Boko Haram Abducts 60 Women in Adamawa
New Age Islam News Bureau
23
Oct 2014
A student from the SM School uses ice axes to climb a slope on a glacier in the northern Hunza valley. PHOTO: AFP
• Four Saudi Women among 5 Jailed For Terror Links
• Woman Arrested In UK on Terrorism Charges
• High in Pakistan's Mountains, Women Break Taboos
• In Iran, Lavish Divorce Parties on the Rise
Man in Pakistan Guns down Wife, Infant for ‘Honour’
• Sindh Govt Endorses Mol’s Proposals for Women
Empowerment Package
• More Women Cops Need of the Hour: Pak Ex-Secy
• Buses Featuring Women of the Wall Posters Vandalised
By Haredi Extremists
• No Celebrations for Malala’s Nobel in Pakistan For
fear Of Taliban
• All Female e-Mail at BHP Shows Mine Shift from Boys’
Club
Compiled by New
Age Islam News Bureau
---------------
Boko Haram Abducts 60 Women in Adamawa
23 Oct 2014
Tobi Soniyi, Muhammad Bello in Abuja, Michael Olugbode
in Maiduguri and Daji Sani in Yola
Despite the ceasefire declaration and efforts by the
federal government to negotiate the release of over 200 Chibok schoolgirls who
were abducted by Boko Haram in April, about 60 women were reportedly kidnapped
by the terror sect from Waga Mangoro and Garta villages in Madagali Local
Government Area of Adamawa State following renewed attacks unleashed by the
insurgents.
However, as news broke about the most recent
abductions in the North-east, the House of Representatives on Wednesday
approved the $1 billion loan request made by President Goodluck Jonathan for
the procurement of military hardware to end the insurgency.
Whilst 40 women were said to have been abducted from
Waga Mangoro, 20 were forcibly uprooted from their homes in Garta.
Locals in the affected areas, who escaped during the
attacks, confirmed the kidnapping to THISDAY on the phone, saying hundreds of
insurgents overran the area on motorcycles and in vans during a rampage on
Saturday.
They said in the course of the attacks, the insurgents
burnt houses and abducted young women.
One of the locals in Garta, Tizhe Kwada, who escaped
by a whisker, said the onslaught on his community was still ongoing yesterday,
forcing many residents to flee the area which has been under Boko Haram siege
for almost two months.
Kwada said the insurgents cordoned off houses in Garta
in search of young women and took them in their vans to an unknown destination.
“The insurgents are still in the area. They slit the
throats of three men in Garta and abducted many young women. We also heard from
residents of Waga that they killed two men and took 40 women away,” he stated.
Similarly, a community leader from Michika, Emmanuel
Kwache, confirmed the incident to journalists in Yola, saying he got the
information from villagers in the area that the attack on Garta was still in
progress.
When contacted, the Chairman of Madagali Local
Government Area, James Watharda, said he had been in Yola since the insurgents
took over his council and could not speak on the matter.
However, other sources revealed that the insurgents
invaded the villages last Saturday and that several of the residents had fled to
other communities including Yola, the state capital, which is about 88
kilometres from Madagali.
Ahmadu, a resident in Waga Mangoro, also confirmed
that the insurgents invaded his community, which borders Gwoza in Borno State.
He said the insurgents used the abducted ladies as human shields during
reprisals by Nigerian troops.
Ahmadu added that the attackers carted away food
items, animals and household belongings of residents.
Two other residents, Titus and Ayuba, who managed to
escape to Yola, said they travelled through bush paths to avoid the rampaging
terrorists.
According to them, the insurgents stormed the town at
the weekend through the road leading to Sambisa forest.
In another incident, suspected members of Boko Haram
attacked another Borno town where they killed three persons and set ablaze
houses including churches.
Sources revealed that scores of insurgents attacked
Pelachiroma village in Hawul Local Government Area of Borno State on Monday.
“Three people have been killed by members of the Boko
Haram sect who attacked Pelachiroma village of Hawul Local Government Area in
Borno State on Monday,” the source revealed.
A resident of the area, Ignatius Musa, said the
insurgents stormed the village around noon.
He disclosed that the insurgents went berserk and
“churches were not spared”.
Pelachiroma is a few kilometres from Azur forest where
eight people were killed on Friday by the insurgents.
The caretaker chairman of Hawul, Dr. Andrew Malgwi,
who confirmed the attack yesterday, said the insurgents also destroyed many
houses during the siege.
The terror sect also laid ambush on a Borno highway,
killing a soldier of the Nigerian Army on Wednesday.
Though details of the ambush were sketchy at press
time, a security sources said that the slain soldier was among the Nigerian
troops who were travelling from Maiduguri to Damboa where 25 insurgents were
killed on Sunday.
