Asia and the Pacific

Amidst growing call from lawmakers to strip US aid to the country, Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar will arrive on Tuesday to hold a series of meetings with top US officials including the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

During the Washington-leg of her visit (September 18 to 22), the Foreign Minister is expected to meet the National Security Advisor Tom Donilon and US Trade Representatives Ron Kirk besides addressing Council on Foreign Relations, an eminent Washington-based think tank.

The issues of empowerment and protection of women need to be given greater prominence in light of the high number of women living in poverty, a conference of parliamentarians from across Southeast Asia heard on Monday.

“Today, women account for 70 percent of the 1.3 billion people worldwide still living in poverty,” said Marzuki Alie, president of the Asean Inter-Parliamentary Assembly (AIPA).

“Indeed, literacy among girls and women is lower than among males, and there continue to be violations of their civil and human rights.”

When Mamata Banerjee, a 5-foot-tall dynamo in flip-flops, finally defeated the Communists last year after decades of misrule here, she became one of the most powerful but unpredictable politicians in India. Now the country is left to guess whether she will announce on Tuesday that she intends to try to pull down India’s governing coalition.

A number of community organisations in Solomon Islands met with Government officials this week to try and advance their plans to have more women in Parliament.

There has been a unsuccessful push going back several years for reserved seats for women but this has taken on more urgency with a recent report saying Solomon Islands will not achieve any of the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.

Gender equality is one of the 8 goals and Solomon Islands has just one woman MP and has had just one other in 34 years since independence.

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Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar on Wednesday called for "concerted efforts" to guarantee women's say in decision-making and governance, and said it should be incumbent on political parties to ensure at least 30 per cent representation for them in parliaments.

Speaking on the topic "Engaging Political Parties to Improve Gender-responsive Governance" at the 58th Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference here, Kumar said that gender equality and women's empowerment are not only human rights issues but are also pre-requisites for achieving inclusive and sustainable growth.

A medical doctor has become the first woman appointed as a full Cabinet minister in Myanmar.

President Thein Sein said on his website that Myat Myat Ohn Khin has been named minister of social welfare, relief and resettlement. She is among 11 new ministers appointed to fill posts vacated in a major Cabinet reshuffling last month.

Read more at First Post, published 7 September 2012.

The 2012 elections in American Samoa will include the highest number of female candidates in the Territory’s history.

60 candidates are vying for the 20 House of Representatives seats.

And 10 of them are women, including former lawmaker Fiasili Haleck, veteran educator Dr Trudie Iuli Sala and well known business woman, Florence Saulo.

WOMEN in the Western Division have been encouraged to become more involved in the electoral process as the country prepares for the 2014 elections.

Opening a workshop in Lautoka yesterday, Commissioner Western Commander Joeli Cawaki highlighted the importance of women's participation in Fiji's road to democracy.

"Most women in the Western Division are generally not aware of the significance of their participation in the electoral process and to realise that they can contribute meaningfully towards the political development of our country," said Cdr Cawaki.