wholesale52 my new blog

If you wish to enhance the beauty of your eyebrows and want to get piercing done, you can get eyebrow jewellery. This will give an altogether new look to your personality. You can also make acultured pearl jewelry fashion statement. Youngsters find it funky and cool. You can get fabulous designs set in this metal or titanium bars. There are great designs available. Acrylic eyebrow retainer available is available in a choice of sizes. However, steel is suitable for healed piercings only.

If you want to have a new look for an outing or an event, you can do it with this kind of piercing. An eyebrow bar with little bit extra sparkle will dazzle your eyes. This will certainly make you stand out from thefreshwater pearl pendant rest of the crowd. You can also try fantastic double jewelled titanium. This is probably the best way to make people notice your eyes. You can try any barbells! These barbells are made from titanium and offer the highest bio-compatibility of any metal used for body jewellery. It is suitable for both new unhealed piercings and healed piercings.

This kind of jewellery is available in various sizes. You can get small as well as big size. You can specify the size and design and also get custom made jewellery. Yo jewellery can be worn infreshwater pearl bracelet tragus or any part of the ear. It is available in various sizes and designs. Yu canu can choose from a range of pieces. Tragus choose the type of metal you woant for the jewellery. This is very popular with college going youth. Youngsters prefer it and generally opt for it to make a fashion statement. This kind of jewellery and top of ear jewellery studs and barbells are available in various hues. They are also available in various colours.

Before getting piercing done, you must consult an expert who can advise you on the type of piercing you can get done. If it doesn't cause any irritation to your skin, you can get the piercing done. If there is any likelihood of any type of infection, you must resist from getting piercing done. If you are allergic to metals, you must not get piercing done. Appropriate medical advice will save you from the trouble of infection at a later stage. Enhance your looks and stand out among the crowd with a range of body piercing items.

GIA is an international non-profit gemological institute that appraises the value of loose diamonds. If you already have one or more GIA diamond rings, the stones were evaluated before they were set in the rings. The GIA set the tone for evaluating and analyzing diamonds and the same process is followed today by other diamond appraisal institutes, such as IGI appraisals. Such an appraisal is essential if you want tofreshwater pearl beads make sure that the diamonds you purchase are best value diamonds.

When you send loose diamonds to the GIA for grading, you will receive a report on each diamond. Reports of GIA diamond rings grading are extremely comprehensive, which is why you should be able toloose freshwater pearl understand what the report says about the stones you have had appraised without too much trouble.

The date of the appraisal is always at the top of the report and there is a report number which is entered into the institute's international database. If you wish, you can have this number laser inscribed on the diamond. The next part of the report on GIA diamond rings deals with the shape and the cutting style of the diamond.

The shape of the diamond has a lot to do with determining the setting of the diamond in the ring. The cuts include round, Princess, Marquise, oval and pear-shaped. Certain settings are suited to specific cuts to ensure that the diamond looks elegant in the ring and on the hand of the person wearing it. The most common settings for diamond rings are:

? Solitaire in which the diamond is secured in a basket of four or six prongs so that it catches the light with each movement of the hand.

? Sidestone settings have other stones onfreshwater pearl ring each side of the diamond to keep it in place and to add enhance the brilliance and color of the stone.

? Three-stone settings have a diamond for the past, present and future.

The report for GIA diamond rings, much like IGI appraisals, also gives the measurement of the diamond. For round diamonds this is represented by the minimum depth and length and for fancy diamonds by the length times width times depth. The overall weight of the diamond is given in carats and the more carats there are the more expensive the diamond will be. This is another way of knowing whether or not you purchased best value diamonds. One carat is 1/5 of one gram and the weight is recorded to the nearest 1/100 of a carat.

There is a GIA master comparison scale when grading the color of diamonds. The best diamonds are white and almost colorless. While yellow diamonds are given the lowest grade, there are canary yellow stones that are quite valuable. These fall into the category of fancy diamonds along with those that are pink, blue, and green.

The clarity or clearness of a diamond according to the rating scale of GIA diamond rings refers to any imperfections that can be seen when the diamond is analyzed under high-power microscopes. Those diamonds with slight imperfections can still be considered best value diamonds if the imperfections in the gems are such that they cannot be seen with the naked eye or under a normal microscope.