The source, who could not confirm if there were
casualties on the part of the insurgents, said the troops were travelling along
the dangerous Maiduguri-Biu highway before the ambush.
He said the insurgents may have laid in ambush for the
troops in a reprisal after their members were killed on Sunday.
The source said the insurgents laid in ambush at a
spot not far from Damboa and on sighting the troops opened fire on them.
Reports on the weekend kidnappings and attacks in
Borno State came just as the House of Representatives approved the president’s
request for a $1 billion loan to procure military hardware for the war against
Boko Haram in the North-east.
The House, during yesterday’s plenary, towed the line
of the Senate, which had approved the request more than three weeks ago.
All the four clauses contained in the report of the
House Committees on Aids, Loans and Debt Management and Finance on external
borrowing of not more than $1 billion “to tackle the national security
challenges in the country” were considered and approved. According to the
approved report, the National Security Adviser (NSA) was asked to furnish the
legislators with details of allocations that are supposed to accrue to the
Nigerian Air Force, Navy, Army, Department of State Services (DSS), police and
Nigeria Intelligence Agency (NIA).
The legislators also wanted to know from the
Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance Dr. Ngozi
Okonjo-Iweala, the sources of funds, terms and conditions of the loan, as well
as details of the tenure and interest repayment schedules.
Jonathan had on July 16 written the National Assembly
seeking approval to borrow $1 billion (N168 billion) to fight Boko Haram.
In the letter, Jonathan spoke about the need for
external borrowing to enable the upgrade of security equipment in order to
fight the insurgency ravaging the country, particularly in the North-east.
Meanwhile, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has
denied allegations that there are people using the bank to fund Boko Haram.
This was disclosed in a letter dated October 16, 2014
and addressed to the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP).
The letter, with reference no: LSD/ACL/GEN/SRP/02/090, was signed by O.A.
Ogundana on behalf of the Director, Legal Services Department of the central
bank.
CBN was reacting to the demand for information under
the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act by SERAP and a lawsuit it instituted
against the central bank, following recent allegations made by an Australian
negotiator, Dr. Stephen Davis, that certain yet-to-be identified officials of
the CBN had used it as a conduit to fund Boko Haram activities.
The letter by the CBN read in part: “We write to
acknowledge the receipt of your letter dated 15th September 2014 on the subject
captioned: request to provide information about alleged money laundering to
Boko Haram through the Bank.
“In your letter, you had requested from the CBN
information about persons or office involved in alleged money laundering
activities of the Boko Haram through the CBN; and information on the exact
nature and duration of any such transactions.
“We wish to inform you that after investigating the
allegations across various Departments at the Bank that deal with payments, the
Bank could not find any information pertaining to persons involved in money
laundering through the CBN to fund the activities of Boko Haram.
“The CBN as Banker to the Federal Government only
maintains accounts for and on behalf of the government, its ministries,
departments and agencies; deposit money bank; and other financial institutions
in Nigeria, and can only make payments on their behalf based on authorised
mandates.
“Consequently, the CBN does not maintain or operate
any accounts for individuals, officers or offices within the Bank. In
conclusion, your organisation may wish to note that the Bank maintains a robust
Anti-Money Laundering/Combating the Financing of Terrorism framework to prevent
the use of its platform for financial crimes. Please, accept the assurances of
the Governor, Central Bank of Nigeria.”
Citing the FoI Act, SERAP had on October 14 sued the
CBN at the Federal High Court in Lagos after it refused to respond to the
questions SERAP had asked in respect of funding of Boko Haram by the bank.
The originating summons, with suit number
FHC/L/CS/1547/2014, was filed on behalf of the organisation by Adetokunbo
Mumuni.
Among others, SERAP is seeking the court to determine
“whether by virtue of the provision of Section 4(a) of the Freedom of
Information Act 2011, the CBN is under obligation to provide the plaintiff with
the information requested for”.
No date has been fixed for the hearing of the
application.
http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/boko-haram-abducts-60-women-in-adamawa/192016/
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Four Saudi women among 5 jailed for terror links
23 October 2014
Five women (four Saudis and a Yemeni) have been
sentenced to a total of 33 years in prison for joining al-Qaeda to support
terrorism and finance it.
They have been banned from travel for periods similar
to their jail terms. The head of the group has been sentenced to 10 years in
prison.
Meanwhile, a special court sentenced 14 terror
suspects to prison for periods ranging between six months and 23 years for
plotting to attack U.S. soldiers in Qatar and Kuwait, the Saudi Press Agency
reported. They represent the second group in the cell of 41.
The first group of 13 - 11 Saudis, a Qatari and an
Afghan citizen - were sentenced to up to 30 years in prison on Tuesday.
