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Tag: WOM

  • Mexico City mayor to step down to pursue historic bid for presidency

    Mexico City mayor to step down to pursue historic bid for presidency

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    MEXICO CITY, June 12 (Reuters) – Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum said she will step down on Friday to pursue the ruling party’s candidacy for the 2024 presidential election, bidding to become the country’s first female leader.

    President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s leftist National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) on Sunday agreed that on Sept. 6 it would announce the winner of its internal selection process. Sheinbaum is one of the two favorites.

    MORENA is heavily favored to win the June 2024 presidential election, lifted by Lopez Obrador’s personal popularity.

    He cannot seek re-election because Mexican presidents are restricted by law to a single six-year term. Close aides to Lopez Obrador have told Reuters they believe he would like Sheinbaum to succeed him. He denies having any favorite.

    Announcing her resignation plan at a press conference on Monday, the 60-year-old Sheinbaum underlined her credentials as a scientist and environmentalist, saying she would continue Lopez Obrador’s “transformation” of Mexico with her “own stamp.”

    “I have made the decision to leave the post definitively on June 16, with the goal of becoming the first woman in the history of Mexico to lead the fate of the nation,” she said.

    MORENA’s leadership at the weekend agreed that the contenders should step down this week to compete.

    [1/3] Outgoing Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum, one of the leading candidates for the presidential nomination of the ruling MORENA party, gestures during a press conference in Mexico City, Mexico June 12, 2023. REUTERS/Raquel Cunha

    Most opinion polls have tended to give Sheinbaum a slight advantage in the race over her rival Marcelo Ebrard, who stood down as foreign minister earlier on Monday to compete.

    Sheinbaum highlighted that past polling had put her ahead and said she was confident it would remain that way.

    Five polls open to the general public are due to determine MORENA’s presidential nominee.

    Sheinbaum also cited a study published last month by the national statistics agency showing that over two-thirds of Mexicans strongly backed a woman holding the presidency.

    “It’s time for women,” she said.

    Ebrard had argued that prospective candidates should leave their posts to ensure a level playing field. Interior Minister Adan Augusto Lopez, another contender, is also expected to resign.

    Ebrard, speaking to reporters after his resignation, said improving security was his first priority, and stressed the need to beef up public healthcare and education.

    In an earlier radio interview, he argued that Mexico had a “golden opportunity” to double “or more” economic growth, spurred by companies’ bringing manufacturing capacity to the country due to economic tensions between China and the United States.

    Reporting by Dave Graham in Mexico City; Writing by Sarah Morland and Brendan O’Boyle; Editing by Matthew Lewis and Leslie Adler

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • Protests break out in Iran over schoolgirl illnesses

    Protests break out in Iran over schoolgirl illnesses

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    DUBAI, March 4 (Reuters) – Worried parents protested in Iran’s capital Tehran and other cities on Saturday over a wave of suspected poison attacks that have affected schoolgirls in dozens of schools, according to Iranian news agencies and social media videos.

    The so-far unexplained illnesses have affected hundreds of schoolgirls in recent months. Iranian officials believe the girls may have been poisoned and have blamed Tehran’s enemies.

    The country’s health minister has said the girls have suffered “mild poison” attacks and some politicians have suggested the girls could have been targeted by hardline Islamist groups opposed to girls’ education.

    Iran’s interior minister said on Saturday investigators had found “suspicious samples” that were being studied.

    “In field studies, suspicious samples have been found, which are being investigated… to identify the causes of the students’ illness, and the results will be published as soon as possible,” the minister, Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, said in a statement carried by the official news agency IRNA.

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    Sickness affected more than 30 schools in at least 10 of Iran’s 31 provinces on Saturday. Videos posted on social media showed parents gathered at schools to take their children home and some students being taken to hospitals by ambulance or buses.

    A gathering of parents outside an Education Ministry building in western Tehran on Saturday to protest over the illnesses turned into an anti-government demonstration, according to a video verified by Reuters.