Diamonds for GIA diamond rings are graded according to their polish and finish to determine their level of brilliance and how they reflect the light that falls on them. The diamonds are inspected forfreshwater pearl bracelet smoothness and the number of facets in the stone. Symmetry is also important to ensure that all facets are in balance and to determine the best placement of several stones in a ring.

Gemologists use ultra-violet lights to determine the amount of fluorescence in the diamonds and this is also given on the report. Many other appraisal institutes do not provide a report that is as comprehensive as one you receive from GIA. Your report will contain diagrams of the stone as well as keys to the various symbols used in the report.

You must have encountered several coffee table books featuring gorgeous jewelries coming from prominent jewelry design houses. But because of the crisis that the global economy is facing today, premier jewelry designers opt to create jewelry pieces that are not so dramatic, since the prices of cultured freshwater pearl gold and diamond are already sky high.

Although consumers always prefer dramatic and gargantuan jewelry, the present state of the economy dictates that in order to make these pieces accessible to the general public, one must reduce its size. Because of this, wholesale of fashion jewelry becomes the trend, with designs such as those that were once made only by leading jewelry designers.

It definitely looks like we are already entering the age oftwisted pearl necklace fashion jewelry wholesale, although it appears that this entrance is caused by an accident and not a carefully laid-out plan. Because of the economy, even leading jewelry designers find it hard to sell their gold and diamond pieces because of its unreachable prices. As a result, these design houses manufacture minimally. Wholesale jewelry, on the other hand, is thriving, even if they make use of faux pearls and crystals.

Perhaps what is happening to the fashion jewelry industry nowadays issingle strand necklace reminiscent of the late 80s to early 90s period, in which sculptured copper and bronze bracelets with intricate leaf work and beautifully encrusted crystals were the trend. One could definitely say that it was the age of high fashion - the time of pear-shaped peals earrings adorned with sparkling Australian crystals, leopard and black epoxy rings with dramatic crystals, and thick chokers with jet crystals and faux pearls.

Certainly, these dramatic jewelry pieces are missed a lot. With our current economic situation, those people in the wholesale fashion jewelry industry must rethink about the succeeding trends in this area. Right now, what's in are the classic jewelry making use of gemstones and Murano style glass. Even during the winter, people continue wearing freshwater pearls. Although classic jewelry styles dominate the scene, people are always on the lookout for the next fashion jewelry trend. The most likely candidate for this trend is the eco-green.

But then, there came the costs and the consumer dollars, and consumers nowadays want something else with regard to designer jewelry. People wanted to go back to what was the trend two decades ago, and that was wholesale fashion jewelry. Eco-green then seemed to pale in comparison with the wholesale jewelry design two decades ago. Although premier jewelry design houses cannot give these jewelry pieces at an affordable price, fortunately, fashion jewelry can do just that.

Now, the past of fashion jewelry is paving way to its future. People are now looking back to the magnificent jewels in the 40s and 50s, in which bracelets, brooches, and sparkly necklaces were the trends. The golden era of jewelry is now being looked back on, as people remember the pieces made by Juliana, Coro, Dior, Trifari, and Eisenberg, which are now considered to be highly valuable.

Changes in trends are constant, and fashion must be able to captivate the people in order to cause a major trend. It seems to be that classic jewelry is making its way back to the surface, as people are more inclined to go back to gemstone jewelry and Murano style glass. The beauty of fashion jewelry renews the age of glamor, making every wearer of a jewelry piece feel like royalty. It uplifts the spirit of the wearer. An we then say that the next trend will be fashion jewelry's golden era? Only the future can tell.

I've been in diamond production on small to medium scale since June 1998, CEO on an alluvial diamond mine in South Africa. The other day I overheard someone state that he wanted toakoya pearl earrings buy his wife a diamond ring, but rather went for another gemstone because of the price. This amused me; can it be that diamonds are so expensive in a store? The same man turned to me and remarked

"You (meaning the producers) must be very happy with the the way the diamond price increased the last 5 years!"

