🌏 Australia Votes Out Its Conservative Government, The World's Best Nurse Fighting To End FGM And More

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• 🌏 This Week’s Top Stories
• 👩 Women To Know
• 🙌 Good News For Your Weekend

For the first time in almost a decade, Australians have elected a left-wing prime minister, ending nine years of conservative government rule.

59-year-old Anthony Albanese, the leader of the opposition Labor Party, will become the new prime minister after incumbent prime minister Scott Morrison conceded defeat in general elections on Saturday May 21.

Early results showed Labor had won 72 out of the 76 seats needed to form a government, while Morrison’s Liberal-National coalition had secured 52 seats, and Independents and the Greens held 11, according ABC’s projections.

In contrast to Morrison, who has called himself “a bit of bulldozer”, Albanese – nicknamed Albo – has vowed to be more collaborative and a “builder”, the BBC reported.

He has pledged to push for a higher minimum wage and more spending on care for children and the elderly, the New York Times reported.

He has also promised to cut carbon emissions by 43% by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050, compared to the 26 to 28% reduction from Morrison’s coalition.

Election results also showed a strong swing towards independent and Greens candidates, who were calling for even larger emission cuts; the Greens recorded its best ever election result, according to the Guardian.

Also Happening Around The World

🇮🇱 Israeli police assaulted mourners attending the funeral of Shireen Abu Akleh, a veteran Palestinian-American journalist who was shot dead covering an Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank.

🇷🇺 Russian gymnast Ivan Kuliak has received a one-year ban for wearing a pro-invasion “Z” symbol during the parallel bars event of the 2022 Gymnastics World Cup in Doha.

🇭🇰 Cardinal Joseph Zen, one of Asia’s oldest members of the Catholic Church, has been arrested under Hong Kong’s national security law for colluding with foreign forces.

🇮🇶 Iraq has been hit by its eighth sandstorm since mid-April, leaving at least 4,000 people hospitalized for respiratory problems.

🇨🇳 The head of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, is being censored on China’s internet after he questioned the sustainability of the country’s zero-COVID policy.

Anna Qabale Duba, a Kenyan nurse who campaigns against child marriage and female genital mutilation (FGM), has been crowned the world’s best nurse for her work, winning a prize of US$250,000.

The 31-year-old, a FGM survivor who narrowly escaped child marriage at age 14, now holds a masters in Epidemology and works as a nurse at a hospital in Marsabit, where she works to end harmful cultural practices such as FGM and child marriage.

The only university graduate from her village of Torbi and the only educated child in her family, she is the founder of a community organization that helps improve access to education, health, social services and economic empowerment for girls and women in Kenya.

Although FGM is illegal in Kenya, 91 percent of girls and young women in the northern part of the country have been subjected to the practice, according to the Kenyan Committee Against FGM.

Under the foundation, she built a school in her village that not only teaches how to read and write, but also about sexual and reproductive health and rights, which has led to a drastic reduction in FGM and early marriage in the community, according to the organizers of the Global Nursing Award.

As a result of her work, the community, which is largely pastoral, has opened up to women giving birth in hospitals, and more women are sending their daughters to school.

More Women You Should Know About

🇫🇷 Elisabeth Borne has been appointed France’s first woman prime minister in over 30 years.

🇸🇩 Doctor Abeer Derar, a Sudanese doctor has been attending the anti-coup protests every week to help treat protesters on the frontlines.

A local penis-looking plant in Cambodia is facing extinction after a video of three woman playing with the plant in Bokor Mountain went viral.

In the video, three women are seen plucking the plant from the ground and holding them up to the camera as they make various jokes about their sizes and shapes.

Cambodia’s Ministry of Environment has released a statement on Facebook urging people to protect the endangered plant.

“What they are doing is wrong and please don’t do it again in the future! Thank you for loving natural resources, but don’t pick them, or they will be die!” the statement read.

The Nepenthes holdenii is a tropical pitcher plant, dubbed the ‘penis-plant’ for its resemblance to the phallic object, commonly found in western Cambodia.

More Good News For Your Week

🇯🇵 Tokyo will start recognizing same-sex partnerships to make lives easier for LGBT couples living in the capital but will still not recognize same-sex unions as legal marriage.

🇹🇭 Thailand has announced it will be giving away one million free cannabis plants to households across the country to generate enthusiasm for a new law that will allow people to legally grow cannabis plants in their own homes.

🇧🇷 A boxing program is creating new opportunities for young people in disadvantaged communities in Brazil.

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