Isabelle Caro, the face of anorexia, dies at 28

Isabelle Caro, a French model who became a symbol of the fight against anorexia when she was photographed naked for a controversial advertising campaign, has died at the age of 28. Caro rose to global prominence three years ago when posters featuring her emaciated body were displayed around Milan on the eve of fashion week, sending shockwaves through an industry criticised in some quarters for failing to tackle eating disorders among its models.

The posters were banned by the Italian advertising watchdog but the images went viral online, sparking a debate just months after the deaths of two prominent Latin American models.

Caro, who had struggled with anorexia since she was 13, chose to battle her demons in public in a bid to warn women away from the disease. She appeared on talk shows and wrote a blog and then a book titled The Little Girl Who Didn't Want to Get Fat.

She died on 17 November after returning to France from a job in Tokyo but news of her death was kept secret until this week.

The exact cause of death is not known but she was treated in hospital for a fortnight with an acute respiratory disease after returning from Japan. Her family held a private funeral in Paris. Referring to Caro's anorexia, Daniele Dubreuil-Prevot, her long-time acting instructor, said the French model "had been sick for a long time".

Vincent Bigler, a Swiss singer who became a close friend of Caro, told The Independent that Caro had been determined to help women like her who suffered from eating disorders.

"She was this thin girl with a fragile voice but inside she was amazingly strong," he said. "She was always very close to people like her. She would give out her phone number to anyone who wanted to talk about eating disorders. She even put her number on her blog. On her birthday this year she invited all her followers and fans to her party. That was the kind of person she was. She was very open-minded."

Bigler had got to know Caro personally after writing a song about her called "J'ai fin," a wordplay that roughly translates as "I'm done" but is also near-identical to J'ai faim, the French for "I am hungry."

In a video tribute posted on YouTube yesterday he wrote: "Thank you Isabelle for your courage and for the messages you passed on. I hope that up there you enjoy what you love: art, poetry, reading and the love of others."

Caro's poster campaign caused anger among some campaigners who feared that her skeletal image might inspire young women rather than encourage them.

On "thinspiration" internet forums yesterday there were a number of tributes glorifying the model's anorexia problems. One blog placed a picture of a painfully thin looking Caro alongside the words "die young, stay pretty".

But Caro had always rebuffed such criticism, saying she believed most young girls would be repulsed and not encouraged by the poster campaign.

"My anorexia causes death," she explained in an interview three years ago. "It is everything but beauty, the complete opposite. It is an unvarnished photo, without make-up. The message is clear – I have psoriasis, a pigeon chest, the body of an elderly person."

The Italian photographer Oliviero Toscani, who shot the hard-hitting campaign, made a similar argument. "Looking at my ad, girls with anorexia would say to themselves that they have to stop dieting," he said at the time. "When you do something extreme, there are always people who oppose it. It shouldn't be the photos that shock, but the reality."

Yet despite her public determination to combat anorexia, Caro still struggled to fully overcome the disease. At the time of the campaign she weighed just 29 kilograms and had fallen into a coma the previous year.

Last year she was interviewed by the American pop star Jessica Simpson and said her weight had risen to 39 kilograms, but she still looked painfully thin. During the interview she told Simpson how she had started modelling during her last year of high school and had been immediately told to lose 10 kilograms. Despite her obviously frail physique she said she had never once been told by a modelling agency to put on weight.

"People are just used to seeing skinny people at the modelling agencies," she said.

Teenagers turn their backs on a university education

Universities have suffered the steepest fall in applications since records began, with the total number of students seeking places this autumn plummeting by 8.7 per cent as the true impact of tuition fee increases is felt.

Click here to see the 'University Crisis' graphic

Last night, there were warnings that the decline would lead to course closures and redundancies at campuses across the country. An even more marked drop of 9.9 per cent was recorded in applications from students in England, where fees are rising to up to £9,000 a year.

More men than women have been discouraged from applying, with their numbers falling by 8.5 per cent to 230,342, figures from Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (Ucas) showed. There are 309,731 female applicants – 6.7 per cent fewer than at this time last year.

A subject-by-subject breakdown reveals that the courses suffering the worst declines include non-European languages such as Japanese and Mandarin, which are often cited as being vital to the future of the British economy. Applications to these courses are down 21.5 per cent. Creative arts and design courses are down by more than 16 per cent and technology by 17 per cent. The only degrees to register an increase are some medicine courses, including nursing, which are up 2 per cent.

In all, there are 43,473 fewer applications for degree courses starting in autumn 2012 than there were last year.

