After a gruesome lead that covers the story of Hisham, an Iraqi refugee now living in Beirut, the article goes on to explain:

In Baghdad a new series of murders began early this year, perpetrated against men suspected of being gay. Often they are raped, their genitals cut off, and their anuses sealed with glue. Their bodies are left at landfills or dumped in the streets. The nonprofit organization Human Rights Watch, which has documented many of these crimes, has spoken of a systematic campaign of violence involving hundreds of murders.

Weaving the key aspects of the persecution with humanizing narratives, writers Juliane von Mittelstaedt and Daniel Steinvorth (originally writing for Der Speigel) produce a rich discussion of the current climate for homosexuals in increasingly theocratic areas. While their analysis revolves around same gender loving men, they do paint a detailed picture of the issues at play.

• There's something a wee bit familiar about these justifications for homophobia:

  Islamists are now a dominant cultural force in many of these countries. They include figures such as popular Egyptian television preacher Yussuf al-Qaradawi, who demonizes gays as perverse. Four years ago the Shiite grand ayatollah Ali al-Sistani issued a fatwa saying that gays are to be murdered in the most brutal way possible. These religious opinion leaders base their hatred for gays on the story of Lot in the Koran: "Do ye commit lewdness such as no people in creation [ever] committed before you? For ye practice your lusts on men in preference to women: ye are indeed a people transgressing beyond bounds." Lot's people suffered the destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah for their sins. The prophet Mohammed has a number of dicta in which he condemns these acts by Lot's people, and in one of them he even goes as far as to call for punishment by death.

• As is the case in many cultures, homosexuality was not always universally condemned:
  

  It looks as if a wave of homophobia has swept over the Islamic world, a place that was once widely known for its open-mindedness, where homoerotic literature was written and widely read, where gender roles were not so narrowly defined, and, as in the days of ancient Greece, where men often sought the companionship of youths[...]

  The story of Lot and related verses in the Koran were not interpreted as unambiguous references to homosexual sex until the 20th century, says Everett Rowson, professor of Islamic studies at New York University. This reinterpretation was the result of Western influences — its source was the prudery of European colonialists who introduced their conception of sexual morality to the newly conquered countries.

  The fact of the matter is that half of the laws across the world that prohibit homosexuality today are derived from a single law that the British enacted in India in 1860. "Many attitudes with regard to sexual morality that are thought to be identical to Islam owe a lot more to Queen Victoria than to the Koran," Rowson says.

• Often, intrusions of the state into the realm of the personal aren't as founded in religion as they appear:
  

  "The most repressive are secular regimes such as those in Egypt or Morocco, which are under pressure from Islamists and so try to outdo them with regard to morals," says Scott Long of Human Rights Watch. "In addition, the persecution of homosexuals shows that a regime has control over the private lives of its citizens — a sign of power and authority." For several years now, a sense of "moral panic" has been systematically fomented in many Muslim countries.

• What is moral and what is immoral? The lines, when examined, begin to blur:
  

  The persecution of gays has led to a boom in the demand for sex-change operations in Iran. More operations of this kind are carried out in the Islamic Republic than anywhere else in the world apart from Thailand. These procedures were approved by Ayatollah Khomeini himself in 1983. Khomeini defined transsexuality as a disease that can be healed by means of an operation. Since then thousands of people have requested this kind of treatment, and the Iranian government even covers part of the costs.

  "Family members and physicians urge homosexuals to have operations to normalize their sexual orientation," Parsi says. This way it was possible for a high-ranking Shiite religious scholar to finance his secretary's physical transformation into a woman and then to marry him.

• The reality on paper isn't always the reality on the ground:
  

  The archconservative kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the only Arab country where sharia law is the sole legal code, under which homosexuals are flogged and executed. "Homosexuals are freer here than they are in Iran," says Afdhere Jama, who traveled through the Islamic world for seven years doing research for his book "Illegal Citizens."

  Gay men and women have a surprising amount of space in Saudi society. Newspapers print stories about lesbian sex in school lavatories, while it is an open secret that certain shopping centers, restaurants and bars in Jeddah and Riyadh are gay meeting points.

• And, as always, bigotry wilts in the face of common sense:
  

  [Openly gay imam Daayiee Abdullah] regularly receives death threats but now laughs them off, saying: "How can two loving men pose a threat to the foundations God has laid?

