Mireya Elisa Moscoso, widow of three-time president Arnulfo Arias, was elected Panama’s first woman president on Sunday. Moscoso had previously run for the presidency in 1994, when she finished second. Moscoso’s first priorities are to end the widespread poverty and joblessness that plague Panama. She has also pledged to fight government corruption and nepotism and […]
As a result of a 1993 constitutional amendment that set aside 1/3 of all panchayat seats and village chiefs’ positions for women, almost 1 million women have now been elected to village governing boards. Some of these women come from the country’s lowest castes, causing an uproar among the country’s upper-caste Brahmins. A government-funded study […]
A report issued by the international child assistance organization asserts that children’s lives can best be saved by supporting policies and programs that improve the lives of their mothers and elevate women’s status in society. The report, entitled “State of the World’s Mothers,” stresses the importance of health care, education, economic opportunity, food security, and […]
The First Baptist Church of Greenville, one of the founders of the Southern Baptist Convention in 1845, voted 500-47 to defect from the denomination. The convention’s declaration that women should “submit graciously” to their husbands caused a struggle within the Greenville church, adding to years of frustration that had already caused the church to stop […]
Twenty-two-year-old engineer David Copeland has been charged with killing three people and wounding 115 in a series of bombings that targeted minorities and gays in London. The first bomb exploded on April 17 in the Brixton area of south London, which has a large Afro-Caribbean community. Thirty-nine people were injured in the Brixton blast. The […]
Energy ministers for Turkmenistan, Pakistan, and for Afghanistan’s Taliban regime have signed a joint declaration pledging their resolve to expedite construction of a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to Pakistan. CENTGAS, a consortium of energy companies that began negotiating the pipeline project with the Taliban in 1997 delivered a report to the governmental leaders […]
Kerry Madden Lunsford has filed suit against Border Group, the parent company of the Borders bookstore chain. Lunsford alleges that she was “mortified” and felt “ashamed and humiliated” after a bookstore clerk asked her to stop breast-feeding her 8-week-old baby in a Glendale, California store. After receiving a complaint from another customer, the clerk allegedly […]
The American Heart Association (AHA), the American College of Cardiology (ACC), the American Medical Women’s Association, the American College of Nurse Practitioners, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the Canadian Cardiovascular Society have together issued new guidelines for preventing heart disease in women. The guidelines will be printed this Friday in the Journal […]
Montana Governor Marc Racicot has signed a ban on certain surgical abortion procedures in the state. Violators of the ban could face up to 10 years imprisonment, a $50,000 fine, and could have their medical licenses permanently revoked. A previous ban enacted 2 years ago was found to be unconstitutional and struck down last June […]
The United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) issued a press release today urging members of Congress to pass the “Made in the U.S.A. Label Defense Act of 1999 (HR 1621). The measure is meant to prevent large corporations for using the labels to mislead consumers. For example, a number of large corporations hold factories […]
Negotiators for the WNBA and its players successfully negotiated a four-year contract in the league’s first collective bargaining agreement. WNBA President Val Ackerman commented on the agreement, saying, “This is a milestone for our league to have its first collective bargaining, the first of its kind in women’s team sports. It speaks volumes [on] how […]
A recent study on the effectiveness of condoms reveals that latex condoms are less likely than those made of polyurethane to slip or break during use and may more effectively prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. However latex condoms were also found to be slightly less effective than polyurethane in preventing pregnancy. Researchers at […]
The Taliban’s minister for mines and industries began meetings with Pakistani officials yesterday to strategize how they might speed up construction of a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan via Afghanistan. Such a pipeline would carry about 20 billion cubic meters of gas each year and could generate hundreds of millions of dollars for the […]
First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton harshly criticized the Taliban’s abuse of women in girls in a speech she gave yesterday at a Capitol Hill luncheon sponsored by Physicians for Human Rights to honor Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA). Clinton praised Feinstein’s efforts to raise awareness of Afghan women’s plight and said, “When women are savagely beaten […]
A fundamentalist Islamic militia group known as the Laksher-e-Toiba or “Contingents of the Pious” has threatened to mutilate and murder women who wear close-fitting clothing in the Indian state of Kashmir. In a diktat (decree) issued as part of a news release, members of the Lasksher-e-Toiba gave Kashmir women one week to comply. It further […]
Jazz composer and trombone play Melba Liston died last Friday at age 73. Liston is famed as the first woman musician in the “big bands.” Liston’s long and accomplished career included collaborations with musical giants including Dizzy Gillespie, Billie Holiday, and Quincy Jones. Liston toured several continents with several performance groups and recorded several albums […]
A recent National Center for Health Statistics Study indicates that the rate at U.S. women gave birth in 1997 was the lowest ever since the government began recording this information in 1909. The birth rate among girls ages 15 to 19 dropped sixteen percent from 1991 to 1997, when only 14.5 of every 1,000 women […]
Afghan women pleaded for help and attention to their suffering in a protest led by the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) at U.N. offices in Pakistan. In a one-page letter, RAWA criticized the U.N.’s efforts to form a joint government between the Taliban and Northern Alliance. Explaining that the Taliban’s northern opposition […]
Taliban health minister Mulla Mohammad Abbas Akhund has signed a protocol that will allow women to work with the Swiss-based foreign aid organization, Terre Des Hommes (TDH). The agreement will let up to fifty Afghan women work with the TDH in reducing child mortality rates and improving infant health care. “Women will be back working […]
Kathleen V. Williamsen has charged Elmont Memorial School with denying her tenure because she got pregnant. A group of more than 200 students and teachers protested on behalf of Williamsen and others, charging that pregnancy discrimination is rampant at the school. Williamsen claims that she received excellent performance reviews until she told her principal, Diane […]