Separately, two Saudi citizens were sentenced to death
on Monday after being convicted of attacking a police station with Molotov
cocktails in Awamiya in the Eastern Province.
The court ruled on Tuesday that the 13 men had
exploited Saudi territory “to form a terrorist cell seeking to carry out a
terrorist operation in the state of Qatar against American forces, supplying
the cell with arms and money for that operation, recruiting people for that
cell.”
The men were also convicted of “preparing to
participate in a terrorist operation in the state of Kuwait targeting American
forces there,” SPA added.
The accused leader of the group, a Qatari man, was
sentenced to 30 years in jail, after which he would be expelled from Saudi
Arabia, while the other 12 were jailed for between 18 months and 18 years, SPA
said.
They were among a group of 41 people rounded up in
2011 on suspicion of forming a terrorist cell that planned to hit US forces in
Qatar and Kuwait. Two people had already been sentenced to death in June for
taking part in forming a terrorist group and other crimes. Several others have
received multi-year jail sentences.
Last month, four Saudi men were sentenced to death for
their role in one of the Kingdom’s “bloodiest terror cells.”
A special criminal court in Riyadh jailed “as many as
20” others for between two and 23 years for a variety of crimes. These included
embracing deviant thinking contrary to the teaching of the Qur’an.
The defendants were also convicted of fighting abroad
and purchasing five tons of aluminum nitrate — which can be used to make
explosives.
They were also found guilty of booby-trapping vehicles
to kill policemen, carrying out suicide bombings inside the country, planning
to explode oil pipelines and killing foreigners as well as Islamic religious
leaders, SPA said.
This article was first published in Saudi Gazette on
Oct. 22, 2014.
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2014/10/23/Four-Saudi-women-among-5-jailed-for-terror-links.html
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Woman arrested in UK on terrorism charges
22 Oct 2014
British police have taken a 25-year-old woman into
custody on suspicion of terrorism offences related to the ongoing civil war in
Syria, officials have said.
London's counter terrorism command said on Wednesday
that officers had arrested the woman in Bedfordshire, north of the capital, on
suspicion of preparing terrorism acts.
The police said she had been taken to a police station
in London for questioning.
Two addresses in Bedfordshire were being searched,
they added.
Last week, four men were charged with swearing
allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), who have seized
large swathes of Syria and Iraq, and preparing to launch an attack on policemen
or soldiers in the capital.
On Tuesday, London police chief Bernard Hogan-Howe
said at least five Britons were travelling to Iraq and Syria every week to
fight for ISIL, while the authorities estimate that about 500 Britons have
already travelled to the region to join the fighting.
Mark Rowley, Britain's national policing spokesman for
counter-terrorism, said last week that the police had made 218 arrests so far
this year, and that detectives were carrying out security investigations at an
"exceptionally high" pace not seen in years.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2014/10/woman-detained-uk-terrorism-charges-2014102285314995838.html
---------------
High in Pakistan's Mountains, Women Break Taboos
22 October 2014
HUNZA: A group of young girls sit on a carpeted floor
listening as their teacher writes on a whiteboard, preparing his students for
the rigours of climbing some of the world's highest peaks.
This is Shimshal Mountaineering School, tucked away in
a remote village in the breathtaking mountains of Pakistan's far north, close
to the border with China.
While most of Pakistan's overwhelmingly patriarchal
society largely relegates women to domestic roles, in the northern Hunza
valley, where most people follow the Ismaili sect of Islam, a more liberal
attitude has long prevailed.
Now the women of the region are breaking more taboos
and training for jobs traditionally done by men, including as carpenters and
climbing guides on the Himalayan peaks.
“You have to be careful, check your equipment and the
rope, any slight damage can result in death,” Niamat Karim, the climbing
instructor warns the students.
Karim is giving last-minute advice to the eight young
women who are about to embark on a practical demonstration of climbing class.
They are the first batch of women to train as high
altitude guides at the Shimshal Mountaineering School, set up in 2009 with
support of Italian climber Simone Moro.
The women have spent the last four years learning ice
and rock climbing techniques, rescue skills and tourism management.
At 3,100 metres above sea level, Shimshal is the
highest settlement in the Hunza valley, connected to the rest of the world by a
rough jeep-only road just 11 years ago.
The narrow, unpaved road twists through high
mountains, over wooden bridges and dangerous turns with the constant risk of
landslides to reach the small village of 250 households.
There is no running water and electricity is available
only through solar panels the locals buy from China, but despite the isolation,
the literacy rate in the village is 98 per cent — around twice the Pakistani
national average.
t has produced some world famous climbers including
Samina Baig, the first Pakistani woman to scale Mount Everest.
The people of Shimshal depend on tourism for their
income and the village has produced an average of one mountaineer in every
household.
