He may have failed to wrest the Iranian presidency from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but Mir Hossein Mousavi at least has the satisfaction of knowing his wife has helped wring an unexpected political concession from his main rival.
Zahra Rahnavard’s appearance at her husband’s side throughout his campaign highlighted the issue of women’s rights in Iran and wooed many female voters to Mousavi’s side.
Never before in the Islamic republic’s 30-year history has a woman played such a high-profile political role, prompting some to compare Rahnavard — a sculptor and respected academic — to US first lady Michelle Obama.
Now her lasting impact has galvanized Ahmadinejad into a radical move that risks alienating his most religiously devout supporters. In announcing his intention to appoint three women Cabinet members — including Fatemeh Ajorlou as social welfare minister and Marzieh Vahid Dastjerdi as health minister — Ahmadinejad trumped the campaign pledges of his two other election rivals, Mehdi Karroubi and Mohzen Rezai, who each said they would appoint the country’s first female Cabinet minister since the 1979 revolution.
But the social pressures prompting the appointments long pre-dated the election campaign.
“These appointments are a result of the pressure that women’s demands have imposed on the system,” said Asiyeh Amini, a leading women’s activist.
Female protesters played a prominent role in the unrest after the disputed election, as illustrated by the case of Neda Agha Soltan, the 26-year-old woman who became the symbol of the demonstrations after her death at the hands of a sniper was caught on film and beamed across the world.
An endangered baby pygmy hippopotamus that shot to social media stardom in Thailand has become a lucrative source of income for her home zoo, quadrupling its ticket sales, the institution said Thursday. Moo Deng, whose name in Thai means “bouncy pork,” has drawn tens of thousands of visitors to Khao Kheow Open Zoo this month. The two-month-old pygmy hippo went viral on TikTok and Instagram for her cheeky antics, inspiring merchandise, memes and even craft tutorials on how to make crocheted or cake-based Moo Dengs at home. A zoo spokesperson said that ticket sales from the start of September to Wednesday reached almost
A 64-year-old US woman took her own life inside a controversial suicide capsule at a Swiss woodland retreat, with Swiss police on Tuesday saying several people had been arrested. The space-age looking Sarco capsule, which fills with nitrogen and causes death by hypoxia, was used on Monday outside a village near the German border. The portable human-sized pod, self-operated by a button inside, has raised a host of legal and ethical questions in Switzerland. Active euthanasia is banned in the country, but assisted dying has been legal for decades. On the same day it was used, Swiss Department of Home
‘CLOSER TO THE END’: The Ukrainian leader said in an interview that only from a ‘strong position’ can Ukraine push Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘to stop the war’ Decisive actions by the US now could hasten the end of the Russian war against Ukraine next year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday after telling ABC News that his nation was “closer to the end of the war.” “Now, at the end of the year, we have a real opportunity to strengthen cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” Zelenskiy said in a post on Telegram after meeting with a bipartisan delegation from the US Congress. “Decisive action now could hasten the just end of Russian aggression against Ukraine next year,” he wrote. Zelenskiy is in the US for the UN
TIGHTENING: Zhu Hengpeng, who worked for an influential think tank, has reportedly not been seen in public since making disparaging remarks on WeChat A leading Chinese economist at a government think tank has reportedly disappeared after being disciplined for criticizing Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in a private chat group. Zhu Hengpeng (朱恆鵬), 55, is believed to have made disparaging remarks about China’s economy, and potentially about the Chinese leader specifically, in a private WeChat group. Zhu was subsequently detained in April and put under investigation, the Wall Street Journal reported. Zhu worked for the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) for more than 20 years, most recently as the Institute of Economics deputy director and director of the Public Policy Research Center. He