Women political leaders in the news

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LIBERIA


Liberia: "We're Already At War..."

As the crisis in Cote d'Ivoire reaches melting point, a worried President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf says the dangers for Liberia are evident. "We're already at war. We hope there will not be an escalation of war," she told Reuters in Monrovia. "There has been a lot of investment for peace in this sub-region -- we're beginning to see the result of the investment... If nothing is done to resolve the crisis, all of these efforts will be undermined," she warned in the interview. "The UN has put out an appeal but the response has been very slow and inadequate," Johnson-Sirleaf said.


Around 400 Ivorians have died and hundreds of thousands have fled their homes in a dispute over a November 28 presidential vote which U.N.-certified results showed was won by Alassane Ouattara, a rival to incumbent leader Laurent Gbagbo. Liberia is still recovering from years of civil war between 1998 and 2003, and is struggling to cope with some 90,000 Ivorian refugees who have poured across the border since the dispute over the November presidential vote turned violent. The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) appealed for $55 million in aid in mid-January but with the focus of world attention on the conflict in Libya and the earthquake and tsunami disaster in Japan, said earlier this month that barely $5 million had come.MORE

 

West Africa: Ghana Shares Cocoa Know-How With Liberia

Accra — Liberia's cocoa industry, destroyed by its recent civil war, could be revitalised by a collaboration with Ghana, one of the world's major cocoa producers. Representatives from both countries signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) earlier this month (4 March), with the aim of boosting each other's agricultural research activities. The Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana and Liberia's Central Agricultural Research Institute will set up reciprocal arrangements for visiting scientists and implement mutually agreed projects.

"Liberia used to produce cocoa - it was a member of the old West Africa Cocoa Research Institute," Yaw Adu-Ampomah, deputy chief executive of the Ghana Cocoa Board - which facilitated the MoU with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture's Sustainable Tree Crops Program (STCP) - told SciDev.Net. Adu-Ampomah said that the United States, through the STCP, is keen to help Liberia but the country lacks cocoa-producing capacity - which is where Ghana comes in. Ghana will provide expertise to Liberian farmers on planting crops in the most effective way. "We will send some technicians to Liberia, and Liberia will send some to Ghana to receive training in nursery activities and providing agricultural services," he said.MORE

 

Liberia: Government Moves to Tackle Reproductive Health Issues As Liberia Observes International Women's Day

Monrovia, Liberia — President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Tuesday, March 8, marked the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day with the launch of two policy documents. They are the National Sexual & Reproductive Health Policy and the Road Map for Accelerating the Reduction of Maternal and Newborn Morbidity and Mortality in Liberia covering the period 2011 - 2015. The policies, among other issues address reproductive health and rights challenges faced by Liberians, and calls for strengthening the health sector by increasing resource allocation to improve access to sexual reproductive health service.

The policy also seeks to ensure that every Liberian enjoys sexual and reproductive health of the highest quality and has the opportunity to fully exercise his or her sexual and reproductive rights. Such a policy, an Executive Mansion release quotes the President as saying is necessary to address the alarming high maternal mortality rate, which has doubled in the past seven years. The President warned that Liberia will not achieve the Millennium Development Goals without significant improvements in the sexual and reproductive health of the people. "This new policy therefore, sets out areas of focus for ensuring that Liberia meets its MDG commitments to women and children," the President stressed.MORE

 

INDIA


President Patil comes to footballer's rescue

She was vice-captain of the Indian women's football team when a leg injury in 2008 sent Madhu Kumari's hopes crashing, till President Pratibha Patil stepped in to help her after reading about her plight in newspapers. Kumari, 30, from Bihar was grappling with abject poverty and was in need of a job. Her father had passed away in her childhood and her mother is mentally challenged. Financially, she depends on the paltry handouts from her brother who runs a tea stall. She got her treatment done for two years after which the Rs 50,000 aid given by the state government had run out.MORE

 

