Iraq’s main government official for women’s affairs has quit just six months into the job to protest a lack of resources for a daunting task — improving the lives of tens of thousands of women left poor or widowed by the war.
Female lawmakers on Sunday urged Nawal al-Samarraie, officially state minister for women’s affairs, to change her mind and demanded that the government get serious about empowering women.
The 47-year-old gynecologist, who submitted her resignation last Tuesday, said that things quickly went downhill after she assumed her post on July 22 when her Sunni political party ended a boycott to rejoin the Shiite-dominated government.
Her office — with a staff of 18 — was not a full ministry and had insufficient authority or resources to help the widows and other women facing great hardship after nearly six years of war, she said.
Al-Samarraie said she finally submitted her resignation on Tuesday, in part because her budget was slashed from US$7,500 to US$1,500 per month as part of this year’s overall government spending cuts due to plunging oil prices.
“I reached to the point that I will never be able to help the women,” she said in an interview on Sunday. “The budget is very limited ... so what can I do?”
Her resignation has cast a spotlight on the overwhelming problems facing Iraqi women. An untold number have lost their husbands or other male relatives to violence or detention since the 2003 US-led invasion, often leaving them alone with children and no safety net.
Indonesia was to sign an agreement to repatriate two British nationals, including a grandmother languishing on death row for drug-related crimes, an Indonesian government source said yesterday. “The practical arrangement will be signed today. The transfer will be done immediately after the technical side of the transfer is agreed,” the source said, identifying Lindsay Sandiford and 35-year-old Shahab Shahabadi as the people being transferred. Sandiford, a grandmother, was sentenced to death on the island of Bali in 2013 after she was convicted of trafficking drugs. Customs officers found cocaine worth an estimated US$2.14 million hidden in a false bottom in Sandiford’s suitcase when
CAUSE UNKNOWN: Weather and runway conditions were suitable for flight operations at the time of the accident, and no distress signal was sent, authorities said A cargo aircraft skidded off the runway into the sea at Hong Kong International Airport early yesterday, killing two ground crew in a patrol car, in one of the worst accidents in the airport’s 27-year history. The incident occurred at about 3:50am, when the plane is suspected to have lost control upon landing, veering off the runway and crashing through a fence, the Airport Authority Hong Kong said. The jet hit a security patrol car on the perimeter road outside the runway zone, which then fell into the water, it said in a statement. The four crew members on the plane, which
Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its junior partner yesterday signed a coalition deal, paving the way for Sanae Takaichi to become the nation’s first female prime minister. The 11th-hour agreement with the Japan Innovation Party (JIP) came just a day before the lower house was due to vote on Takaichi’s appointment as the fifth prime minister in as many years. If she wins, she will take office the same day. “I’m very much looking forward to working with you on efforts to make Japan’s economy stronger, and to reshape Japan as a country that can be responsible for future generations,”
SEVEN-MINUTE HEIST: The masked thieves stole nine pieces of 19th-century jewelry, including a crown, which they dropped and damaged as they made their escape The hunt was on yesterday for the band of thieves who stole eight priceless royal pieces of jewelry from the Louvre Museum in the heart of Paris in broad daylight. Officials said a team of 60 investigators was working on the theory that the raid was planned and executed by an organized crime group. The heist reignited a row over a lack of security in France’s museums, with French Minister of Justice yesterday admitting to security flaws in protecting the Louvre. “What is certain is that we have failed, since people were able to park a furniture hoist in the middle of
RSS