  "

  Homophobia on the rise in the Muslim world [Salon]

[Jerusalem, May 21. Image via Getty]

A Palestinian woman walks past Israeli border guards deployed outside Jerusalem Old City�s Damascus Gate on May 21 2009 as Israelis mark the 42nd anniversary of the �reunification� of Jerusalem. MPs of Israel's ruling right-wing coalition on Thursday presented a bill aimed at blocking any concession to Palestinians on the status of Jerusalem, which Israel considers its 'eternal' capital. AFP PHOTO/MENAHEM KAHANA (Photo credit should read MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP/Getty Images)

[Hebron, May 18. Image via Getty]

An Israeli soldier keeps guard near a Palestinian woman standing by a Star of David graffiti sprayed by Israeli settlers near an army checkpoint in the centre of the occupied West Bank city of Hebron on May 18, 2009 during a visit by a delegation of ultra-nationalist Israeli MPs protesting against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's promotion of the easing of restrictions on Palestinians. Netanyahu will have first face to face meeting with President Barack Obama amid divisions over Middle East peacemaking and Iran's nuclear ambitions. The hawkish premier, who wants a 'fresh' approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, will unveil in the White House meeting on May 18 his long-awaited policy for regional peace focused on countering Iran, aides said. AFP PHOTO / MENAHEM KAHANA (Photo credit should read MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP/Getty Images)

Quinn peddles so many offensive stereotypes about Middle Eastern countries, the status of women in those countries and the interplay of national wealth and personal poverty (not like we'd know anything about that in America) that it's hard to know where to begin, really.

But let's start here: Quinn identifies Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, the UAE and Oman as "the most oil rich countries in the Middle East." Um, no. While Saudi Arabia does, indeed, have the largest oil reserves in the Middle East, Bahrain is an island nation with no fucking oil. The UAE is at least 5th on the list of most oil rich countries in the region; Qatar is 8th and Oman is 11 on the list of 19. So, her premise starts off false and doesn't get any better.

She then states — without attribution, of course — that in all of those countries, fewer women vote; fewer women are in Parliament; there is a reluctance to grant women the vote; there are fewer women in the work force; and women have fewer rights than elsewhere in the Middle East with less oil. But, for instance, Yemen has less oil than Oman, and yet Oman has a higher literacy rate among women than Yemen by far. I could spend hours researching and debunking the claims she's made, but perhaps it's just easiest to say: not every country in the Middle East is Saudi Arabia. Women's rights, education levels and incomes vary widely throughout the Middle East and within countries, as they do everywhere.

But, we could take the UN's Gender-related Development Index (GDI) and its Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) as (very) rough guides of where women are at in terms of what Sally Quinn is supposedly talking about. The GDI takes into account life expectancy, literacy rate, educational levels and estimated earned income disparities between men and women to rank countries (the U.S. is 16) and the GEM takes into account the seats held by women in Parliament; the percent of total female legislators, female officials and managers; the percentage of female professionals and technical workers; and the ratio of female to male earned income to determine countries rankings (the U.S. is 15). So, here they are matched up against the rankings of countries "in the Middle East" (yes, I know Sudan and several Central Asian countries are on there, but it's a US government chart and a useful comparison):
Notice anything striking? Like an utter lack of coherence of oil reserves and how the countries rank in terms of the GDI and GEM? In fact, the two best countries in the actual Middle East — Kuwait and the UAE, respectively — are near the top of the list in terms of their oil reserves, and the worst country on both in the Middle East (Yemen) has relatively little oil. The only country that's relatively high on both scales — Bahrain — is the country that doesn't have any oil despite what Sally Quinn says.

She also ignores glaring income disparities in some oil-rich countries in the Middle East, refers to the women in oil-rich countries as "cossetted," suggests that they have no economic need to work and even says, "They can shop, they can gossip, they can go to lunch," as though all the women in oil rich countries in the Middle East are like the Real Housewives of Orange County in abayas. Oh, and she adds,

"I think most of them are bored out of their minds, the rich ones."

Because, naturally, she's conducted intensive sociological research in this area. And then she says:

"I think a lot of women, and this certainly goes for women in this country, too, would probably rather spend more time at home when they have little children and not have to work full-time. But I think that most women would prefer a more fulfilling life than just sitting around eating bon-bons all day."

