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.
Yemen’s separatist leader has vowed to keep working for an independent state in the country’s south, in his first social media post since he disappeared earlier this month after his group briefly seized swathes of territory. Aidarous al-Zubaidi’s United Arab Emirates (UAE)-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) forces last month captured two Yemeni provinces in an offensive that was rolled back by Saudi strikes and Riyadh’s allied forces on the ground. Al-Zubaidi then disappeared after he failed to board a flight to Riyadh for talks earlier this month, with Saudi Arabia accusing him of fleeing to Abu Dhabi, while supporters insisted he was
The Chinese Embassy in Manila yesterday said it has filed a diplomatic protest against a Philippine Coast Guard spokesman over a social media post that included cartoonish images of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Jay Tarriela and an embassy official had been trading barbs since last week over issues concerning the disputed South China Sea. The crucial waterway, which Beijing claims historic rights to despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis, has been the site of repeated clashes between Chinese and Philippine vessels. Tarriela’s Facebook post on Wednesday included a photo of him giving a
‘MOBILIZED’: While protesters countered ICE agents, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz activated the state’s National Guard to ‘support the rights of Minnesotans’ to assemble Hundreds of counterprotesters drowned out a far-right activist’s attempt to hold a small rally in support of US President Donald Trump’s latest immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Saturday, as the governor’s office announced that National Guard troops were mobilized and ready to assist law enforcement, although not yet deployed to city streets. There have been protests every day since the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) ramped up immigration enforcement in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul by bringing in more than 2,000 federal officers. Conservative influencer Jake Lang organized an anti-Islam, anti-Somali and pro-US Immigration and Customs Enforcement
NASA on Saturday rolled out its towering Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft as it began preparations for its first crewed mission to the Moon in more than 50 years. The maneuver, which takes up to 12 hours, would allow the US space agency to begin a string of tests for the Artemis 2 mission, which could blast off as early as Feb. 6. The immense orange and white SLS rocket, and the Orion vessel were slowly wheeled out of the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and painstakingly moved 6.5km to Launch Pad 39B. If the
RSS