The eight women training as guides have scaled four
local peaks, including Minglik Sar and Julio Sar, both over 6,000 metres.
For aspiring mountaineer Takht Bika, 23, the school is
a “dream come true”.
“My uncle and brother are mountaineers and I always
used to wait for their return whenever they went for a summit”, Bika told AFP.
“I used to play with their climbing gear, they were my
childhood toys — I never had a doll.“
For Duor Begum, mountaineering is a family tradition —
and a way of honouring her husband, killed while climbing in the Hunza Valley.
“I have two kids to look after and I don't have a
proper means of income, “she said.
Begum joined the mountaineering school with the aim of
continuing the legacy of her late husband and to make a living.
“I am taking all the risks for the future of my
children, to give them good education so that they can have a better future”,
she said.
But while the women are challenging tradition by
training as guides, there is still a long way to go to change attitudes, and so
far Begum has not been able to turn professional.
“I know its difficult and it will take a long time to
make it a profession for females but my kids are my hope,” she said.
Lower down in the valley, away from the snowy peaks,
Bibi Gulshan, another mother-of-two whose late husband died while fighting in
the army has a similar tale of battling to change minds.
She trained as a carpenter under the Women Social
Enterprise (WSE), a project set up in the area by the Aga Khan Development
Network to provide income opportunities for poor families and advocate women's
empowerment at the same time.
Set up in 2003, the WSE now employs over 110 women,
between 19 and 35 years of age.
“I want to give the best education to my kids so that
they don't feel the absence of their father,” Gulshan told AFP.
“I started my job just 10 days after my husband was
martyred, my friends mocked me saying instead of mourning my husband I had
started the job of a men but I had no choice — I had to support my kids."
With the 8,000 rupees ($80) a month she earns in the
carpentry workshop, Gulshan pays for her children to go through school, and she
has also used her skills to build and furnish a new house for her family.
As well as giving poor and marginalised women a chance
to earn a living, the WSE project, funded by the Norwegian embassy, also aims
to modernise local skills.
Project head Safiullah Baig said traditionally, male
carpenters worked to a mental plan of houses they were building — a somewhat
unscientific approach.
“These girls are using scientific knowledge at every
step right from mapping and design and their work is more feasible and
sustainable,” Baig said.
http://www.dawn.com/news/1139637/high-in-pakistans-mountains-women-break-taboos
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In Iran, lavish divorce parties on the rise
22 October 2014
Weddings in Iran have long been an over-the-top affair
with families spending thousands of dollars to celebrate a union. But now some
couples are splurging on an entirely different sort of nuptial celebration: a
divorce party.
Local media outlets and blogs have been abuzz for
months about lavish parties, complete with sarcastic invitations and humorous
cakes, for couples splitting up. The phenomenon has become so widespread in
Tehran and other large cities that one prominent cleric said couples who throw
these parties are “satanic.”
Still, the divorce parties are a sign of an undeniable
trend: divorce in Iran is soaring. Since 2006, the rate of divorce has
increased more than one a half times to the point where around 20 percent of
marriages now end in divorce.
In the first two months of this Iranian calendar year
(late March to late May) alone, more than 21,000 divorce cases were logged, according
to official statistics.
The rise in the number of couples choosing to split up
has angered conservatives in Iran who see the increase in divorce as an affront
to the values of the Islamic Republic.
Last month, Mustafa Pour Mohammadi, the current
justice minister who is also a cleric, said that having 14 million divorce
cases within the judiciary is “not befitting of an Islamic system,” according
to the Iranian Students News Agency.
Some of the causes for divorce in Iran, like many
other countries, include economic problems, adultery, drug addiction or
physical abuse. But the increase in the divorce rate points to a more
fundamental shift in Iranian society, experts say.
“There has been a big growth in individualism in Iran,
especially among women. Women are more educated and have increased financial
empowerment,” said Hamid Reza Jalaipour, a sociologist at Tehran University.
“It used to be that a woman would marry and she would
just have to get along. Now if she’s not happy, she’ll separate. It’s not
taboo,” he said.
Divorce party
One 41-year-old woman, a chemistry graduate who is now
head of public relations at a Tehran factory and who has a teenage daughter,
said she divorced her husband because he was an abusive drug addict.
It took four years to deal with the government
bureaucracy. “They don’t like divorce to come from the side of women,” she told
Reuters, asking that her name not be used. But in the year since the divorce
“I’ve been in heaven.”
While she was married, an aunt had told her not to
wash the dishes at a certain time in case it gave her husband a headache.
“I said to hell with the headache, why doesn’t he get
up and do the dishes himself?”
She had never been to one of Tehran’s notorious
divorce parties, but added: “The day that I got my divorce finalized I invited
some friends over to celebrate too.”
