The 11th edition of the ICC Women’s World Cup has started in England. India has gotten off to a great start in the tournament, and are currently top of the table with three wins from three matches. Australia remains the other unbeaten team in the tournament, also recording three wins in three games. South Africa is also unbeaten in the tournament, but one of their games was abandoned due to no rain, and this leaves them with 5 points in three games. England occupies the final remaining semi-final spot in the table. Sri Lanka, Pakistan and West Indies are yet to open their account and occupy the final three spots in the table. The matches for the World Cup will be held are Bristol, Taunton, Derby, and Leicester, the final will be played at the home of cricket – Lord’s.

By: Sandhya D’Mello 2017 will end up on a very, very bright note and its effect will spill over in 2018 as women cohorts in the UAE join hands to incubate every startup holding potential to be a success in the UAE. Khaleej Times picked popular names to check the pulse of the market. Leading women angels like Elissa Freiha, angel investor and founder of Womena; Sonia Weymuller, founding partner, VentureSouq; Maria Pearson, CEO, grow.me; and a very ambitious Genny Ghanimeh, founder, and CEO of Pi Slice & Mind Cloud Academy believe in being the game changers. An Arabnet and Dubai SME research report indicates that at the end of 2016, women represented 14 per cent of all founders of investor-backed businesses in Mena. This figure will soar in coming years. Gender distribution among startup founders has been relatively stable over the years ranging from 10…

A Chinese woman fainted in a jewellery shop after accidentally breaking a jade bracelet priced at $44,000 (£35,000). The tourist from eastern Jiangxi province was trying on the bracelet in a shop in Ruili in Yunnan province near the border with Myanmar, where much of the jade in China is from. When she was told the bracelet’s price she quickly took it off but in her haste dropped it, state media reported. No agreement over compensation for the shop has yet been reached. Shop staff attempted to calm the woman after the breakage, but she turned pale, began sweating and eventually fainted, a report on news website 163.com quoted the shop owner’s son as saying. She came round after other customers who had rushed to help pinched her under her nose, the People’s Daily reported. Shop staff then told the woman she could pay $25,000 to resolve the matter,…

By Caroline Spiezio A Canadian captain made history Monday by becoming the first female infantry officer to lead the Changing of the Guard ceremony at Buckingham Palace in London. Megan Couto led her unit —the Second Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry or “The Patricia’s” — in the ceremony, an event witnessed by thousands of tourists annually. “I’m just focusing on doing my job as best I can and staying humble,” said Couto, 24. “Any of my peers would be absolutely delighted to be captain of the queen’s guard and I’m equally honored.” The unit was invited to Britain to mark the 150th anniversary of Canada’s confederation. The role of Mounting the Queen’s Guard usually falls to the British Army’s Household Division, which is part of the male-dominated infantry division. “While Captain Megan Couto of Second Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry is the first female infantry officer to undertake…

Ferry Biedermann The field of high-tech and venture capital investment is known worldwide for its low percentage of women in senior roles. In Israel, with its leading position in some high-tech fields and its Startup Nation ambition, dozens of new initiatives have sprung up over the last couple of years to encourage women entrepreneurs in startups. But funding is key, say many. When VC (venture capital) crowdfunding company OurCrowd last week launched a new initiative to link some of the largest companies in the world more closely to Israeli startups, it was led by its business development partner Laly David. She’s fully involved in investment decisions, a rarity for a woman in Israel, as it is in the international world of venture capital. David calls the lack of women in VC and high-tech a “painful subject”. In a telephone interview with CNBC, she says it’s something that OurCrowd and she…

By Olayemi John-Mensah In commemorating the 2017 United Nations International Widows’ Day (IWD), the Women Federation for World Peace (WFWP), Nigeria, has recommended that programmes and policies be put in place to end violence against widows and their children. Celebrating the 2017 Widows’ Day on Friday in Abuja with some women from various communities in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), the National President of WFWP, Gbemisola Olorunfunmi, said the day was set aside to commemorate with women who lost their husbands. “We recommend that poverty alleviation, education and other support services to widows of all ages be undertaken, including the context of the action plan to accelerate the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals,” she said. Olorunfunmi said they discovered that women suffer a lot when they lost their husbands in this part of the world, stressing that some cultures and traditional practices were not favourable to women. “Family members…

In the second round of legislative elections recently, 223 women were elected to France’s lower house. With 38.65% of seats in the National Assembly, the election marks a new record for female representation in the French parliament. Women now hold 223 seats in the 577-seat National Assembly, a significant increase over the previous legislature’s 155, which also set a record at the time. These are notable advances since the 33 pioneering female lawmakers of 1945, but they still fall short of true equality in representation. The marked increase can be explained in part by the success of President Emmanuel Macron’s year-old La République en Marche (Republic on the move or LREM) party, 47% of whose parliamentarians are now women. But LREM is closely followed by the Democratic Movement party (46%), France Insoumise (41%) and the Socialist Party (38%) in terms of its female representation. Women account for 25% of…