    “Basij, Guards, you are our Daesh,” protesters chanted, likening the Revolutionary Guards and other security forces to the Islamic State group.

    Similar protests were held in two other areas in Tehran and other cities including Isfahan and Rasht, according to unverified videos.

    The outbreak of schoolgirl sickness comes at a critical time for Iran’s clerical rulers, who have faced months of anti-government protests sparked by the death of a young Iranian woman in the custody of the morality police who enforce strict dress codes.

    Social media posts in recent days have shown photos and videos of girls who have fallen ill, feeling nauseaous or suffering heart palpitations. Others complained of headaches. Reuters could not verify the posts.

    The United Nations human rights office in Geneva called on Friday for a transparent investigation into the suspected attacks and countries including Germany and the United States have voiced concern.

    Iran rejected what it views as foreign meddling and “hasty reactions” and said on Friday it was investigating the causes of the incidents.

    “It is one of the immediate priorities of Iran’s government to pursue this issue as quickly as possible and provide documented information to resolve the families’ concerns and to hold accountable the perpetrators and the causes,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani told state media.

    Schoolgirls were active in the anti-government protests that began in September. They have removed their mandatory headscarves in classrooms, torn up pictures of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and called for his death.

    Reporting by Dubai newsroom
    Editing by Frances Kerry

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • It’s ‘now or never’ to stop Japan’s shrinking population, PM says

    It’s ‘now or never’ to stop Japan’s shrinking population, PM says

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    Jan 23 (Reuters) – Japanese Prime minister Fumio Kishida pledged on Monday to take urgent steps to tackle the country’s declining birth rate, saying it was “now or never” for one of the world’s oldest societies.

    Japan has in recent years been trying to encourage its people to have more children with promises of cash bonuses and better benefits, but it remains one of the most expensive places in the world to raise a child, according to surveys.

    Births plunged to a new record low last year, according to official estimates, dropping below 800,000 for the first time – a watershed moment that came eight years earlier than the government had expected.

    That most likely precipitated a further population decline in a country where the median age is 49, the highest in the world behind only the tiny city-state of Monaco.

    “Our nation is on the cusp of whether it can maintain its societal functions,” Kishida said in a policy speech at the opening of this year’s parliamentary session.

    “It is now or never when it comes to policies regarding births and child-rearing – it is an issue that simply cannot wait any longer,” he added.

    Kishida said he would submit plans to double the budget for child-related policies by June, and that a new Children and Families government agency to oversee the issue would be set up in April.

    Japan is the third-most-expensive country globally to raise a child, according to YuWa Population Research, behind only China and South Korea, countries also seeing shrinking populations in worrying signs for the global economy.

    Other countries are also coming to grips with ageing and shrinking populations. Last week, China reported that its population dropped in 2022 for the first time in 60 years.

    Reporting by Sakura Murakami; Editing by John Geddie and Gerry Doyle

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • U.S. FDA allows abortion pills to be sold at retail pharmacies

    U.S. FDA allows abortion pills to be sold at retail pharmacies

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    WASHINGTON, Jan 3 (Reuters) – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will allow retail pharmacies to offer abortion pills in the United States for the first time, the agency said on Tuesday, even as more states seek to ban medication abortion.

    The regulatory change will potentially expand abortion access as President Joe Biden’s administration wrestles with how best to protect abortion rights after they were sharply curtailed by the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the landmark Roe v Wade ruling and the state bans that followed.

    Pharmacies can start applying for certification to distribute abortion pill mifepristone with one of the two companies that make it, and if successful they will be able to dispense it directly to patients upon receiving a prescription from a certified prescriber.

    The FDA had first said it would be making those changes in December 2021 when it announced it would relax some risk evaluation and mitigation strategies, or REMS, on the pill, that had been in place since the agency approved it in 2000 and were lifted temporarily in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

    The changes included permanently removing restrictions on mail order shipping of the pills and their prescription through telehealth.

    The agency finalized the changes on Tuesday after reviewing supplemental applications from Danco Laboratories and GenBioPro, the two companies that make the drug in the United States.