The marriage law in Iran traditionally favors the
husband, who has the right to ask for a divorce. But in most cases being
brought to court now, the husband and wife have generally come to a mutual
agreement to separate, Iranian lawyers say.
In the cases where the husband is unwilling to
divorce, the wife must legally prove that the husband is abusive, has
psychological problems or is somehow unable to uphold his marriage
responsibilities in order to separate.
Gold coins
Alternately, the wife could push for the payment of
her mehrieh, or dowry, if it was not paid when the couple married. Dowries in
Iran, usually in the form of gold coins, have skyrocketed in recent years with
families sometimes paying tens of thousands of dollars.
If the husband is not able to pay the dowry, the wife
could waive some or all of it as part of a separation settlement. In some
cases, the husband can go to jail if he cannot pay the dowry.
“In the past two years the issue of divorce in Iran
has reached unprecedented levels,” said Mohsen Mohammadi, the head of the Yasa
law group in Tehran.
“We didn’t even have an interest in family and divorce
law. But because of the large number of requests it made sense for us to get
into this. The legal side of family and divorce has become a big business in
Iran.”
And it does not appear that the broader trend partly
driving the rise in divorce, the greater number of women being educated and
their larger presence in the work force, is going to change, experts say. For
the current school year, 60 percent of enrolled university students are female,
according to official records cited by the Islamic Republic News Agency.
When these women graduate, their first priority may
not be to get married because they can now find jobs. And if they do get
married, it will now be easier for them to leave a troubled marriage or to
support themselves financially, experts say.
This is not only a trend among the top tier of Iranian
society.
“We’re not talking about a middle class anymore or the
northern Tehran elite. This is not the upper crust becomes Western and gets
divorced,” said Kevan Harris, a sociologist and associate director at Princeton
University’s Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies.
“This is because of internal change in society. We
balance the power of women through the kind of credentials and experience that
they have. Because otherwise it can’t be so huge. If this were just happening
in the upper crust you wouldn’t see these kinds of numbers.”
The rise in the divorce rate worries government
officials in Iran because it comes as the birth rate is plunging.
Last year, parliament’s social affairs committee
proposed that $1.1 billion be dedicated to facilitating marriages but the
motion did not pass in parliament. “If the representatives and officials are
sympathetic to the youth of the country, it would be better if they approved
these kinds of plans,” said the head of the committee, Abdul Reza Azizi,
according to Mehr News.
Ministry of Marriage and Divorce
A more controversial proposal has been to create a
Ministry of Marriage and Divorce, which some officials have criticized on the
grounds that a new ministry would create more bureaucracy rather than address
the overall issue of rising divorce.
Whatever the government does, it will be hard to
change a new tolerance for divorce.
“It’s not because somebody asks ‘Please, I want to get
divorced’ and you convince a conservative society that divorce is ok. That’s
not the way it works,” said Harris. “People have to do it. And the other side
can’t take it back.”
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/perspective/features/2014/10/22/In-Iraq-lavish-divorce-parties-on-the-rise.html
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Man in Pakistan Guns down Wife, Infant for ‘Honour’
October 23, 2014
LAHORE - A man gunned down his wife and a
ten-month-old son at his house in Nolakha on early Wednesday, police said. The
killer has confessed to the police investigators that he committed the
double-murder in the name of honour.
On early Wednesday, Sajjad entered the bedroom and
opened fire on his wife who was sleeping along with her 10-month-old boy Amaan.
As a result, Sumera 24, and Amaan sustained serious bullet wounds and died on
the spot.
Soon after listening to the gunfire before dawn, the
locals rushed the house, police sources said. They managed to capture the
killer when he tried to flee the crime scene. Sajjad was handed over to the
police for interrogation. The bodies were sent to the morgue for autopsy.
Police have registered a double murder case against
the father on the complaint of Muhammad Imran, brother of the deceased woman.
The killer was later locked up in the Nolakha police station.
While talking to reporters from behind the bars,
Sajjad said that he wanted to kill his wife but a bullet accidentally struck
the baby boy too. The police investigators rebut the claim saying that he
deliberately committed the double murder. According to the killer, his wife had
developed affairs with other men and therefore he shot her dead. On the other
hand, the relatives of the deceased woman told the police that jobless Sajjad
was unable to feed his family. The poor lady used to clash with her husband
over his idleness, they added.
Another family member of the deceased told this reporter
that the husband was a drug addict and had no work to do. Late on Tuesday
night, the couple exchanged harsh words over domestic spending. Before dawn,
the man took out a gun, entered the bedroom, and killed his wife and son.
Further investigation was underway.
SHOT DEAD: A 40-year-old man was found shot dead under
mysterious circumstances at his house located in Sanat Nagar in Islampura on
Wednesday.