Sportswoman thanks Prez for help

Patna, Mar 22 (PTI) Madhu Kumari, a national level footballer today met President Pratibha Patil and thanked her for helping her get a job with Bihar government. Rashtrapati Bhavan officer on special duty Archana Datta said Kumari met Patil at the state legislature premise during her visit to inaugurate the legislative council's centenary celebration function. ''Because of your (President's) intervention not only myself but many other sportspersons have got jobs under sports quota in the government of Bihar,'' Kumari told Patil at the brief meeting. ... Patil, an ardent sports lover and herself a table tennis champion during her college days, had taken serious note of Kumari's plight and desired that her case be pursued so that many upcoming sportspersons are encouraged to excel and do their best in different categories of sports, she said.MORE

President stresses rural sanitation drive

New Delhi, March 23 (IANS) President Pratibha Patil Wednesday called for a monitoring mechanism to ensure the proper functioning of the santitation infrastructure in India's rural areas. 'Rural sanitation in India, which was as abysmally low as 1 percent in 1980, reached about 21 percent in 2001 and is now around 70 percent. I look forward to the day when this coverage touches 100 percent. For this, a lot of work still remains to be done,' she said. The president was speaking at a function here to present the Nirmal Gram Awards 2010-11 to local bodies institutions.MORE

 

Taj in danger from dry Yamuna, delegation tells president

AGRA: The Taj Mahal was in grave danger from the dry Yamuna, Lok Sabha MP from Agra Ram Shankar Katheria has told President Pratibha Patil. "The Taj's foundation needs moisture, but there's no water," Katheria explained to the president at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. Katheria, who led a delegation of Agra Vikas Sangh, invited the president to visit Agra.MORE

 

ZIMBABWE

via:delux_vivens

Zimbabwe’s blood diamonds

 

Much has been written about conflict—or "blood”—resources such as coltan, a mineral used in the manufacture of electronics, and diamonds, from Zimbabwe to the Democratic Republic of Congo to Sierra Leone. Far less information, however, has been provided about the broader processes that facilitate and finance conflicts in these places. It is rare that the questions "In whose interest?" or "For whose benefit?" are posed. MORE

 

LITHUANIA

AP interview: Lithuania's 'Steel Magnolia' defends maverick approach to foreign policy

VILNIUS, Lithuania — Lithuania's president can number karate fans, European Union dignitaries and her countrymen among her admirers, but its her independent-mindedness which has raised eyebrows in Washington. President Dalia Grybauskaite has goaded the United States — unsuccessfully — to share information on two CIA prisons she says were set up in Lithuania, openly disagreed with the U.S. on missile defence and in perhaps the most shocking move, snubbed U.S. President Barack Obama at a dinner in Prague last year, even though nearly every other Eastern European president attended. Since becoming Lithuania's president in 2009, she has wasted no time defining her leadership. "Yes, you have to be a strict and loud partner if you want to be heard in the conversation," Grybauskaite, 55, told The Associated Press.


Lithuania, a country of 3.4 million that was occupied by the Soviet Union for a half-century before gaining independence in 1991, remains leery of Russian intentions in the Baltic region, but Grybauskaite's views have stunned U.S. diplomats, who were accustomed to virtually flawless relations with Lithuania under her predecessor Valdas Adamkus, a former U.S. citizen. After the Obama administration, along with Russia, unfurled a strategic missile reduction plan — dubbed New Start — Grybauskaite was the only ally who criticized it, claiming the plan harmed Lithuanian security. "Lithuania is not used to a straightforward, terse, forceful way of making statements. I admit using this style in pushing NATO defence plans for the Baltic states," she said. MORE

 

Discussing nuclear energy (in Lithuania and the wider Baltic region in the wake of Fukushima. Also, Sweden is dropping its traditionally neutral stance in affairs of war.

 

After the events in Fukushima, according to polls, the Lithuanian population’s support for a new nuclear plant construction near the Lithuanian town of Ignalina slightly dropped. On March 20, the greens’ political party, which is against nuclear power plant construction in Lithuania and neighboring countries, was established in Vilnius. Regardless, Lithuania continues to plan its nuclear plant construction and this was encouraged by the opinions of the Swedish and Latvian prime ministers who visited Vilnius last week. Meanwhile, on March 15, when nuclear reactors were in trouble one after another in Fukushima, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin signed a deal in Minsk that foresees a two-block nuclear power plant coming fully online by 2017-2018 in the village of Mikhalishki, in the Ostrovets district of the Grodno region (or the village of Mikailiskes in the Astravas district of the Gardinas region, as the Lithuanian media calls those former ethnic Lithuanian territories).

