Iranian sports authorities say they have banned five female billiards players from competing for a year for allegedly violating Islamic codes of conduct during a tournament in China. The Iranian Billiards and Bowling Federation did not reveal the specific allegations, saying only that they would be announced at a later date. “The female players who attended the China Open will be banned from participating in all domestic and international competitions for one year due to violations of Islamic principles,” the federation’s disciplinary committee said in a statement on March 30. Iranian women are permitted to participate in a number of international sporting events, but must respect strict rules regarding Islamic dress at all times. Iran enforces a dress code that requires women to cover their hair with the Islamic head scarf, or hijab, and enforces the measure through periodic crackdowns. Female officials, athletes, and other national representatives are also required…

Stunned witnesses in Peru took out their cellphone cameras as a woman escaped a mudslide that swept her into a swamp of debris, trash, and farm animals. Intense rains and mudslides over the past three days have killed at least 62 people around the Andean nation. Some 12,000 homes have been destroyed. Evangelina Chamorro, 32, had just dropped her two daughters at school and was feeding her pigs with her husband when they were pulled into a landslide. Armando Rivera, Chamorro’s husband, told RPP radio they climbed a tree but the trunk broke. They held on to each other’s hands but Chamorro eventually lost his grip and got separated. She emerged near a bridge, lifting herself from a current of wooden planks and walking toward the shore covered head to toe in mud. “There’s a person there!” an onlooker cried out. Chamorro collapsed as she reached land and was quickly…

By: Zee Media Bureau Latest figures of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4) for 2015-16 indicate that obesity may be the next major health challenge in India. According to the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4), one-fifth of Indian women, or 20.7 per cent to be precise, in the age group of 15-49 are overweight. The country’s most apprehensive health survey also shows that 31.3 percent or almost a third of urban women obese, while 15 per cent of rural women are overweight. What is shocking is that the overall obesity figure of 20.7 for women is a quantum jump from 12.6 from 2005-06 when the last NFHS was conducted. It is nearly a 60% jump. Overall, 20.7 per cent women in the country were found to be overweight or obese during NFHS-4 in comparison to 12.6 per cent during the NFHS-3 – a jump of nearly 60 per cent. The…

The Japanese golf club at the centre of a sexism row has bowed to pressure from Olympic officials and will overturn restrictions on female membership. The Kasumigaseki country club, north-west of Tokyo, was threatened with the loss of its status as a 2020 Olympics venue if it failed to grant women full membership rights. Under its existing rules, women were prohibited from playing on Sundays. The private club in Saitama prefecture held three briefings for its members before it decided to fully admit women, which required unanimous approval from the board, made up of 15 men. The president of the Tokyo 2020 organising committee, Yoshirō Mori, praised the club, founded in 1929, for voting to uphold the spirit of the Olympic charter of non-discrimination. “I’d like to extend my gratitude to the members of the club for their understanding and cooperation,” he said in a statement recently. Before the decision,…

By Judie Kaberia Political parties and the Centre for Multi-party Democracy (CMD) have recently resolved to implement the two thirds gender rule to promote representation of women in political leadership after attempts to enforce it in Parliament flopped. CMD Chairman James Magara said the institution will monitor political parties to ensure they expose those who do not abide by the commitment they made. “Some of us actually play to the gallery. We do not practice what we preach. But the commitment signed here today, I want to assure these members here (political party) mean business and they have appended their signatures in broad daylight; we can bring them to account,” he explained. Magara explained it will be tested by the results of the August General Election. Part of the agreement signed on Tuesday requires parties to nominate not less than 30 percent of women candidates to participate in the August…

Politicians on the right have welcomed a ruling by the EU’s highest court that allows companies to ban staff from wearing visible religious symbols, as a long-awaited legal judgment ricocheted into the French and Dutch election campaigns. In its first decision on the issue of women wearing Islamic headscarves at work, the European court of justice in Luxembourg ruled that garments could be banned, but only as part of a general policy barring all religious and political symbols. Nor can customers simply demand workers remove headscarves if the company has no policy barring religious symbols, the court ruled on Tuesday. The long-awaited ruling came on the eve of Dutch elections, where Muslim immigration has been a contentious issue. In France, where the race to succeed President François Hollande remains wide open, politicians on the right seized on the issue. François Fillon, the presidential candidate who has taken a hardline stance…

Saudi Arabia recently launched its first ever girls’ council meeting with no women in sight. Pictures released to mark the first Qassim Girls Council meeting showed 13 men on stage, and not a single woman. According to the BBC the women were in another room, linked by video. The launch of the initiative was led by Prince Faisal bin Mishal bin Saud, Governor of al-Qassim province, who said he was proud of the conference which was the first of its kind in the kingdom. “In the Qassim region, we look at women as sisters to men, and we feel a responsibility to open up more and more opportunities that will serve the work of women and girls,” he is reported to have said. The girls’ council is chaired by Princess Abir bint Salman, Prince Faisal’s wife. In Saudi Arabia, a state policy of gender segregation is rigorously enforced between unrelated…