I just turned away and started talking about thecheap pearl jewelry weather, because we're not happy, far from that!! You see, although diamond prices has skyrocketed for the consumer in the last 6-8 years, the producer has seen very little increase in the price we get! Unlike the diesel price, which was $0.23 in 1998 and we now pay $1.52 in 2008 (that is a 565% increase), the diamond price stayed pretty stable for the producer.

Here's an example:

In late 1999 we found a 22ct, I color, near spotless diamond, which were sold in early 2000 for $5681.81/ct. At the beginning of 2008 we found another 22.76ct, I color, near spotless diamond (the shape was just as good, if not better than the one in 1999, and it was as similar as one could wish for, perfect for comparison). This diamond was sold in mid 2008 for $6533/ct.

That is an increase of 15% over 9 years. This isn't good math forturquoise jewelry any business, and for this reason hundreds of medium sized mines had to close their doors, or pits in this case. In turn, with production going down, the consumer will pay even more for this precious stones.

Another factor, which kept the price low for the producer and high for the consumer, is the gold price. Any diamond producer can tell you that a high gold price = low diamond value for the producer, it's an unwritten rule! I reckon it works like this: The market needs jewelry in all shapes and sizes, diamond gold rings, diamond gold earrings, diamond gold watches etc., with the emphasis on diamond and gold. If either the gold price, or diamond price should unexpectedly rise, the market wouldn't be able to cope with the dramatic increase in price. Because gold is the currency of trading in the worlds, diamonds have to play second fiddle. Since 1998 the gold price grew from $250 to a whopping $1000 in 2008. 400% increase. But the market didn't only compensate for the increase in the gold price, but also charges for a 250% increase in diamond prices. But the producer never sees this increase and the money ends up in the pearl necklacepockets of the middleman!

Large diamond mines are closing in South Africa and the whole of Africa, and sooner than later the big companies will have to dig into their resources to find diamonds to sell - and for this they WILL charge an arm and a leg. The demand is big, the supply is little!

ARE ever-rising A-level results evidence of better teaching and harder-working pupils, as Labour education secretaries claim each August? Or are they proof of pearl earrings spoon-feeding syllabuses and easier exams, as the opposition Conservatives say?

This year’s results, published on August 20th, provided another chance for those on both sides to “agree or disagree”. The pass rate rose for the 27th year running, and is now 97.5%, up from 68.2% in 1982. The share of A-grades went up too, by 0.8 percentage points compared with last year, and now stands at 26.7%. The end result of freshwater pearl earrings this 27-year bull run is that an eighth of all candidates now get three A grades, more than used to get a single A back then.

On the face of it, this is a success story. But probe the figures and they start to look flakier. School league tables, and the less selective universities, count grades regardless of subject, so an A in photography equals one in physics. But that assumption of parity is inaccurate, according to researchers at Durham University. By comparing results in different subjects awarded to the same candidates, and grades at A-level and GCSE, they have shown that some subjects really are softer (see chart). The idea is that an educational “Gresham’s Law” is at work, with bad qualifications driving out good as schools push pupils towards easier subjects in the hope of rising up the league tables, and pupils scramble after any old As to akoya pearl earrings present to undiscriminating universities.

There is evidence that this happens—but only at the margins. If the Durham team’s figures are used to adjust grades, the real value of newly minted A-levels has fallen a little compared with their face value every year since 2003, as slightly more students choose easier subjects over hard ones than did the year before. During that time a gap of around half a percentage point opened up between the two. The fact that certain subjects are required for many degrees—mathematics for engineering; the sciences for medicine—acts as a countervailing force. So do the selective universities, which generally prefer candidates who take the tougher subjects.

Lacking any such restraint is year-on-year grade inflation across the board. And that, like continental drift, is hard to see in action. One oft-tried way to spot it—looking at old exam papers—is little help, since standards are set more by the marking than the syllabus or test. (“What is love?” is easy if “An emotion” gets full marks; hateful if one must illustrate with sonnets and explain how neurotransmitters function.) But in the long run, it can have a dramatic effect. The Durham team used aptitude tests to show that pupils of pearl pendant a given ability get far higher A-level grades now than they used to 20 years ago. Over the same period an 18-percentage point gap opened up between pass rates in A-levels and the International Baccalaureate.