Police said that the man, identified as Muhammad Arif,
was lying dead with bullet wounds in his forehead as they reached the crime
scene. Sajjad told the police that his brother Arif committed suicide by
shooting himself in the temple. Police sources said that the deceased was a
bachelor and he had been residing along with his brother and his wife at their
combined house. He had also a property dispute with his brother. Police have
removed the body to the morgue for autopsy and are investigating.
http://nation.com.pk/lahore/23-Oct-2014/man-guns-down-wife-infant-for-honour
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More Women Cops Need of the Hour: Pak Ex-Secy
October 23, 2014
Islamabad - Syed Kamal Shah, former secretary
interior, Wednesday said that there was a dire need to increase the number of
women in police department.
Speaking at a two-day seminar “Women Police: The
Silver Lining” organised by Individual land Pakistan, Shah said that less than
one percent population of women were recruited in the police departments.
Niaz Ahmed Siddiqui, former IG Sindh who chaired the
panel, drew attention of the audience towards women within Pakistan police and
was of the view that “there is a need to say goodbye to the culture of
firearms. Carrying weapons along promotes the trend of tribalisation and there
is a need to move towards civilisation.” While talking of presence of women
police officers in the police department, he praised the role of women police
and suggested that there should be at least 20 per cent female representation
in police department.
Individual land Director Gulmina Bilal said that a
team of Individual land had been working for the past seven years on police
reforms. Emphasising on the role of women police officers she identified the
achievements and challenges of women police officers. In response to the debate
generated by the panel members, Sub-Inspector Najma Khuro from Hyderabad shared
her experience, saying: “There is a lack of awareness regarding the need to
have women in police department. We live in a society where parents prefer
their sons to join police department and discourage their daughters to adopt
the same field.”
The seminar will continue today (Thursday).
http://nation.com.pk/islamabad/23-Oct-2014/more-women-cops-need-of-the-hour-ex-secy
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Buses Featuring Women of the Wall Posters Vandalised
By Haredi Extremists
By DANIEL K. EISENBUD
10/21/2014
One week after Women of the Wall launched an ad
campaign promoting bat mitzva ceremonies at the Western Wall on Egged buses in
Jerusalem, the women’s prayer rights group said on Monday night that several of
the advertisements have been defaced by ultra-Orthodox extremists.
According to the organization, the campaign is
designed to encourage girls to hold bat mitzva ceremonies at the holy site,
with a Torah scroll if they choose, although women are presently unable to read
from the Torah at the site under current religious regulations.
Women of the Wall director Lesly Sachs said 50 percent
of the images featuring young women were torn down, and the tires of some of
the public buses were slashed, in the primarily ultra-orthodox neighbourhood of
Mea She’arim.
“It is sad to yet again see the ultra-Orthodox men
take the law into their own hands and using Judaism as an excuse for the use of
force, threat and violence against women,” Sachs said. “We call on
ultra-Orthodox leadership to strongly denounce this act of violence and all
others.”
Last week, Shmuel Rabinowitz, the rabbi of the Western
Wall and the holy sites, dismissed the bat mitzva campaign as irresponsible.
“I am saddened that there are people who want to fan
the flames of argument, and to employ bullying media tactics, as the Women of
the Wall have done to our regret in recent days, through an irresponsible
campaign whose goal is to prevent an arrangement that is acceptable to all
sides,” he said.
Since the ad campaign was launched, the women’s group
claims that it has received over 60 calls from Israeli women inquiring about
holding a bat mitzva at the Western Wall, as well as numerous harassing calls.
“Women of the Wall remain determined to pray according
to their tradition and the rights guaranteed to them by the Jerusalem District
Court decision of April 2013, written by Judge Moshe Sobel,” the organization
said.
http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Haredi-extremists-vandalize-Egged-buses-featuring-Women-of-the-Wall-posters-in-Jerusalem-379410
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No celebrations for Malala’s Nobel in Pakistan for
fear of Taliban
By Ashfaq Yusufzai
October 23rd, 2014
PESHAWAR: Malala Yousafzai has received several
international awards for running a courageous campaign to promote education in
Swat during the Taliban’s rule but there is no government-sponsored event to
honour the young education campaigner even after she got the Nobel Peace Prize
2014, mainly for fear of militant attacks.
“Both the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and federal governments
not only feared the Taliban’s reprisals by holding functions to appreciate the
girl, who defied the militant campaign against education,” Dr Khadim Hussain,
head of the Bacha Khan Education Foundation, told Dawn.
Dr Khadim said the foundation had been able to
organise few events in own capacity but there’s no government patronage to
organise a full-scale event and own her publicly.
He said by not holding high-profile events at official
level, the country was losing a big opportunity to integrate with the world.
