Elections

Lebanon is campaigning to get at least five times more women elected to Parliament this spring in its first vote in nearly 10 years, the country’s first women’s affairs minister says. It is a daunting task for a Middle Eastern country that may otherwise look like one of the most liberal in the region.

Justice Paula-Mae Weekes has been elected president of island nation Trinidad and Tobago. This makes her the first woman to lead the twin sovereign island in the southernmost part of the Caribbean.

She was nominated by the government and endorsed by the country’s opposition leader, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, to serve as the country’s next head of state.

EAST LANSING, Mich. — At a time when nearly every aspect of politics feels suffused by issues involving gender, the leading Democratic contender for Michigan governor makes a point of rarely mentioning hers.

“I talk about jobs,” former state Senate minority leader Gretchen Whitmer says. “I talk about education. I talk about making government work for people. That’s really the dinner-table issues that I hear from Michiganders in every part of our state.”

SANTIAGO (Reuters) - When Chile’s President Michelle Bachelet leaves office in March, it will mark the end of a generation of women leaders in Latin America, leaving the region without a female head of state as it shifts to the right politically.

At the start of this decade, women held the top jobs in Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica and Chile, collectively representing about 40 percent of the population in a region better known for its machismo.

Iceland chose its second woman prime minister, Katrin Jakobsdottir of the Left-Green Movement on Thursday.

Described as "charismatic" and "trustworthy", the 41-year old will now have to lead a tricky coalition in a fragmented political landscape, the leader also announced a pact to form a three-party coalition with the conservative Independence Party and the center-right Progressive Party.