Gosh, there's no stereotypes there about the role of women in the Middle East, nothing culturally insensitive about calling to mind harems and women of leisure when talking about women in the Middle East, nothing offensive to American women to suggest that we'd all like to stay home and exclusively care for our children when they are little. If she could overgeneralize more about what large swaths of ethnically, religiously, culturally and nationally diverse women all want, she'd probably strain something.

The study she was supposedly on MSNBC to discuss is, of course, months old and something that I critiqued months ago because of the arguments it advances about encouraging women to take up textile work in Middle Eastern countries as a way to expand economic opportunities for women; its willing ignorance of cultural factors at play; the lack of attention to overall unemployment in some oil rich countries as a result of the lack of economic diversification; and the fact that women have poor economic and political opportunities in oil-poor countries in the Middle East as well as oil-rich ones (as I noted above). That doesn't make it a bad study or one not worthy of discussion — it's worth plenty of discussion by people far more informed than Sally Quinn — but it's certainly no road map to resolving the issues of gender inequality in some Middle Eastern countries.

Related: Middle East Oil Reserves By Country and Rank [About.com]
Yemen [CIA World FactBook]
Oman [CIA World Factbook]
Gender-related Development Index [United Nations]
Gender Empowerment Measure [United Nations]

Earlier: Social Scientist Says Oil Makes Women Second-Class Citizens

After the girl's father married her off for a £5,000 dowry, the girl's mother, who is separated from her husband, filed for divorce on behalf of her daughter. "The judge has dismissed the plea because she does not have the right to file such a case, and ordered that the plea should be filed by the girl herself when she reaches puberty," said lawyer Abdullah Jtili. Relatives say the father and husband have a verbal agreement that the marriage will not be consummated until the girl turns 18, and she still lives with her mother. [The Daily Mail]

• Thomas Daley, a Pennsylvanian landlord, is accused of wiretapping and secretly recording footage of his female tenants in their apartments for 20 years. • According to a new studyconducted in conjunction with Clairol Nice n' Easy, women who dye their hair feel more confident. • UC Santa Barbara has created a graduate program that will offer a MA and a PhD in feminist studies, beginning in the fall 2009 semester. • A report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare has found that self-harm among teen girls has risen by one-third in the past eight years and is more likely to cause hospitalization. • Sally Cluley will become England's youngest pilot this weekend when she receives her Private Pilots License on her 17th birthday on Sunday. • The FDA launched a crackdown today on eye wash and papain-based eye creams that are currently not approved by the FDA. • A lesbian soldier is seeking about $800,000 in compensation after a male officer in the Royal Artillery made sexual advances on her and then told to keep quiet by other unsympathetic officers.• A town in northern Italy joins a Tel Aviv suburb in using a DNA database to fine dog owners who don't scoop their dog's poop. • Ever wanted to tear someone a new asshole but found the job physically impossible? Now you can do it! • A radiation seed implant called ballon brachytherapy can shorten radiation treatment for breast cancer and will hopefully lead more women to seek out radiation therapy. • Morocco's top body of Islamic scholars have condemned a Muslim theologian's decree that girls as young as nine can marry. •

• Two women have been charged in the murder of a British couple honeymooning in Antigua and Barbuda. • The Maricopa County Sheriff in Arizona has violated a ruling that he is not allowed to require female inmates to receive a court order before they are granted an abortion. • In (somewhat) related news, there is a new program at the Ohio Reformatory for Women that allows inmates to raise their children in their cells and in in-house prisons to keep the bond between mother and child tight. • More than 80% of women in the Air Force in Iraq reported persistent fatigue, difficulty concentrating and nearly 20% reported one symptom of PTSD. • Meanwhile in the region, a man has been arrested in Jerusalem for helping beat, threaten, and rob a divorced Israeli woman under the self-proclaimed title of "chastity guards." •

Lewin writes, "Pasangi Perera Weerasingag, who attended a coeducational British-model high school in Dubai, said that when she arrived at Mount Holyoke last year, she was shocked by the presence of so many lesbians among the students."

Ms. Weerasingag adjusted and now loves the environment at Mount Holyoke. "At the beginning, there were times when I'd have to close my eyes and say, 'O.K., I'm at Mount Holyoke, and it's different.' But that lasted only a week or so, and now I have so many friends who are openly gay, and it makes no difference," she says. Other prospective students see freedom in single-sex schooling, "My options of traveling to the United States are limited by my conservative upbringing," says Ascia al-Faraj, a student at the American International School in Kuwait. "But the chances of attending one of the Sisters schools is more likely."