The BKEF head said the militancy-hit Pakistan faced
isolation in the world, so it could well take advantage of Malala’s
international fame.
Educationist insists country losing chance to
integrate with world by not honouring activist at official level
“We can build new schools and colleges and repair
those damaged by militants in Swat and tribal areas but it is unfortunate that
the government has yet to accord her the status she deserves,” he said.
The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government disallowed the
launch Malala’s book, ‘I am Malala’ at the eleventh hour supposed to be held at
the Area Study Centre of the University of Peshawar in January this year.
The university, where discussions, seminars and debate
on political, cultural and other issues were frequently held, disappointed
organisers.
The book, she co-authored, isn’t freely available
throughout the country for fear of attacks by the Taliban.
Hussain said he was not surprised over the Pakistan
Tehreek Insaf-led coalition government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa due to its ‘soft
corner’ for the Taliban.
The federal government’s inability to acknowledge her
as champion doesn’t bring any amazement either as the PML-N had never opposed
militants and terrorism.
According to him, also worrying is the unwillingness
of academicians, who frequently speak at different topics at the university but
failed to arrange any event to celebrate Malala Yousafzai’s awards on their
premises. The professionals don’t hesitate to speak on any subject but don’t
utter few words about Malala because of their jobs. Privately they recognise
her achievement. Everyone acknowledge that she could be an inspirational force
for the youths but stayed away from talking about Malala.
“We are unlucky as we are in position to retrieve
social, political and economic benefits Malala, who is international celebrity,
but the government is complicit,” Hussain said.
She has invited the Pakistani and Indian prime
ministers to attend the ceremony where she would be receiving the Nobel Prize.
Hussain said rallies in press clubs of Islamabad,
Mingora and Peshawar to express joy over Malala weren’t suffice considering the
respect the youngest recipient of the award had brought to Pakistan.
“She has been widely acclaimed by the bravery even
before Nobel Peace Prize. Even Afghanistan organised a function at the
Presidential Palace to honour her,” he said.
The BKEF head, also a political analyst, believed that
she would act as gravitational force for the young girls not only in Pakistan but
throughout the world and that the youths would now struggle to achieve biggest
milestones like getting the Nobel Peace Prize.
“Once we get out of state of fear, it would become
obvious that Malala enjoys overwhelming popular support among the people from
all ages in the country,” he said.
Hussain said Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, PTI chief
Imran Khan and leaders of other political parties appreciated her on statements
or newspaper advertisements, which didn’t reflect their full support.
http://www.dawn.com/news/1139834/no-celebrations-for-malalas-nobel-for-fear-of-taliban
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All Female e-Mail at BHP Shows Mine Shift From Boys’
Club
By David Stringer
Oct 22, 2014
The e-mail Jacqui McGill received from one of her
teams at a BHP Billiton coal mine in northern Australia contained great news:
output delays were down 75 percent in a year.
That wasn’t the only reason she let out a whoop of
excitement. “I did my little yeehaw, because every single person on the e-mail
was a woman in a production role,” said McGill, asset president for two of the
world’s biggest mining company’s operations in Queensland’s Bowen Basin.
“That’s the first time that’s happened in my career,”
McGill, an industry veteran of more than 20 years, said of the July e-mail. “I
have plenty of men in my business in senior roles, but I thought, that’s
critical mass.”
Mining remains the most male-dominated business, with
men holding more than 90 percent of executive positions. That’s starting to
change, as retiring employees help open the $1 trillion industry’s door to
female successors.
“It lags behind, it’s historically been male,” US
Labor Secretary Tom Perez said Sept. 10 in an interview in Melbourne. “They are
missing out on great talent. They are missing out on recruiting some of the
best and the brightest.”
From female-only leadership training at Canada’s
Goldcorp to scholarships offered by South Africa’s Lonmin, the world’s
third-largest platinum producer, mining companies are implementing initiatives
aimed at guiding women into senior roles. London-based Rio Tinto Group, the
second-biggest miner, has set a goal of having women make up 20 percent of its
senior managers by 2015, from 14 percent last year.
In the global mining industry, women hold 8 percent of
executive committee positions reporting directly to the chief executive
officer, according to a study by the gender-consulting company 20-first. That
compares to 18 percent in the $2.9 trillion pharmaceutical industry, the best
performer in the survey.
Efforts to attract women go beyond recruiting and
career-development initiatives. OZ Minerals, Australia’s third-biggest copper
producer, no longer makes presentations at the nation’s main mining conference.
The Diggers & Dealers Mining Forum is held
annually in Kalgoorlie, a desert city known for its raucous nightlife. Some
bars near the conference employ topless bartenders, known locally as skimpies.