    “Under the Mifepristone REMS Program, as modified, Mifeprex and its approved generic can be dispensed by certified pharmacies or by or under the supervision of a certified prescriber,” the agency said on its website on Tuesday.

    Mifeprex is the brand name version of mifepristone which, in combination with a second drug called misoprostol that has various uses including miscarriage management, induces an abortion up to 10 weeks into a pregnancy in a process known as medication abortion.

    Abortion rights activists say the pill has a long track record of being safe and effective, with no risk of overdose or addiction. In several countries, including India and Mexico, women can buy them without a prescription to induce abortion.

    “Today’s news is a step in the right direction for health equity,” Planned Parenthood President Alexis McGill Johnson said in a statement.

    “Being able to access your prescribed medication abortion through the mail or to pick it up in person from a pharmacy like any other prescription is a game changer for people trying to access basic health care,” Johnson added.

    NO EQUAL ACCESS

    The regulatory change will, however, not provide equal access to all people, GenBioPro, which makes the generic version of mifepristone, said in a statement.

    Abortion bans, some targeting mifepristone, have gone into effect in more than a dozen states since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to terminating pregnancies when it scrapped the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling last year.

    Women in those states could potentially travel to other states to obtain medication abortion.

    The president of anti-abortion group SBA Pro-Life America, Marjorie Dannenfelser, said the latest FDA move endangers women’s safety and the lives of unborn children.

    “State lawmakers and Congress must stand as a bulwark against the Biden administration’s pro-abortion extremism,” she said in a statement.

    FDA records show a small mortality case number associated with mifepristone. As of June 2021, there were reports of 26 deaths linked with the pill out of 4.9 million people estimated to have taken it since it was approved in September 2000.

    Retail pharmacies will have to weigh whether or not to offer the pill given the political controversy surrounding abortion, and determine where they can do so.

    A spokesperson for CVS Health (CVS.N) said the drugstore chain owner was reviewing the updated REMS “drug safety program certification requirements for mifepristone to determine the requirements to dispense in states that do not restrict the dispensing of medications prescribed for elective termination of pregnancy.”

    A spokesperson for Walgreens (WBA.O), one of the largest U.S. pharmacies, said the company was also reviewing the FDA’s regulatory change. “We will continue to enable our pharmacists to dispense medications consistent with federal and state law.”

    Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein; Additional reporting by Eric Beech in Washington, Shivani Tanna, Rahat Sandhu, and Kanjyik Ghosh in Bengaluru; Editing by Himani Sarkar

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

    Ahmed Aboulenein

    Thomson Reuters

    Washington-based correspondent covering U.S. healthcare and pharmaceutical policy with a focus on the Department of Health and Human Services and the agencies it oversees such as the Food and Drug Administration, previously based in Iraq and Egypt.

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  • Taliban bans female NGO staff, jeopardizing aid efforts

    Taliban bans female NGO staff, jeopardizing aid efforts

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    • Taliban orders NGOs to stop female staff from working
    • Comes after suspension of female students from universities
    • U.N. says order would seriously impact humanitarian operations
    • U.N. plans to meet with Taliban to seek clarity

    KABUL, Dec 24 (Reuters) – Afghanistan’s Taliban-run administration on Saturday ordered all local and foreign NGOs to stop female employees from working, in a move the United Nations said would hit humanitarian operations just as winter grips a country already in economic crisis.

    A letter from the economy ministry, confirmed by spokesperson Abdulrahman Habib, said female employees of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) were not allowed to work until further notice because some had not adhered to the administration’s interpretation of Islamic dresscode for women.

    It comes days after the administration ordered universities to close to women, prompting global condemnation and sparking some protests and heavy criticism inside Afghanistan.

    Both decisions are the latest restrictions on women that are likely to undermine the Taliban-run administration’s efforts to gain international recognition and clear sanctions that are severely hampering the economy.