Martin Freedman, of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said: "We are deeply concerned that many potential students are being put off applying and their career prospects will be damaged as a result. The fall in applicants also has worrying implications for universities' finances now that ... most of their funding is due to come from students rather than the Government."

The Ucas chief executive, Mary Curnock Cook, said she was "concerned about the wide and increasing gap between the application rate of men compared to women". However, she said she was relieved that the new fees structure did not seem to have affected the number of disadvantaged students seeking to enter higher education. "Our analysis shows that decreases in demand are slightly larger in more advantaged groups than in disadvantaged groups," she said.

Twenty universities have seen a fall in applications of more than 15 per cent. The biggest drop is at the University of the Creative Arts – which has campuses in Canterbury, Epsom, Farnham, Maidstone and Rochester – where numbers are down 29 per cent. By contrast, Cambridge University has had 2 per cent more applications.

The number of overseas students seeking a place is still rising, despite curbs on immigration, with applications up 13 per cent. Britain is particularly popular with students from Hong Kong, with applications from there rising by 37 per cent.

Prospective students from EU countries, who face the same fee increases as their English peers, applied for 11 per cent fewer places. Mature students also seem to be staying away, with applications from 23-year-olds showing a 13.5 per cent decline, and from 25- to 29-year-olds falling by 11.8 per cent. Applications from 18-year-old school-leavers dropped by only 2.6 per cent.

The figures show the number of English students applying for degree courses has slumped by 9.9 per cent. Tuition fees for English students at English universities will treble to a maximum of £9,000 a year this September. In Scotland, where Scottish students do not have to pay fees, applicants are down by 1.5 per cent. In Wales, where Welsh students are subsidised, numbers are 1.9 per cent lower.

Shabana Mahmood, the shadow Minister for Higher Education, said: "It is clear the drastic increase in fees and the debt burden is putting people of all ages off going to university."

With some degree subjects hit by a drop in applications of more than 20 per cent, the new higher education landscape could well threaten the viability of courses, especially in arts and humanities subjects which have lost their funding under government cutbacks. The overall number of applications – 540,073 – is already 65,000 higher than the number of places on offer this autumn. Last year, Ucas received 100,000 applications after the January deadline had expired.

Many students appear to be casting their eyes further afield to secure a good-value education. Maastricht University in the Netherlands said yesterday that it had 152 per cent more applications from British students than it did at this time last year. The university, which charges £1,500 a year and teaches all courses in English, expects about 600 young people from the UK to apply this year.

Professor Michael Farthing, the vice-chancellor of Sussex University, said: "The cuts to funding gave universities little option other than to increase fees and, as a result, many prospective students have obviously been wary of applying this year."

The Universities minister, David Willetts, insisted: "Even with a small reduction in applications, this will still be a competitive year like any other."

Tough Guy Challenge: Fire, mud and skirts

Not for the faint of heart, weedy of stature or flaky of disposition, this year’s Tough Guy Challenge saw around 6,000 competitors willingly hurl themselves into mud the consistency of chocolate milkshake, dart through fire, crawl on their bellies beneath barbed wire and splash their way through freezing water.

Click here or on "View Gallery" to see the race in pictures

The competitors, both men and women, were so tough that many wore skirts, fancy dress and other attire which might have hindered, rather than have facilitated, their daring endeavours.

The eight-mile assault course in Perton, near Shropshire, is made up of “25 obscurantismalistic obstackels (sic)”, which carry pain and fear ratings of between 10 and 1. From fields of fire to vertigo-inducing climbing walls, each obstacle has a suitably terrifying name, such as the Killing Fields, Colditz Walls and Underground Interrogation Pits.

Race organisers claim it is the toughest such challenge on earth. Of the estimated two-thirds of those who completed it over the weekend, few will have avoided the burns, blisters, scratches and bruises that the conditions demand. This is the 25th such annual event.

Cheerleader must compensate school that told her to clap 'rapist'

A teenage girl who was dropped from her high school's cheerleading squad after refusing to chant the name of a basketball player who had sexually assaulted her must pay compensation of $45,000 (£27,300) after losing a legal challenge against the decision.

The United States Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a review of the case brought by the woman, who is known only as HS. Lower courts had ruled that she was speaking for the school, rather than for herself, when serving on a cheerleading squad – meaning that she had no right to stay silent when coaches told her to applaud.

She was 16 when she said she had been raped at a house party attended by dozens of fellow students from Silsbee High School, in south-east Texas. One of her alleged assailants, a student athlete called Rakheem Bolton, was arrested, with two other young men.

