Saturday, December 17, 2011

Women's Views on News

Women's Views on News

Europe debt crisis ‘escalating’ says IMF head

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Summary of story from Bloomberg Business Week, December 16, 2011 Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, claims that the European debt crisis will soon be too great to be solved by one group of countries. Lagarde insists that countries need to work together in order to prevent the situation escalating to [...]

Expert urges greater efforts to tackle Somalian violence against women

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Summary of story from UN News Centre, December 16, 2011 An independent UN human rights expert is calling for a greater effort to improve the quality of life for women in Somalia. Rashida Manjoo, the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, pointed out that despite the Government's "tentative efforts to address the issues" thousands of [...]

Nobel Prize winner urges UK to freeze assets of Yemeni president

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Summary of story from Channel 4 News, December 15, 2011 Tawakkul Karman, one of three women awarded the Nobel Peace Prize this year, has called on the UK government to freeze the assets of Ali Abdullah Saleh, president of Yemen. Karman met with British Foreign Secretary William Hague to discuss the matter, making it clear [...]

Hillary Clinton invites more women to be leaders

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Summary of story from Bloomberg, December 16, 2011 Hillary Clinton has initiated a 'Women in Public Service Project' through which she aims to increase the number of women in leadership. As part of the project, 40 women from the Middle East and North Africa will be trained in public speaking, coalition building, networking and mentorship [...]

UN official calls for end to sexual violence in Africa’s Great Lakes region

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Summary of story from UN News Center, December 15, 2011 UN Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro yesterday urged heads of state and government to end the scourge of sexual violence in Africa’s Great Lakes region. Speaking at the Fourth Ordinary Summit of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, [...]

Unpublished Bronte’s manuscript sets sales record

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Summary of story from Salon.com, December 15, 2011 London auction house, Sotheby’s, has sold an unpublished Charlotte Bronte manuscript for a record 690,850 pounds ($1.1 million) at auction, more than double the price expected. The Young Men's Magazine, Number 2, was written in 1830 when the author was 14. It is set in Glass Town, the [...]

Husband cuts off wife’s fingers to stop her studying for degree

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Summary of story from The Sydney Morning Herald, December 16, 2011 Bangladesh police say an immigrant from the United Arab Emirates cut off his wife's fingers after he found out that she was studying for a degree without his permission. Rafiqul Islam tied up his 21-year-old wife, taped her mouth and then cut off the [...]

UN’s top official urges countries to stop execution of gay people

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Summary of story from Daily News, December 16, 2011 Days after the US government said it would use foreign aid and diplomacy to promote gay equal rights, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay urged countries to abolish legal discrimination against gays, including the death penalty for consensual sex. She said governments should also [...]

South African woman executed in China on drug trafficking charges

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Summary of story from IOL news, December 12, 2011 South African woman, Janice Bronwyn Linden, was executed by lethal injection in China last week, after her arrest and sentencing for drug smuggling in 2009. Chinese authorities refused the requests of the South African Government's International Relations and Cooperation Department to change the sentence from the [...]

Turkish business woman says gender equality is “smart economics”

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Summary of story from Hurriyetdailynews.com, December 16, 2011 Nur Ger, a top Turkish businesswoman and the head of the gender equality working group of Turkish Industry & Business Association (TÜSİAD) says "pursuing gender equality is smart economics." With Turkey still lagging behind the world average for women in the workforce, a recent report from the [...]

The Guardian’s women of the year 2011

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Rosy Moorhead WVoN features editor  Today the UK newspaper, the Guardian, published its women of 2011 list, celebrating women fighting injustice and great achievement. The list includes the all-female trio of Nobel Peace Prize winners, political high-fliers and stars of stage and sport. What do you think of the shortlist? Which of these worthy women stand [...]

Brazilian women more ambitious than US counterparts

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Summary of story from Bloomberg, December 15, 2011 Brazilian women are more ambitious than their US counterparts and aim to attain top jobs, a report by the Centre for Work-Life Policy shows. At least 80 per cent of college-educated Brazilian women aspire to top-level positions, compared with 52 percent in the U.S., and 59 per [...]

Bahrain blogger detained in protest

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Summary of story from BBC News, December 16, 2011 Police in Bahrain have detained prominent blogger and rights activist Zainab al-Khawaja during a protest near the capital Manama, reports say. Security forces fired tear gas and stun grenades to disperse hundreds of anti-government protesters trying to block a main road, according to witnesses. The Gulf kingdom’s Shia [...]

Goa battles rise in prostitution

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Summary of story from Dawn.com, December 15, 2011 The Indian state of Goa has experienced a surge of prostitution, fuelled by the area’s tourism industry. Earlier this month, police rescued 14 women and girls from a bar in Calangute in the north of the state. Nine people were arrested on sex trafficking charges. The long [...]

Malawi’s religious leaders oppose abortion reform

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Summary of story from Nyasa Times, December 15, 2011 Religious leaders in Malawi are continuing to oppose abortion reform. Women's rights activists are asking the government to liberalise abortion laws, as it is only available when a woman's life is in danger. But campaigners argue that more women's lives are lost due to complications from unsafe abortions, [...]

Turkey shocked by several incidents of violence against women this week

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Summary of story from Today’s Zaman, December 15, 2011 Turkey has been shaken by numerous gender-violence incidents across the country this week. In Zonguldak, a man killed his former girlfriend because she rejected him. Twenty four year old Sibel Y and members of her family were at a courthouse attending an initial hearing against Anıl T, [...]

Woman wins seat for Labour in UK by-election

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Summary of story from BBC News, December 16, 2011 Labour has held the seat of Feltham and Heston in a UK by-election with an increased majority. Winning candidate Seema Malhotra secured victory with a majority of 6,203 over the Conservatives, a swing of 8.6 per cent. The Liberal Democrats held on to third place with [...]

City in Western China wants to banish Muslim veil

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Summary of story from Reuters, December 15, 2011 The Xinjiang city of Yining, in Western China, has begun a campaign to discourage women from wearing veils and  men from growing long beards in an attempt to “dilute religious consciousness.” A notice was posted on the Yining Government website, but was later removed following media attention. The [...]

Call to protect police abduction victim in Pakistan

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Rachel Salmon WVoN co-editor  A human rights organisation is calling on the Pakistani authorities to protect a 16-year-old girl, who was abducted by police and held hostage for nearly a year, after her brother was shot dead outside a police station. Equality Now, which campaigns against violence and inequality against women, has taken up the [...]

European Parliament supports new International Day of the Girl

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Summary of story from New Europe, December 15, 2011 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have signed a written declaration in support of an International Day of the Girl. The declaration was submitted by the Vice Chairwoman of the Women’s Rights and Gender Equality Committee, Edite Estrela, together with fellow MEPs Véronique Mathieu, Jean Lambert, [...]

Women stuck on American corporate ladder

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Hannah Boast WVoN co-editor A census by the research group, Catalyst, has shown that women in America have not made any progress up the corporate ladder in the last six years. The 2011 Catalyst Census: Fortune 500 Women Board Directors, Executive Officers and Top Earners discloses some disappointing – but all too familiar – facts [...]