This seems like a win-win situation. But on one hand, isn't it sad that the Sister Schools — historically and culturally important — have to struggle for applicants? And on the other hand, is there something super effed up about the concept of women's colleges if religious conservatives are attracted to them?

Recruiters For Top Women's Colleges In U.S. See A Bounty In The Middle East [International Herald Tribune]

• "He's obviously a well-educated, sincere man who has done good work in building Trinity United Church of Christ. But, to borrow a phrase that Wright might have used in one of his sermons, his rant at the Press Club demonstrates, that he is also a damn fool." [TheRoot]
  
• Surely I wasn't the only one who detected some philosophical ideological undertones to the Lauren Conrad-Heidi Montag feud, but both actually turn out to support bombing Iran. [NY Mag]
  
• Perhaps because Iran recently condemned Barbie dolls. [NYT]
  
• The Fed's bailout of Bear Stearns is the "worst policy mistake of the generation." Well, I mean, we pointed that out already, but when a former Fed head of monetary affairs says so it's apparently "news." [WSJ]
  
• It was a real delusion. It was like [former New York Gov. Eliot] Spitzer: "I am doing something dangerous, but because of who I am, and how smart I am, it is not going to come back to haunt me." -89-year-old financial manager and historian Peter Bernstein. [WSJ]
  
• And now we've got 18.6 million vacant homes on our hands! [Wonkette]

• Congratulations, Daniel Pipes. What a marvelous job you've done fearmongering and mobilizing public sentiment against a champion of pluralism and cultural understanding. I am sooooo glad we have you around to prevent our children from learning foreign languages. [NYT]
• An elite Korean boarding school recently turned off the surveillance cameras it was using to ensure students didn't fall asleep during late-night study sessions. [NYT]
• Two North Korean refugees in South Korea poured paint thinner on themselves and tried to set themselves on fire at the Olympic torch relay on Sunday to draw attention to China's inhumane policy of sending North Korean refugees like themselves back to North Korea, and Chinese students threw rocks and bottles and pipes at them in retaliation. [NYT]
• And speaking of the Democratic People's Republic a a 28-year-old military officer just defected to the South. [ NYT]
• An express train derailed and crashed just southeast of Beijing, killing 70 people. [NYT]

So. First things first! How the hell did you wind up in Yemen? And are you scared of Al Qaeda?
I am trying to think of how to best sum it up... I worked as a fashion editor in NYC for about 6 years and when 9/11 happened, I started wondering about Islam and why people hated the U.S. so much — I was not into interna'tl politics at ALL at that time — so I started studying Arabic and eventually left my job at the magazine I was working for (Good Housekeeping) and went to Cairo for 3 months. When I came back, I entered a grad program for journalism and tried to keep up with my Arabic study. So last summer I came to Yemen to do some intensive language courses and loved it before I finished my masters in Dec, I heard about an opportunity with the Yemen Times and I decided to take the job so I moved here for one year, beginning in January.

Ok, as for the evacuations: There have been a number of attacks on foreigners here starting last summer in July. Things were calm for a while but then recently there was a mortar attack on the US Embassy in the capital (Sana'a), and then about a week or so later, there was an attack on a residential facility that mainly housed oil workers and supposedly some diplomatic staff. After the residence attack, the US Embassy ordered all non-emergency staff to leave Yemen. Actually, many MANY people think that there will be a civil war here soon. It is kind of terrorism's last frontier- the gov't has a very shaky hold on power and there is now fighting going on in the North, the South and some central areas. Also, our gov't and the Yemeni gov't are having lots of problems right now since all the people that have been released from Guantanamo have been asked to sign papers saying that they will not carry out terrorist activities anymore. Obviously this ain't going over so well with in the States and now with the recent two attacks, the US is even more angry. So the rest of us Americans here are kind of waiting for our government to evacuate US any day now.

So does the United States think the ex-Guantanamo guys somehow spearheaded the recent attacks? Because Yemen has always been 1. somewhat out of control and 2. Al Qaeda friendly right? (I know 2 hijackers were apparently Yemeni, though they may have been Saudi born.) And...fuck. Tell me about where you worked in New York, and whether you miss it, and now that you're being evacuated and dodging mortarfire etc. etc. would you still tell anyone bored and unfulfilled at a fashion magazine to get the fuck out of New York and learn about the real world while they can?

