finalists hailed from all over France and made it into the glam challenge after a series of regional races.

"We came up with the idea just two years ago, and this year 400 candidates signed up for the regional races," Gentien added.

Fittingly, the prize was 3,000 euros worth of shoes.

Some 500 supporters showed up at the old stock exchange building -- lit up with pink lights for the occasion -- to cheer on a total of 32 teams.

Winners of the 2008 edition were a TV journalist, a psychologist, and a lawyer competing under team name "Talk To My Foot (Parle A Mon Pied)".

"We all love shoes and we love having fun," said journalist Dorothee Kristy, 29. "The only training we do is running to catch a train or a bus every day."

Also taking part in the event was stilleto school "Talons Academy", a private business that doles out tips on how to walk in heels without hurting one's back or one's ankles.

"A lot of women love high heels but don't dare wear them," said school founder Marine Aubonnet. "Or else they cheat. They go to a rendez-vous in flat shoes and put their stilettos on at the last minute. It's true that it is harder to find your balance on heels."

The trick for the contestants, she said, was "mastering the half-turn. Turning is a key, you have to get it right for each foot. Stilettos is all about technique." (AFP)