... Although Putin, by building Russia’s two plants on Lithuanian borders, tries to create competition for the Ignalina project, Lithuanian officials say that they will go on with the building of the nuclear plant in Ignalina, which is a common project of the governments of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Poland. On March 18, Latvian Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis, visiting Vilnius, reiterated Latvia’s full support for the project. On March 14, Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, visiting Vilnius, also praised nuclear energy stating that it is a clean energy, in respect to climate change, and Sweden is happy to have 10 nuclear plants. Moral support from Sweden is important because this country is becoming the leader of the region – Reinfeldt stated in Vilnius that Sweden, abandoning its traditional neutrality, will defend its fellow EU states in case of foreign aggression.

 

Grybauskaite: EU should arouse women desire to learn to use information technologies and seek careers in this field

President of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaite has taken part in a video teleconference to attend the international high-level conference on "Women in Science, Innovation, New Technology and their Participation in the Development of the Digital Agenda" taking place in Budapest, Hungary. Via the video conference, the Lithuanian president congratulated the participants and answered questions, informs LETA/ELTA.

"After four years, 90% of all the jobs in all sectors will be available for those who know how to use information and communication technologies. To speed up the development of the European Union as the union of innovation, we have to admit and revise our stereotypes, increase the participation of young women and arouse their desire to learn to use information technologies and seek careers in this field," the Lithuanian head of state said.MORE

2009 Dalia Grybauskaite: Lithuania’s ‘Iron Lady’

VILNIUS - EU budget commissioner Dalia Grybauskaite, whose landslide presidential election victory in her Baltic homeland makes her Lithuania’s first female head of state, is a seasoned political operator with a reputation as an “Iron Lady”. Grybauskaite, 53, says her political models include the original bearer of that nickname, Margaret Thatcher, but also Mahatma Gandhi for his selfless service to others. “I’m very frank and direct, maybe sometimes too much so. I say what I think and not everyone likes that,” she told AFP. “I believe in transparency and I will demand that quality from everyone,” she said. “I don’t appreciate liars or late-comers.”


A martial arts black belt, she is not known for pulling her punches, notably during her war of words last year with Lithuania’s then Social Democrat-led government. Accusing them of squandering the gains of the Baltic state’s economic boom and having failed to prepare for or even foresee what is now a deep economic crisis, she dubbed their policy “a feast during a cholera epidemic”. Grybauskaite is not a member of a party and stood as a non-partisan candidate. She was nonetheless backed by the ruling Conservatives, who defeated the Social Democrats in last October’s general election. She has warned them that she is also keeping an eye on their government. “I’m independent, and that gives people hope that I’ll treat everyone the same way,” she told AFP, in a nod to Lithuanians fed up with party-focused political shenanigans and vested economic interests. MORE

 

COSTA RICA


Costa Rica creates 2.47 million acre marine park

Costa Rica on Thursday created a massive new marine protected area in the Eastern Tropical Pacific, which conservationists hope will offer endangered marine species such as hammerhead sharks and leatherback turtles a place of respite to recover from increasing pressures from humans.

The protected area, called "Seamounts Marine Management Area" or Area Marina de Manejo Montes Submarinos, extends close to 2.47 million acres around the Cocos Islands. This extends by five times the existing National Park, which is currently a fully protected non-fishing zone and UNESCO World Heritage Site.

... The new sea park is larger than Yellowstone National Park in the United States. Cocos Island lies 342 miles off the coast of Costa Rica in the Pacific Ocean. Just 12 miles around, it's sometimes called "Shark Island" because of the white tipped reef sharks, whale sharks, and scalloped hammerhead sharks that live near there. The decree creating the marine reserve was signed by Costa Rican president Laura Chinchilla Miranda on Thursday March 3. MORE