Ha! Well, I still have lots of friends in that fashion-y/beauty world. But I find this a million times more fulfilling for sure. I think my daily life is a lot less 'sexy' than you might think, seriously! As for Al-Q, they have taken credit for all the attacks. And they are not only active but VERY popular here.

Really? But Yemen always seemed SO GLAMOROUS.

SUPER glam, let me tell you!

Do you chew qat? I've always wanted to chew that.

I am so impressed you know about it! I have, but I hate. And I hate what it does to this country.

Well it is really poor, right? Has the media interviewed a lot of the Guantanamo guys or are they allowed to talk?

Well, the ones that were released have kind of disappeared. but I think a few of them have spoke to media. Mostly Arabic-language sources though. The ones still at Gitmo are completely sealed off, cant even talk to their families. I talk to their lawyers pretty often though, since that's one of my beats

Is there oil there? Why is it so undeveloped? I have no concept of Yemen's history. But their oppression of women kind of makes you question all those theories about how rich natural resources are bad for economic diversification/women. Maybe just, women are screwed no matter what the natural resource situation?

Nutshell: it was a divided country until 1990 with a socialist-USSR-aligned south. and a religious, super poor north. Almost none of the country has oil but that hasn't stopped people from trying to dig. It is still REALLY divided in spirit. The British ruled the south until 1962 but mainly their economy is their paltry oil supply and qat which is sad.

Well I would buy some qat. is it legal here?

It is in fact not legal in the US and there was a big QAT ring (who knew?) that was busted last year in Dec! But that doesn't mean you can't try it anyway. It is also chewed in Ethiopia and Somalia and I think a few other countries as well. But it seriously is gross and tastes like hell, plus the high is not good. It's like being on a super-coffee high, and lots of people feel crazy/depressed afterwards. it makes you talk a lot (what I hear cocaine is like)

Ah, that's what I "hear" cocaine is like. So.... one thing I have been fascinated by is why Yemen doesn't seem to be in the news here more often. You have TERROR, after all.

Well, it's kind of a black hole. People don't know a lot about it and it's poor as all hell. It's like how our media covers Africa in a way. And things have been active lately but they were quiet for some years. I think it has to do with the government and Al-Qaeda trying to show people that the government is weak. There are always protests going on here and I thought I was going to be ambushed at one of the for the Gitmo (current) detainees. Some of the guys there were like, "You are Satan."

How are your living conditions? Do you live with other foreigners or in a university dorm or something? How much do you get paid and what is there to spend money on? What's it like to be a woman?

I get paid less than $500/month, but my rent in Yemen is SUPER low. There are a couple nice things to buy here, but not many. Yemen is great in lots of ways and that is def one of them. Some of the not so great ways include the BEYOND-limited rights of women here. I am talking about no cell phone talking in the street, okay, no TALKING in the street period for women...no laughing for women. No laughing! Yo have to wear full-body coverage at all times, but foreigners don't need to cover their hair.

No talking in the street, no laughing...what if you just went into the middle of the street and laid a really loud fart? Do you get caned for laughing, like in Singapore for graffiti?

Well, if you were Yemeni, your whole family would probably disown you because you disgraced them or some like bullshit. I have to go though, I'm meeting a friend for dinner and women aren't supposed to be out after sunset. But it will cost less than two dollars!

• Eddie Murphy is on crack if he thinks a little bling is enough to convince the world that he treats his girlfriends well. Um, remember that you fathered and denied, Eddie? [People.com]
  
• Oh come on people: There are enough real bombs in this world. Don't plant fake ones. [BBC]
  
• Memo to President Bush: We already know that your reasons for attacking Iraq were bullshit. So don't feed us any of your retroactive theories now. [CNN]
  
• Memo to Tony Blair: You lost your right to pontificate on the situation in the Middle East, too. [NYT]
  
• Does this guy have a t-shirt that says, "I Served In Iraq And All I Got Was This Lousy Bionic Hand"? [CNN]

• YouTube debates? Genius. Also — who else liked Biden alluding to Kucinich's hot wife? [USA Today]
• Interesting shoes, but where does all the nasty-ass toe jam go? [Boing Boing]
• What? MySpace? Rife with sex offenders? Shocking! [MSNBC]
• 2 U.S. casualties identified. [DoD]