    U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Twitter he was “deeply concerned” the move “will disrupt vital and life-saving assistance to millions,” adding: “Women are central to humanitarian operations around the world. This decision could be devastating for the Afghan people.”

    Ramiz Alakbarov, the U.N. deputy special representative for Afghanistan and humanitarian coordinator, told Reuters that although the U.N. had not received the order, contracted NGOs carried out most of its activities and would be heavily impacted.

    “Many of our programmes will be affected,” he said, because they need female staff to assess humanitarian need and identify beneficiaries, otherwise they will not be able to implement aid programs.

    International aid agency AfghanAid said it was immediately suspending operations while it consulted with other organisations, and that other NGOs were taking similar actions.

    The potential endangerment of aid programmes that millions of Afghans access comes when more than half the population relies on humanitarian aid, according to aid agencies, and during the mountainous nation’s coldest season.

    “There’s never a right time for anything like this … but this particular time is very unfortunate because during winter time people are most in need and Afghan winters are very harsh,” said Alakbarov.

    He said his office would consult with NGOs and U.N. agencies on Sunday and seek to meet with Taliban authorities for an explanation.

    Aid workers say female workers are essential in a country where rules and cultural customs largely prevent male workers from delivering aid to female beneficiaries.

    “An important principle of delivery of humanitarian aid is the ability of women to participate independently and in an unimpeded way in its distribution so if we can’t do it in a principled way then no donors will be funding any programs like that,” Alakbarov said.

    When asked whether the rules directly included U.N. agencies, Habib said the letter applied to organisations under Afghanistan’s coordinating body for humanitarian organisations, known as ACBAR. That body does not include the U.N., but includes over 180 local and international NGOs.

    Their licences would be suspended if they did not comply, the letter said.

    Afghanistan’s struggling economy has tipped into crisis since the Taliban took over in 2021, with the country facing sanctions, cuts in development aid and a freeze in central bank assets.

    A record 28 million Afghans are estimated to need humanitarian aid next year, according to AfghanAid.

    Reporting by Kabul newsroom; additional reporting by Susan Heavey in Washington
    Editing by Mark Potter and Josie Kao

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • Protests in Malta as parliament debates abortion amendment

    Protests in Malta as parliament debates abortion amendment

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    VALLETTA, Dec 4 (Reuters) – A large picture of an unborn baby was placed outside the office of Malta’s prime minister on Sunday as demonstrators called on the government to halt plans to amend the country’s strict anti-abortion laws.

    The protest, the biggest in years, attracted several thousand people including Malta’s top Catholic bishop and the leader of the conservative opposition, but was led by a former centre-left president, Marie Louise Coleiro Preca.

    “We are here to be the voice of the unborn child,” said 19-year-old university student Maria Formosa, one of the speakers at the rally. “Through abortion, life is always lost.”

    Some of those present carried placards reading slogans such as “Keep abortion out of Malta” and “Protect our children”. They also chanted “No to abortion, yes to life”.

    Traditionally Catholic Malta is the only member of the European Union which bans abortion in all circumstances, even when a woman’s life or health is endangered by her pregnancy.

    Last week, Health Minister Chris Fearne presented an amendment in parliament that would make doctors no longer risk up to four years’ imprisonment if their intervention to help women with severe health issues causes the end of a pregnancy.

    To date, no doctor has been prosecuted on such charges.

    The centre-right opposition, the powerful Catholic Church and some NGOs have described the amendment as not needed and as paving the way for a full liberalisation of abortion, a claim rejected by the ruling centre-left Labour party.

    Prime Minister Robert Abela’s government holds a comfortable majority and no dissent has appeared within its ranks, but opinion polls show a big majority against abortion, particularly among older people.

    No one from the government made any comment in response to the protest on Sunday.

    The move to change abortion rules comes after a U.S. tourist, Andrea Prudente, was refused a request in June to terminate a non-viable pregnancy after she began to bleed profusely.

    Her doctors said her life was at risk and she was eventually transferred to Spain where she had an abortion. She later sued the Malta government, calling on the courts to declare that banning abortion in all circumstances breaches human rights.

