By: Rebecca Rosman Male dominance in Kenyan politics is receiving a shake-up with several women set to win governor positions in the August elections. Female politicians are poised to make history in Kenya’s upcoming August elections. A handful of women have made it to the gubernatorial ballot — and a win will mark the first time women have held Kenya’s powerful governor positions. For years, women have struggled for equal political representation in Kenya, which has East Africa’s lowest rate of women in parliament at only 19 percent. They often lack the political clout and money to run a campaign, but they also struggle to mobilise support given how politicians campaign in Kenya. “They tend to push women out because they are not able to rely on the same structures…to mobilise violence to mobilise support,’ Nanjala Nyabola, a political analyst based in Nairobi told RFI. “That’s not to say that…

German Chancellor Angela Merkel recently invited King Salman to attend the G20 summit in Germany after holding wide-ranging consultations on the agenda of the summit in Jeddah. Chancellor Merkel also renewed invitation to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Naif, Deputy Premier and minister of interior, to visit Germany. “King Salman was formally invited by the chancellor to attend the G20 summit,” said German Ambassador Dieter W. Haller. In a separate development, Merkel recently attended a meeting of Saudi businesswomen in Jeddah. Merkel acknowledged there have been “significant changes in the role of women” since her last visit in 2010. She cited the historic first-time participation of women in Saudi Arabia’s elections for local municipal council seats in 2015. “I have the impression that the country is in a phase of change and that a lot more is possible now than some years ago,” Merkel added. Ambassador Haller said the German chancellor…

Village elders in the India’s Uttar Pradesh have prohibited women and girls from using mobile phones outside their homes, imposing a hefty fine on violators. The ruling is meant to prevent women from eloping or even interacting with men. The elders’ council or khap pranchayat of a predominantly Muslim village, Madora, have set the fine as large as 21,000 rupees (around $330) on those who break the ruling. Local police Chief Arun Kumar Singh has described the order, declared on Tuesday, as being “against the constitution.” “We do support their measures against illegal activities, but won’t allow them to curb the freedom of women,” Singh told AFP. The former village headman, Mohammed Goffar, who came up with the order, claims the mobile phones encourage women to elope. “Every week, there is a story about young boys running away with girls. In some cases, the elopement leads to violence. So…

By Ballah M. Kollie The Executive Director of Community Healthcare, Naomi Solanke, has cautioned that women will only support aspirants who will champion their cause and concerns in their political manifestoes. “If our agenda is not inclusive in terms of what we support at the grassroots levels of women, we are not going to carry you,” she stressed. She sounded the caution at the start of a three-day Feminist Agenda Setting meeting funded by Urgent Action Fund Africa held at a local hotel in Monrovia. Solanke said she expects that after the workshop participants will return to their respective communities and sensitize other women on the matter. According to her, women will continue to push local actors and make them knowledgeable of the need to continuously protect women, even after the presidential tenure of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. “She has played her part and is about to leave; so the…

A Chinese court has convicted American businesswoman Sandy Phan-Gillis for spying and ordered her deportation. Phan-Gillis was sentenced to three and a half years in prison by a court in Nanning, but it is unclear if she will have to serve the time. She was arrested in March 2015 while travelling with a business delegation from Texas through mainland China. She has already spent more than two years in detention and her family has consistently maintained her innocence. Phan-Gillis, who has Chinese origins but was born in Vietnam, was accused of espionage and stealing state secrets, according to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. Her lawyer, Shang Baojun, told the AFP news agency that he expected she would be “deported very soon”, which would mean she would not have to serve the sentence. The 57-year-old business consultant, who lives with her family in Houston, Texas, was in “okay” condition,…

Saudi Arabia, a country where women are not allowed to drive cars, has been elected to the United Nations women’s rights commission, sparking anger. The kingdom was elected recently by secret ballot to a four-year term on the Commission on the Status of Women and will join 45 other countries on the panel, a UN press statement said. The commission’s role has been to “promote shaping global standards on gender equality and the empowerment of women”. Algeria and Iraq were also elected to join the commission along with ten other countries. Under the kingdom’s conservative interpretation of Islamic law, women face many restrictions in work and travel. UN Watch, a monitoring group, has harshly criticized the UN for allowing Saudi Arabia onto the commission. “Electing Saudi Arabia to protect women’s rights is like making an arsonist into the town fire chief,” said Hillel Neuer, Executive director of the watchdog. “It’s…

Born at the turn of the past century, Maria Félix is old enough to remember the Mexican Revolution – but too old to get the bank card needed to collect her monthly 1,200 pesos ($63) welfare payment. Félix turns 117 in July, according to her birth certificate, which local authorities recognise as authentic. That would put her in the ranks of the world’s oldest living people. She went three months without state support for poor elderly Mexicans after she was turned away from a branch of Citibanamex in the city of Guadalajara for being too old, said Miguel Castro, Development Secretary for the state of Jalisco. Welfare beneficiaries now need individual bank accounts because of new transparency rules, Castro said. “They told me the limit was 110 years,” Félix said with a smile in the plant-filled courtyard of her small house in Guadalajara. Félix, who sells candies from a stand…