Alan Smithers, an educationalist at Buckingham University, thinks grades inflate when examiners check scripts that lie on boundaries between grades. Every year some are pushed up but virtually none down, resulting in a subtle year-on-year shift. Wider expectations also seem to be mildly inflationary. He points to 2002, when the cack-handed introduction of a new A-level curriculum led to soaring grades. Exam boards panicked, and shunted grade boundaries to drag them back down. And when results fall, as they did with the English tests taken by 11-year-olds this summer, that provokes outrage too.

The main reform being proposed by Michael Gove, the Tory education spokesman, is for harder subjects like maths to be worth more in school league tables than softer ones like sociology. But since blanket grade inflation rather than a shift to freshwater pearl pendant easier ones is the main force at work, this would have little effect. And tackling it would entail limiting the share of candidates allowed to get each grade, as happened until the mid-1980s.

That would be politically tricky, since such limits seem unattractively arbitrary. Moreover, it would mean abandoning any hope of measuring even genuine improvements in educational standards. Whether or not Mr Gove gets the chance to implement his ideas after the next election, the ritual of hurrahs and boos over A-level results seems likely to continue.

In protracted investigations, the Shareholder Executive, staffed mainly by hard-nosed former corporate financiers, began to demand radical changes to pearl necklace JLR’s financial structure, if they were to put taxpayers’ money at risk. That may have been reasonable, but it was not what Tata management wanted to hear. The European Investment Bank (EIB) was offering JLR a £340m loan for the development of pearl jewelry wholesale green technology, but required a government guarantee. On top of that JLR wanted around £400m of short-term funding. But the Shareholder Executive played hardball. The requested guarantee shrank to wholesale pearl jewlery £175m. Moreover, the agency wanted a premium of close to 10% and a counter-guarantee from a commercial bank so that, in the case of a payout, it had a chance to claw back the funds. And it wanted the power to remove JLR’s chairman if necessary.

Tata found these terms unacceptable, even an affront, and finally wrote to say it was looking elsewhere: the EIB would get a guarantee from a consortium of gemstone jewelry banks instead, and JLR would raise bridge finance by pledging future cashflows. This new-found confidence was helped by the buoyancy of Tata’s car sales in India, and a modest recovery of orders at JLR.

But there is some residual rancour and speculation that prompter action, at least on the EIB funding, would have accelerated JLR’s development of the LRX, a small, low-emission Land Rover, whose production is due to replace that of the Jaguar X-type at Halewood at the end of this year.

On the other hand, it could be argued that abrasive dealings with the Shareholder Executive forced Tata to get to grips with JLR and bring in consultants KPMG to drive down costs, and Roland Berger of Germany to pearl jewelry develop strategy. Ravi Kant, non-executive vice-chairman of Tata Motors, is now spending more time at JLR headquarters in Gaydon, Warwickshire. There are thoughts of more co-operation with Tata, perhaps involving shared production platforms. At the same time Tata does not appear that strapped for cash, having put £1.2 billion into JLR over the past 14 months.

FOR several months, the future of pearl earrings those sleek Jaguar saloons and robust all-terrain Land Rovers, symbols of a once-great British motor industry, seemed to hang in the balance as Tata, parent of freshwater pearl jewelry Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), and government officials wrangled over the knotty issue of financial support.

Dangling before JLR and other carmakers and suppliers was the promise, made in January by Lord Mandelson, the business secretary, of £2.3 billion ($3.2 billion) of government loans and guarantees to aid investment in low-emission car projects. So far not a penny of pearl jewelry wholesale the money has been spent, though separately £300m has gone on a car scrappage scheme, which mainly helps makers of small, cheap cars.

On August 11th an exasperated Tata said it no longer needed government help. That ended over six months of sometimes bitter negotiation with the Shareholder Executive, a state agency that looks after the government’s stakes in pearl jewelry businesses. (Those include Northern Rock, a rescued mortgage bank, but not RBS and Lloyds Banking Group, which are handled by UK Financial Investments.)