In court, Bolton pleaded guilty to the misdemeanour assault of HS. He received two years of probation, community service, a fine and was required to take anger-management classes. The charge of rape was dropped, leaving him free to return to school and take up his place on the basketball team.

Four months later, in January 2009, HS travelled to one of Silsbee High School's basketball games in Huntsville. She joined in with the business of leading cheers throughout the match. But when Bolton was about to take a free throw, the girl decided to stand silently with her arms folded.

"I didn't want to have to say his name and I didn't want to cheer for him," she later told reporters. "I just didn't want to encourage anything he was doing."

Richard Bain, the school superintendent in the sport-obsessed small town, saw things differently. He told HS to leave the gymnasium. Outside, he told her she was required to cheer for Bolton. When the girl said she was unwilling to endorse a man who had sexually assaulted her, she was expelled from the cheerleading squad.

The subsequent legal challenge against Mr Bain's decision perhaps highlights the seriousness with which Texans take cheerleading and high school sports, which can attract crowds in the tens of thousands.

HS and her parents instructed lawyers to pursue a compensation claim against the principal and the School District in early 2009. Their lawsuit argued that HS's right to exercise free expression had been violated when she was instructed to applaud her attacker. But two separate courts ruled against her, deciding that a cheerleader freely agrees to act as a "mouthpiece" for a institution and therefore surrenders her constitutional right to free speech. In September last year, a federal appeals court upheld those decisions and announced that HS must also reimburse the school sistrict $45,000, for filing a "frivolous" lawsuit against it.

"As a cheerleader, HS served as a mouthpiece through which [the school district] could disseminate speech – namely, support for its athletic teams," the appeals court decision says. "This act constituted substantial interference with the work of the school because, as a cheerleader, HS was at the basketball game for the purpose of cheering, a position she undertook voluntarily."

The family's lawyer said the ruling meanst that students exercising their right of free speech can end up punished for refusing to follow "insensitive and unreasonable directions".

Zante, bloody Zante: Sun, sex and the dark side of The Med

Thousands of young Brits flock to the Greek islands each year in search of sun, sex and serious drinking. But as Charlotte Philby finds out, there's a darker underbelly to the revelry

It's 2am on the Greek island of Zakynthos, and outside the Cocktails and Dreams nightclub, the party is in full swing. Swarms of excitable Brits stumble between bars and clubs, scuffling and fumbling on their way. But for some the distance proves a little too much, and a girl in a hot-pink bikini seeks refuge against a lamppost. Hers is just one of a string of slumped bodies lining the roadside; while across the street, ambulance workers assist a limp figure on to a stretcher.

Welcome to the resort of Laganas, and its epicentre: a heaving 300m-long strip of neon nightlife. This is a world where inhibitions are well and truly thrown to the wayside, along with a mountain of discarded underwear. If you don't fancy making the journey yourself, and can stomach some pretty uncomfortable viewing, a quick search on YouTube leads straight to the belly of the beast. Among pages of graphic mobile-phone footage, one upload, simply titled "Laganas Women", displays a sequence of wasted Brits gyrating manically in various states of undress, accompanied by the words "this is in every club you go to". You get the picture.

But it has not always been this way. Zakynthos – also known as Zante – was once a sleepy Ionian island, favoured by an altogether milder sort of tourist. With 70 miles of coastline, and golden beaches home to a high population of turtles, this was a place to sit back, unwind and soak up the sun. Until a few years ago, it was Faliraki (in Rhodes) and Malia (in Crete) that were the obvious ports-of-call for Britons with a livelier holiday agenda. But then, according to the Greek National Tourist Office, a concerted police crackdown on anti-social behaviour in these areas rendered Faliraki and Malia less appealing. And so, the resort of Laganas (affectionately known as "Slaganas") – and to a lesser extent, its neighbour Argasi – stepped in. And as you can see from as Jocelyn Bain Hogg's photographs, taken over the course of the summer, it has certainly found its audience. Last year alone, Zakynthos attracted 300,000 UK holidaymakers, most of whom were under 30, with many still in their teens, away from home for the first time. With cheap package deals regularly including alcohol in the price, it is easy to see how things can soon turn rather messy.

This summer, the antics of tourists in Laganas have been subject to heavy criticism by the Greek authorities. A stream of headlines revealed the sleazy events unfolding in a resort where tour operators offer "non-stop partying" and "wild entertainment well into the night". As well as the obvious consequences of combining a high number of excited young people with a hell of a lot of very cheap and often low-quality booze – the minor street brawls and general rowdiness that barely raises eyebrows these days – a more sinister picture has emerged.

