World News

BEIJING – The Communist Party congress has laid bare the striking gender imbalance in the upper echelons of Chinese politics, with not a single woman making the 24-person Politburo for the first time in at least a quarter of a century.

As Xi Jinping and his allies concentrated power over the weekend, the party’s highest-ranking woman leader retired.

More women parliamentarians can play a major role in addressing global security conflicts, Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) president, Duarte Pacheco, has said.

Speaking Monday October 11, at a press conference on the side-lines of the ongoing IPU’s 145th assembly taking place in Kigali, Pacheco said gender-equal parliaments have the power to influence decisions that can prevent wars.

Polls predict that an independent candidate supported by the Pirates and Greens is likely to win the run-off against right-wing and ruling party-backed hopefuls to become Slovenia’s first female president.

Slovenia is heading to the polls to elect a new President on Sunday, with incumbent Borut Pahor not running due to term limits.

First-time candidates vie with incumbents for 52 seats after government dissolved ‘Red Roof’ parliament to ward off no-confidence vote.

After a short and sharp 10-day campaign, voters in Vanuatu will on Thursday cast their ballots in a snap election to determine its 52-seat parliament.

Lebanese women are still excluded from the main decision-making positions in Lebanon, such as the presidency of the Republic, premiership and parliament speaker, despite their prominent presence in the human rights and diplomatic fields, and in international forums. There has also been improvement in female representation in the Lebanese Parliament in the last elections that took place in May 2022, with 8 women winning seats, in the best representation of women nominated and reaching the Parliament in the history of the country.

ASTANA – Human rights activist Saltanat Tursynbekova was nominated to run for the presidency by Qazaq analary – dasturge zhol (Kazakh mothers are a path to traditions) public association on Oct. 11, reported the association’s press services.

Saltanat Tursynbekova is a member of the Public Council of Astana and founder of the Kazakhstan without domestic violence social project. She is a human rights activist, who focuses on women’s and children’s rights. 

DUBAI, Oct 12 (Reuters) - Like millions of other Iranian women, retired teacher Somayyeh has been repressed by the country's hardline Islamic laws for decades but was too frightened to stand up to ruling clerics - until Mahsa Amini's death in morality police custody last month.

KIGALI, Oct. 12 (Xinhua) -- Female Members of Parliament under the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) vowed to prioritize the empowerment of girls in societies.

"We have a responsibility to ensure that the empowerment of girls is a top priority and that their basic rights are protected and fulfilled to ensure the gender-equal future of our societies," said Esperance Nyirasafari, president of the Forum of Women Parliamentarians.

Almost all political parties have an extremely lower ratio of women to men candidates fielded under the first-past-the-post category in the upcoming elections.

Kathmandu: The preliminary data released by the Election Commission, the country’s election management body, shows that few women are contesting in the upcoming parliamentary elections in Nepal.