Campaigns

Wai Wai Nu is a diminutive 27-year-old with pro-democracy activism in her genes and a quarter of her young life spent behind bars.

The former political prisoner is now working to end the persecution faced by her people, the stateless Rohingya Muslims in western Myanmar.

The mistreatment she and her family have suffered is just one example among many of abuse aimed at the Rohingya, a minority of around 1.33 million living mainly in Rakhine State. Most are denied citizenship despite having lived in Myanmar for generations.

The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women has launched a report and training manual for building the capacity of stakeholders on Affirmative Action in the country.

The manual titled: "Sociocultural Determinants of Voting Patterns in Nigeria - Reference to Women's Participation and Representation," was expected to serve as guide towards ensuring increased participation of women in the political process.

Photo-AFP

Some accused it of being predictable and even boring - a presidential election in which the incumbent was all but guaranteed of being re-elected without, perhaps, even the need for a second round of voting.

But then tragedy intervened and changed everything.

We simply do not know what kind of president Eduardo Campos, the presidential candidate for Brazil's Socialist Party who was killed in a plane crash last week, would have been.

The top candidates for Toronto’s mayoral race and where they stand on key issues are well known, but the odds are that few people know who is running for city council in their ward.

A non-partisan group of approximately 15 youth is looking to change this lack of knowledge among Toronto voters. Most of them are under 35 years old and call themselves Women in Toronto Politics or WiTOpoli for short.

With just 99 days to go until election day in November, political parties and candidates are all hard at work, looking for votes.

Democrats want to make sure they get as many women's votes as they can. So they brought national Democratic Party Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Florida) to Maine for a fundraiser on Monday. She also joined First District Rep. Chellie Pingree and Second District Congressional candidate Emily Cain at a pre-lunch rally.