Last month, nine British women faced charges of prostitution, having taken part in an "oral sex competition" at Laganas beach. And this was not an isolated incident. While British tourism is a major boost to the local economy, the reputation of certain resorts impacts significantly on all of Zakynthos – if not Greece.

It only takes one night out on the main strip to see what the fuss is about. Yet in official facts and figures, the situation is less clear. The Greek Embassy has released a comparative study (based on data provided in two reports from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office) entitled "British Behaviour Abroad". One contains figures obtained between April 2006 and April 2007, and the other is based on the same period of the previous year. According to the embassy's analysis, the number of UK citizens admitted to hospital in Greece has fallen, by around a third, to 602; and the number of British deaths fell too, by eight to 131. Statistics specific to Zakynthos are hard to track down, yet it's no secret that there have been a worrying number of allegations of sexual assault. While results from the same FCO report state that the number of rape allegations made by Brits in Greece as a whole fell from 48 to 28 the following year, Zante State Hospital announced that 25 ("largely unproven") allegations of Brit-on-Brit rape were made on the island in 2007. This year's statistics have not yet been revealed – and besides, as Jess Prasad, who heads the Foreign Office's Know Before You Go information campaign notes, "you're not going to get a true picture because so many people don't report [instances of rape]. This is only the tip of the iceberg."

But however confusing the numbers, the situation does not look good from the ground either. According to one doctor working in Zakynthos, whose job it is to examine rape claimants, many women are so inebriated that they do not know whether they have had sex that night or not. It all makes for pretty grim reading, but there is a faint silver lining. Measures are now being taken by British and Greek authorities to educate tourists on how to avoid danger when on holiday. So, officially at least, it now lies with the individuals to make their choices accordingly. But judging from a conversation on one internet message board, the warnings will well and truly bypass some travellers. "Have you seen any trouble in Laganas this year?" asks one user. "Plenty," another replies, "and it's fuckin' wicked mate!"

The picture that shames Italy

It's another balmy weekend on the beach in Naples. By the rocks, a couple soak up the southern Italian sun. A few metres away, their feet poking from under beach towels that cover their faces and bodies, lie two drowned Roma children.

The girls, Cristina, aged 16, and Violetta, 14, were buried last night as the fallout from the circumstances of their death reverberated throughout Italy.

It is an image that has crystallised the mounting disquiet in the country over the treatment of Roma, coming after camps have been burnt and the government has embarked on a bid to fingerprint every member of the minority. Two young Roma sisters had drowned at Torregaveta beach after taking a dip in treacherous waters. Their corpses were recovered from the sea – then left on the beach for hours while holidaymakers continued to sunbathe and picnic around them.

They had come to the beach on the outskirts of Naples on Saturday with another sister, Diana, nine, and a 16-year-old cousin, Manuela, to make a little money selling coloured magnets and other trinkets to sunbathers. But it was fiercely hot all day and, about 2pm, the girls surrendered to the temptation of a cooling dip – even though they apparently did not know how to swim.

"The sea was rough on Saturday," said Enzo Esposito, the national treasurer of Opera Nomadi, Italy's biggest Roma organisation. "Christina and Violetta went farther out than the other two, and a big wave came out of nowhere and dashed them on to the rocks. For a few moments, they disappeared; Manuela, who was in shallow water with Diana, came to the shore, helped out by people on the beach, and ran to try and get help."

Other reports said that lifeguards from nearby private beaches also tried to help, without success. "When Manuela and Diana came back," Esposito went on, "the bodies of her cousins had reappeared, and they were already dead."

It was the sort of tragedy that could happen on any beach. But what happened next has stunned Italy. The bodies of the two girls were laid on the sand; their sister and cousin were taken away by the police to identify and contact the parents. Some pious soul donated a couple of towels to preserve the most basic decencies. Then beach life resumed.

The indifference was taken as shocking proof that many Italians no longer have human feelings for the Roma, even though the communities have lived side by side for generations.

"This was the other terrible thing," says Mr Esposito, "besides the fact of the girls drowning: the normality. The way people continued to sunbathe, for three hours, just metres away from the bodies. They could have gone to a different beach. It's not possible that you can watch two young people die then carry on as if nothing happened. It showed a terrible lack of sensitivity and respect."