“The entertainment provided by the town was not
reflective of our values,” former Chief Executive Officer Terry Burgess, who
left his position Oct. 17, said in an e-mailed response to questions.
It sends the wrong message for an industry seeking
more women, according to Elizabeth Broderick, Australia’s sex discrimination
commissioner. “When you participate in sexualized corporate entertainment, you
are excluding women — and not only that, but potentially excluding men as
well,” she said by phone from Sydney.
The forum doesn’t “conduct any function that could be
seen as derogatory to women,” or “create anything at the event that could be
seen as embarrassing or uncomfortable for any participant,” John Langford, a
director of Palace Securities, which runs and owns Diggers & Dealers, said
in an e-mail. It has no control over events external to the forum, he said.
“We kind of walk the gender talk,” said Langford,
pointing to the fact that the forum’s owner Kate Stokes and its only full-time
employees, are women.
Ashok Parekh, owner of the city’s Palace Hotel, which
hires skimpies in its bars, said delegates aren’t compelled to attend venues
where partially clothed women are present. “You only go to those places if you
want to go,” he said in an Aug. 6 interview at the forum. “Skimpies are
basically a side issue.”
An aging workforce across the mining sector means
producers worldwide face a lack of sufficient candidates for management
positions and should seek a more diverse range of employees, including more women,
according to Ernst & Young. In Canada alone, about 20 percent of the mining
workforce will be eligible to retire by 2018, the country’s Mining Industry
Human Resources Council said in a report last year.
“We’ve been fishing from the same pool for a very long
time, and it is exhausted,” Debbie Butler, a talent manager at Anglo American
responsible for coal operations in Canada and Australia, told a Melbourne
conference Sept. 22. “Our industry needs to focus on bringing new people into
mining and this means looking beyond the traditional demographics.”
Glencore, the Swiss commodity producer and trader, in
June appointed Patrice Merrin as its first female director, ending its status
as the only company on the UK’s FTSE 100 Index with an all-male board. At Brazil’s
Vale, which hired its first female worker in 1928, 13 percent of employees are
women, according to its 2013 sustainability report.
Seeking to promote mining to young women, Gina
Rinehart, Asia’s wealthiest woman and chairman of the Australian mining company
Hancock Prospecting, this month invited students at the private girls’ schools
where she studied in Perth to take up work placements at her Roy Hill iron ore
mine.
Gold producer St Barbara’s offer of additional
parental leave is helping attract more women, Executive General Manager for
People and Business Services Katie-Jeyn Romeyn said in an interview. The
company has also reduced the salary gap.
Male workers at the Melbourne-based company earn an
average of 11.7 percent more than women, down from 43 percent in 2007, she
said. “Our target now will be to get that to 8 percent.” Across all Australian
industries, the average wage gap is 18.2 percent, according to government data.
One of the biggest barriers to women moving into
mining may be their perception of the industry, said Laura Tyler, asset
president for BHP’s Cannington mine in Australia, the world’s largest silver
and lead operation.
“My father was particularly horrified when I told him
I was going into mining, and I grew up on the edge of the Lancashire
coalfields,” in England, said Tyler, who hires the same number of male and
female graduates at the mine and began a mentorship program to accelerate women
into leadership.
Increasing numbers of women in mining is creating
opportunities for new businesses.
After seeing a pregnant colleague at an Anglo American
coal mine in Queensland wearing a large, ill-fitting uniform to accommodate her
bump, Kym Clark last year started a business selling luminous, high-visibility
work clothing for women in mining and construction, including maternity wear.
“I noticed how comfortable all the men were in their
high-viz, and how uncomfortable she looked,” said Clark, a former management
accountant at Anglo, who began selling uniforms in November to Glencore, BHP
and other customers.
Still, mining is behind every other industry,
including oil and gas, in terms of gender diversity, according to a February
report by Women in Mining UK and PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Women occupy an average of 8 percent of board
positions and 12 percent of management posts at mining companies with a market
value of at least $500 million, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. This
compares equivalent-sized food, beverage and tobacco companies where 13 percent
of directors are female.
Appointing more women to key positions may boost
mining companies’ income.
“There’s a significant correlation between bottom line
profit and how well a company does and having more women and diversity in your
senior roles,” said Ottawa-based Clare Beckton, executive director at Carleton
University’s Center for Women in Politics and Public Leadership.
And with companies looking for ways to cut spending,
mining crews with more female staff at BHP have lower maintenance costs,
according to the company’s Tyler, its first female asset president. Diversity
also breeds better team work, she said.
“The behavior is not quite as macho,” Tyler said. “It
feels more like a team that you want to be a part of, than some teams that are
all middle aged, white guys.”
http://thejakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/business/female-e-mail-bhp-shows-mine-shift-boys-club/
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