Tata, having bought JLR in June 2008 for $2.3 billion, found it was hit by the credit crunch, like all other car firms. Bank funding dried up and in November JLR asked the government for guarantees to enhance its credit on commercial loans. Unlike the French and German governments, which were able to help carmakers via these firms’ financing arms, which are authorised banks, the British government did not have that option. The Shareholder Executive had to deal directly with JLR and first of all judge whether Tata, which owns businesses ranging from British steel mills and tea packers, to chemical and car plants in India, was really that needy of cash. Tata’s commitment to JLR seemed firm. But JLR had previously been a division of cultured pearl Ford Motor Company: it had no proper treasury function and was thinly capitalised.

THE NHS is the closest thing the English have to pearl jewelry wholesale a national religion, Nigel Lawson, a former Tory chancellor, once observed. Seldom has that tart comment seemed more apposite than in recent days, as both Gordon Brown and David Cameron leapt to the defence of pearl jewelry the NHS following vitriolic criticism in America of Britain’s “Orwellian” health service. Some of the charges against it are absurd, but does the pearl jewelry wholesale tax-financed NHS deserve such worship this side of the Atlantic?

Comparing the performance of health systems is tricky. For one thing, people may attach different values to crucial features such as coverage, choice, equity and the quality of clinical care. For another, people’s health reflects influences like lifestyles that have little to do with medical care. Cost must also be taken into account. The World Health Organisation attempted an evaluation in 2000, in which Britain came 18th out of 191 countries and America 37th, but the methods used to compile the ranking were heavily criticised and it has not repeated the exercise.

On the most basic metric of life expectancy at birth, Britain (79.1 years) outscores America (77.8). Longevity is admittedly a crude and indirect indicator of population health. Yet a similar story emerged from a study in 2006 that used direct measures to freshwater pearl jewelry compare the health of middle-aged people: the Americans were sicker than the English.

Another line of inquiry is to investigate how health systems perform in tackling conditions that are treatable, comparing death-rates for such illnesses among the under-75s. Britain does not emerge well from one such ranking, compiled by Ellen Nolte and Martin McKee of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Their study, published in early 2008, placed Britain 16th among 19 advanced countries (France came first). But America came last.

On the other hand, Britain scores worse than America in five-year survival rates for cancer. High-tech diagnostic equipment is less abundant: in 2007 there were, for example, 25.9 MRI scanners per million Americans compared with 8.2 in Britain. Expensive new drugs generally become widely available sooner in America than in freshwater pearl Britain. One reason is that in Britain they are subject to a cost-benefit assessment. Although this approach has been demonised in America it merely makes explicit the rationing in any medical system through the decisions of insurers and funders.

And then there’s the question of overall cost. Even after a huge expansion of the NHS budget over the past decade, spending on health care in Britain amounted to 8.4% of GDP in 2007 compared with 16% in America, according to the OECD. Public spending on health care per person is actually higher in America (through Medicare, Medicaid and other government programmes).

Both health systems have their virtues and their faults. At its best, America offers extraordinarily good clinical care, but too many people lack insurance cover or fret about losing it. The NHS provides health care to all at a much lower total cost, but patients have less clout. Both countries are crying out for reforms to bring about better and cheaper care.

THE NHS is the closest thing the English have to <a href="http://wwww.iepearl.com/">pearl jewelry wholesale</a> a national religion, Nigel Lawson, a former Tory chancellor, once observed. Seldom has that tart comment seemed more apposite than in recent days, as both Gordon Brown and David Cameron leapt to the defence of the NHS following vitriolic criticism in America of Britain’s “Orwellian” health service. Some of the charges against it are absurd, but does the tax-financed NHS deserve such worship this side of the Atlantic?

Comparing the performance of health systems is tricky. For one thing, people may attach different values to crucial features such as coverage, choice, equity and the quality of clinical care. For another, people’s health reflects influences like lifestyles that have little to do with medical care. Cost must also be taken into account. The World Health Organisation attempted an evaluation in 2000, in which Britain came 18th out of 191 countries and America 37th, but the methods used to compile the ranking were heavily criticised and it has not repeated the exercise.