The attitudes of ordinary Italians towards the Roma, never warm, have been chilling for years, aggravated by sensational news coverage of crimes allegedly committed by Gypsies, and a widespread confusion of Roma with ordinary, non-Roma Romanians, who continue to arrive. The Berlusconi government has launched a high-profile campaign against the community, spearheaded by the programme announced by the Interior Minister, Roberto Marroni, to fingerprint the entire Roma population. The move has been condemned inside Italy and beyond as a return to the racial registers introduced by the Fascist regime in the 1930s. The fingerprinting of Roma in Naples began on 19 June.

The most senior Catholic in Naples, Cardinal Crescenzo Sepe, was quick to point out the coarsening of human sentiment which the behaviour on the beach represented. But the Mayor of Monte di Procida, the town on the outskirts of the city where Torregaveta beach is located, defended his citizens' behaviour.

When the Roma girls got into difficulties, he said: "There was a race among the bathers and the coastguard and the carabinieri to try and help them." He rejected the claim that the indifference of the bathers was due to the fact that the girls were Roma.

The two cousins were given a Christian Orthodox funeral service in the Roma camp in Naples, attended by 300 Roma and city and regional representatives.

In a speech yesterday, Mr Maroni proposed, "for humanitarian reasons", granting Italian citizenship to all Roma children in Italy abandoned by their parents.

The Italians and the Roma

Roma have been living in Italy for seven centuries and the country is home to about 150,000, who live mainly in squalid conditions in one of around 700 encampments on the outskirts of major cities such as Rome, Milan and Naples. They amount to less than 0.3 per cent of the population, one of the lowest proportions in Europe. But their poverty and resistance to integration have made them far more conspicuous than other communities. And the influx of thousands more migrants from Romania in the past year has confirmed the view of many Italians that the Gypsies and their eyesore camps are the source of all their problems. The ethnic group is often blamed for petty theft and burglaries. According to a recent newspaper survey, more than two thirds of Italians want Gypsies expelled, whether they hold Italian passports or not.

She asked him to divorce her if he takes a second wife

My wife and i have discused me having a second wife and she sayes that if i do then she would devorse me.we did not get married by the kafirs but we do have a islamic contract. and there was no agreement on that contract forbiding me from taking a second wife.so my question is .Is it permisable for her to deny me this?And is'nt she making the hallal harram on me. my wife is a good muslimah (I.S.A.) and she would respect a answer whith proof. jazallahkum ma lakair

Praise be to Allaah. 

If a man is able to marry a second wife, physically and financially, and he can treat both wives in a just manner, and he wants to take a second wife, then he is allowed to do so according to Islam. Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning):

“… then marry (other) women of your choice, two or three, or four…” [al-Nisaa’ 4:3]

And this was the practice of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him), and of his Companions (may Allaah be pleased with them), but apart from the Prophet, no one is permitted to have more than four wives.

It is well known that women are by nature jealous and reluctant to share their husband with other women. Women are not to be condemned for this jealousy, for it existed in the  best of righteous women, the Sahaabiyyaat, and even in the Mothers of the Believers [the wives of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him)]. But women should not let jealousy make them object to that which Allaah has prescribed, and they should not try to prevent it; a wife should allow her husband to marry another woman for this is a kind of cooperating in righteousness and piety. According to a hadeeth whose authenticity is agreed upon, the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said: “Whoever pays attention to his brother’s needs, Allaah will pay attention to his needs.”

The first wife’s consent is not a prerequisite for a man to take another wife. The Standing Committee for Issuing Fatwas was asked about this and replied as follows:

“It is not obligatory for the husband, if he wants to take a second wife, to have the consent of his first wife, but it is good manners and kindness to deal with her in such a manner that will reduce the hurt which women naturally feel in such situations. This is done by being kind to her and speaking to her in a gentle and pleasant manner, and by spending whatever money may be necessary in order to gain her acceptance of the situation.”

Concerning her request for divorce if her husband wants to marry another wife, this is a mistake. But they should examine the situation, and if she really cannot cope with living with another wife, then she can ask him for khula’ [ a kind of divorce instigated by the wife, whereby she forgoes the mahr]. If she can cope with living with the second wife, but it hurts her to do so, then she should be patient and seek the pleasure of Allaah. Thawbaan (may Allaah be pleased with him) narrated that the Messenger (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said:

“No woman asks her husband for a divorce for no reason, but the fragrance of Paradise is forbidden for her.” (Narrated by Abu Dawood and others, and classed as saheeh by al-Albaani, may Allaah have mercy on him).

If she bears it with patience, then Allaah will make it easier for her and will expand her chest (i.e., grant her peace and calm), and will compensate her with something good. The husband must also help her by treating her kindly, being patient with her for any jealousy etc. on her part, and overlooking her mistakes. And Allaah is the source of help.