• Isaiah Washington — for the love of God — please keep your mouth shut. The latest from everyone's favorite fired homophobe? That ABC lied when saying that he had gone to rehab since "there is no rehab for homophobia." (Thanks to Slut Machine for this awesome graphic.) [People]
  
• New studies show that domestic cats are descended from 5 female cats from the Middle East's Fertile Crescent region, approx. 100,000 years ago. Middle East? Maybe this why they coined the term 'catfight'? [BBC]
  
• God save the Queen! Literally! Buckingham Palace will crumble into decay unless immediate emergency repairs are made. [BBC]
  
• Okay it's official: Every consumer product that comes from China is fucked. [CNN]

• Today's good news for theh animals: The bald eagle is no longer considered 'endangered'. (Just in time for 4th of July!) We brim with patriotism. [CNN]
• Today's bad news for animals: Mitt Romney once strapped the family dog to the roof of the car during a trip from Boston to Ontario. [ABC News]
• How (yawn) surprising! Democratic presidential candidates are all trying to secure the African-American vote. We don't know about you, but we make no decisions 'til Al Sharpton says we can. [MSNBC]
• The legality of veganism: Now being debated in a divorce court near you! [ABC News]
• 1 U.S. casualty identified today. [DoD]

• The long-anticipated sale of luxury department store Barneys New York finally went down this weekend, going to a Dubai-based investment firm for $832 million and making for what was probably the smoothest Middle Eastern negotiation in modern history. [WWD, sub req'd]
  
• Now that Barneys is owned by Arabs, however, does this mean Jews will take their luxury shopping elsewhere? [Portfolio]
  
• The European couture shows start July 2, and three design houses (Dior, Lacroix, Valentino) are duking it out for "fashion party to end all fashion parties" status. [WWD, sub req'd]
  
• Sinead O'Connor "gives a crap" about fashion. Way to pick a profile subject, WWD! [WWD, sub req'd]

• Limited Brands to lay off 10% of its corporate employees. [WWD, sub req'd]
• Fashion industry enfant terrible Jean-Paul Gaultier will be recognized for his bad boy ways as the honoree at this year's Fashion Group International's Night of Stars, whose theme this year is "The Rule Breakers." Metaphysical question of the day: If you're being honored as a rule breaker, does that mean you are no longer a rule breaker? [Vogue UK]
• Metaphysical question of the day, II: What came first, the pretty shoes or the ugly feet? Victoria Beckham has some bad-looking feet, which may or may not be the result of the pretty shoes she likes to wear. [AHN]

• Rapper Eve's clothing line Fetish is having a revival. After suffering bad break-ups with both the Innovo Group and Marc Ecko, it's now reborn under the Signature Group's tutelage. And, like, the quality's going to be really good and, like, Eve is totally involved on a day-by-day basis with the line this time and we stopped listening and...uh, wait, is Eve even actually famous anymore? [WWD, sub req'd]
  
• Barney's, the luxury department store chain, will probably be acquired by the Dubai government's investment arm for at least $825 million. Because you can always find something to spend your excess oil money on at Barney's. [NYT]
  
• Apparently the Japanese Jill Stuart licensee wants to scrap Lindsay Lohan as the face of its fall marketing. Did these people learn nothing from Kate Moss? [Hollywood Rag]

• But OMG! Victoria "Posh Spice" Beckham is totally going to be at the Saks Fifth Avenue New York flagship store this evening for the launch of her denim line, DVB. Because she is so imaginative, she didn't need a branding consultant to think of that name, which stands for "David Victoria Beckham." [Racked]
• Ok we get it already: Valentino isn't retiring anytime soon. (Even if he does have a bad case of "The lady doth protest too much.") [WWD, sub req'd]
• We are snickering at jewelry designer Carolyn Roumeguere, who told Vogue UK, "I think that my gold and silver discs... epitomise Bedouins. A percentage of each sale goes to education and medical aid in Africa so that I give something back to the country that I have chosen to be my home and have gained so much from." Ugh. [Vogue UK]
• The MAC Cosmetics AIDS Fund donated $1.25 million to the William Jefferson Clinton Foundation's HIV/AIDS Initiative. This is not exactly Bill Gates money but it makes us feel sorta better about buying at least one kind of MAC. [WWD, sub req'd]