Kuwait: Cheney's Daughter Praises Female Vote

[sabra]

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http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level.php?cat=Politics&loid=8.0.181095350&par=0

KUWAIT: CHENEY'S DAUGHTER PRAISES FEMALE VOTE

Kuwait City, 27 June (AKI) - Elizabeth Cheney, US deputy assistant secretary for Near Eastern Affairs and daughter of vice-president Dick Cheney, has praised the granting of political rights for women in Kuwait, while visiting the Gulf State. Cheney called the passing of a bill giving women the right to vote and run for election a model for women across the world, the Emirates based newspaper Gulf News reports.

Cheney, who is also the coordinator for the Broader Middle East, North Africa Initiative, met Rola Dashti, one of Kuwait's most vocal women's rights activists. Dashti was one of the first women to announce her intention to run for election in the 2007 parliamentary elections, when the bill to give women full political rights was passed last month.

Cheney also met Kuwait's first female minister, Massouma al-Mubarak, exactly a week after she was officially sworn in by parliament. She described her as a "person with a tremendous sense of what has to be done, so that the women of Kuwait can exercise their rights and begin to organise the campaign and run for office."

"We are working on a whole range of issues," she said. "The empowerment of women is a very important one. When Secretary Rice made her speech in Cairo last week, she quoted the Kuwaiti women saying: 'Half democracy is not democracy'. This is the message that has gone all around the world from women in Kuwait," she said, also highlighting economic reform as a significant issue, and the need to diversify economies to create jobs for young people.

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[progressivebydesign]

1. And about Daddy's friends in Saudi? How does she reconcile THAT?

I mean, they treat women like dogs there.. but Elizabeth is silent on that. How disgusting to see what people accept when it enriches them.. and it's family.

[rodeodance]

2. He job is to accent the positive and the news job is to report it.