On the most basic metric of life expectancy at birth, Britain (79.1 years) outscores America (77.8). Longevity is admittedly a crude and indirect indicator of population health. Yet a similar story emerged from a study in 2006 that used direct measures to compare the health of middle-aged people: the Americans were sicker than the English.

Another line of inquiry is to investigate how health systems perform in tackling conditions that are treatable, comparing death-rates for such illnesses among the under-75s. Britain does not emerge well from one such ranking, compiled by Ellen Nolte and Martin McKee of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Their study, published in early 2008, placed Britain 16th among 19 advanced countries (France came first). But America came last.

On the other hand, Britain scores worse than America in five-year survival rates for cancer. High-tech diagnostic equipment is less abundant: in 2007 there were, for example, 25.9 MRI scanners per million Americans compared with 8.2 in Britain. Expensive new drugs generally become widely available sooner in America than in Britain. One reason is that in Britain they are subject to a cost-benefit assessment. Although this approach has been demonised in America it merely makes explicit the rationing in any medical system through the decisions of insurers and funders.

And then there’s the question of overall cost. Even after a huge expansion of the NHS budget over the past decade, spending on health care in Britain amounted to 8.4% of GDP in 2007 compared with 16% in America, according to the OECD. Public spending on health care per person is actually higher in America (through Medicare, Medicaid and other government programmes).

Both health systems have their virtues and their faults. At its best, America offers extraordinarily good clinical care, but too many people lack insurance cover or fret about losing it. The NHS provides health care to all at a much lower total cost, but patients have less clout. Both countries are crying out for reforms to bring about better and cheaper care.

THE NHS is the closest thing the English have to pearl jewelry a national religion, Nigel Lawson, a former Tory chancellor, once observed. Seldom has that tart comment seemed more apposite than in pearl pendant recent days, as both Gordon Brown and David Cameron leapt to the defence of the NHS following vitriolic criticism in America of Britain’s “Orwellian” health service. Some of the charges against it are absurd, but does the tax-financed NHS deserve such worship this side of pearl necklace the Atlantic?

Comparing the performance of health systems is tricky. For one thing, people may attach different values to crucial features such as coverage, choice, equity and the pearl earrings quality of clinical care. For another, people’s health reflects influences like lifestyles that have little to do with medical care. Cost must also be taken into account. The World Health Organisation attempted an evaluation in 2000, in which Britain came 18th out of 191 countries and America 37th, but the methods used to compile the ranking were heavily criticised and it has not repeated the exercise.

On the most basic metric of life expectancy at birth, Britain (79.1 years) outscores America (77.8). Longevity is admittedly a crude and indirect indicator of  population health. Yet a similar story emerged from a study in 2006 that used direct measures to compare the wholesale pearl jewelry health of middle-aged people: the Americans were sicker than the English.

- The Yemeni government Wednesday defended its efforts to playground equipment end the practice of young girls marrying, citing last week's death during childbirth of a 12-year-old Yemeni.
In a statement this week, UNICEF director Ann Veneman assailed the "deplorable" violations of children's rights.

Click to view previous image
1 of 2
Click to view next image

"Over the years, the government of Yemen has embarked on  inflatable bouncers an awareness campaign to end the practice of young marriages, which has been deeply rooted in the rural cultures of Yemen," said Mohammed Albasha, a spokesman in Washington for the Embassy of the Republic of Yemen, in a written statement.

The Yemeni parliament tried in February to pass a law that would have set the minimum marriage age at 17, but conservative parliamentarians kept it from reaching the president by arguing it violates sharia, or Islamic law, which does not stipulate a minimum age.

"Unfortunately, prior to the ratification of the amendments by the  naughty castles Honorable President Ali Abdullah Saleh, members of the conservative bloc in the Parliament have rescinded the proposed amendments to allow for further deliberations," he said. "It is anticipated that the matter will be finalized in the near future, and it is deemed an important priority of the government."

He said the Ministry of Health has sought to establish emergency labor clinics in rural villages "with the aim of reducing infant and maternity mortality."

"Child marriages violate the rights of children in the  game machines most deplorable way," Ann M. Veneman, executive director of the United Nations Children Fund, said in a statement Monday.