    The case has not yet come to trial.

    Reporting by Christopher Scicluna; Editing by Alvise Armellini and David Holmes

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • U.S. Supreme Court takes up Texas abortion case, lets ban remain

    U.S. Supreme Court takes up Texas abortion case, lets ban remain

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    Oct 22 (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear on Nov. 1 a challenge to a Texas law that imposes a near-total ban on the procedure and lets private citizens enforce it – a case that could dramatically curtail abortion access in the United States if the justices endorse the measure’s unique design.

    The justices took up requests by President Joe Biden’s administration and abortion providers to immediately review their challenges to the law. The court, which on Sept. 1 allowed the law to go into effect, declined to act on the Justice Department’s request to immediately block enforcement of the measure.

    The court will consider whether the law’s unusual private-enforcement structure prevents federal courts from intervening to strike it down and whether the federal government is even allowed to sue the state to try to block it.

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    The measure bans abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy, a point when many women do not yet realize they are pregnant. It makes an exception for a documented medical emergency but not for cases of rape or incest.

    Liberal Justice Sotomayor dissented from the court’s deferral of a decision on whether to block enforcement of the law while the litigation continues. Sotomayor said the law’s novel design has suspended nearly all abortions in Texas, the second most populous U.S. state, with about 29 million people.

    “The state’s gambit has worked. The impact is catastrophic,” Sotomayor wrote.

    The Texas dispute is the second major abortion case that the court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, has scheduled for the coming months, with arguments set for Dec. 1 over the legality of a restrictive Mississippi abortion law.

    The Texas and Mississippi measures are among a series of Republican-backed laws passed at the state level limiting abortion rights – coming at a time when abortion opponents are hoping that the Supreme Court will overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade that legalized the procedure nationwide.

    Mississippi has asked the justices to overturn Roe v. Wade, and the Texas attorney general on Thursday signaled that he also would like to see that ruling fall.

    A supporter of reproductive rights holds a sign outside the Texas State Capitol building during the nationwide Women’s March, held after Texas rolled out a near-total ban on abortion procedures and access to abortion-inducing medications, in Austin, Texas, U.S. October 2, 2021. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

    Lower courts already have blocked Mississippi’s law banning abortions starting at 15 weeks of pregnancy.

    The Texas measure takes enforcement out of the hands of state officials, instead enabling private citizens to sue anyone who performs or assists a woman in getting an abortion after cardiac activity is detected in the embryo. That feature has helped shield the law from being immediately blocked as it made it more difficult to directly sue the state.

    Individual citizens can be awarded a minimum of $10,000 for bringing successful lawsuits under the law. Critics have said this provision lets people act as anti-abortion bounty hunters, a characterization its proponents reject.

    Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is representing the abortion providers, said Friday’s decision to hear their case “brings us one step closer to the restoration of Texans’ constitutional rights and an end to the havoc and heartache of this ban.”

    Alexis McGill Johnson, president of healthcare and abortion provider Planned Parenthood, said it is “devastating” that the justices did not immediately block a law that already has had a “catastrophic impact” after being in effect nearly two months.

    “Patients who have the means have fled the state, traveling hundreds of miles to access basic care, and those without means have been forced to carry pregnancies against their will,” she added.

    Kimberlyn Schwartz, a spokesperson for the Texas Right to Life anti-abortion group, praised the court’s action, saying it “will continue to save an estimated 100 babies per day, and because the justices will actually discuss whether these lawsuits are valid in the first place.”

    The Supreme Court only rarely decides to hear cases before lower courts have ruled, indicating that the justices have deemed the Texas matter of high public importance and requiring immediate review.

    The Justice Department filed its lawsuit in September challenging the Texas law, arguing that it is unconstitutional and explicitly designed to evade judicial review.

    Rulings in Texas and Mississippi cases are due by the end of next June, but could come sooner.

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    Reporting by Andrew Chung in New York; Editing by Will Dunham

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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