"The younger the girl is when she becomes pregnant, the greater the health risks for her and her baby. Girls who give birth before the age of 15 are five times more likely to die in childbirth than women in their 20s.

"When they're pushed into marriage, they are pushed into early pregnancy," UNICEF spokesman Naseem ur-Rehman said this week by phone from Yemen. "And then, in a system and environment where the health facilities [are] so poor ... this is a recipe for disaster.

"It's like pushing our children into the trap of death, knowing[ly]."

The girl, Fawziya Ammodi, struggled for three days in labor before dying Friday of bleeding, said the Seyaj Organization for the Protection of Children. Her baby also died in childbirth, according to the children's rights group.
Don't Miss

"Although the cause of her death was lack of medical care, the  leisure chairs real cause was the lack of education in Yemen and the fact that child marriages keep happening," said Seyaj President Ahmed al-Qureshi.

Born into an impoverished family in Hodeidah, Fawziya was forced to drop out of school and was married off last year to a 24-year-old man, al-Qureshi said.

Child brides are commonplace in Yemen, especially on the Red Sea coast, where tribal customs hold sway. Hodeidah is the fourth-largest city in Yemen and an important port.

More than half of Yemeni girls are married off before the age of 18 -- many times to older men, some of whom are already married, a study by Sanaa University found.

While it was not clear why Fawziya's parents married her off, reasons for such actions typically vary.

Sometimes, financially strapped parents offer up their daughters for dowries. Once married, the girls are no longer a financial or moral burden to their parents. And often, parents will extract a promise from the husband to wait until the girl is older to consummate the marriage.

The issue of Yemeni child brides came to the forefront in 2008 with Nujood Ali, then 10 years of age. She was pulled out of school and married to a man who beat and raped her within weeks of the ceremony.

To escape, Nujood hailed a taxi -- for the first time in her life -- and was taken across town to the central courthouse, where she demanded to see a judge. After a well-publicized trial, she was granted a divorce.

Posters featuring lost youth are not an unusual site in inflatable bouncer  any big city, but the ones that recently appeared on Israeli TV and on the Internet weren't what they seemed.
The poster campaign by Israeli group MASA was pulled after three days.

They were part of an advertising campaign this month by an Israeli group that pays to bring young Jews from around the world to Israel for extended visits in the hope of bolstering their Jewish identity.

The campaign by MASA, an organization funded by public and private funds, showed Jews living outside of Israel -- known as the diaspora -- as "lost" because they had married non-Jews.

The effort offended many Jews who had entered into mixed-faith marriages and didn't consider themselves "lost."

"It's a kind of blanket nullification of the diaspora and the inflatable castles  diaspora Jewry," said Ben Hartman of Israel's Ha'aretz newspaper. "I don't know if that was the intention but it just shows just how fast and loose ... Israelis can ... play with imagery." Video Watch more about the ad campaign »

The foreboding ads featured dark images with solemn music, showing posters of "lost" Jews who married outside their faith.

The head of education at the Jewish Agency, a co-sponsor of MASA, said the intentions were good even if the end product wasn't.

"There is a great fear and a concern in world Jewry about the future of the Jewish people and there is a strong belief that an intensive year spent together with young Jews, and in Israel, will help strengthen the identity of young Jews," said Alan Hoffman, who leads the group's education wing.

The backlash created by the campaign ultimately resulted in it inflatable slides  being pulled after three days.

"The PR campaign should bring the Jews of the diaspora closer and not alienate them," said Natan Sharansky, head of the Jewish Agency.

Reform Rabbi Uri Regev said MASA used scaremongering tactics when it could have taken a more positive approach.
advertisement

"The people who handled it thought they knew it all and fell victim to inflatable funland  the misconception of viewing intermarriage as the Satan; intermarriage as the biggest threat the Jewish people [are] facing," Regev said.

Critics say this campaign ultimately exposed what is sometimes seen as the disconnect between the Jews of inflatable tunnels  Israel and their counterparts around the world: the assumption that Israeli Jewish authorities are the only ones to determine what is truly Jewish