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Saudi Arabia Builds A City For All Those Wacky Women Who Want To Work

LE MONDE(France),THE GUARDIAN, DAILY MAIL(UK)

Worldcrunch

They’re not allowed to drive or to vote, writes Le Monde, but the women of Saudi Arabia will soon have their own city.

How to create more job opportunities for woman in gender-segregated society? Build female-only city! gu.com/p/39y2a/tw#SaudiArabia

— Guardian World (@guardianworld) August 13, 2012

Saudi Arabia is planning to build women-only industrial city dedicated to female workers, reports the Guardian. The city, which will be built in the eastern province of Hofuf, will provide a working environment that is in line with Saudi Arabia’s customs and Sharia law.

Although the oil-rich kingdom does not prohibit women from working, says the Daily Mail, they only make up 15 percent of the workforce, with most employed in women-only workplaces.

Until recently, Saudi women could only work as supermarket cashiers or bank tellers, reports Le Monde, but now they can alsoget a job in shops selling lingerie or cosmetics. By the end of the year, women should also be able to replace men in stores selling the traditional abaya cloaks.

The Saudi Industrial Property Authority (Modon) developing the project believes the women-only city could create between 2,000 and 5,000 jobs in textiles, pharmaceuticals and food-processing industries, with women-run firms and production lines. In a statement, Modon said the city would be equipped "for women workers in environment and working conditions consistent with the privacy of women according to Islamic guidelines and regulations.”

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Geopolitics

Yes, Xi Jinping Is Now More Powerful Than Mao Zedong Ever Was

After being re-elected as head of the Communist Party last year, the Chinese leader has been unanimously re-elected to another five-year term as head of state. Now, wielding more power than any other past Chinese communist leader, he wants to accelerate the rise of Chinese influence around the world.

Photo of huge portrait of Xi Jinping

Huge portrait of Xi Jinping is displayed in the National Day mass pageantry celebrating the 70th founding anniversary of the People's Republic of China

Yann Rousseau

-Analysis-

BEIJING — Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping has been re-elected to a third five-year term at the head of the world's second largest economic power. Nobody was surprised.

The vote took place during a legislative assembly convened to rubber stamp decisions of the authoritarian power, during which 2,952 parliamentarians unanimously approved Xi's re-election before rising, in perfect choreography, to offer a prolonged standing ovation to their leader. As usual, Xi remained completely neutral in the face of the enthusiasm.

His victory was a mere formality after his re-election last fall as the head of the all-powerful party, which controls all of the country's political institutions, and after legislative amendments to erase term limits that would have forced him out.

Xi Jinping, who took over the presidency in 2013, "is now the most powerful leader in the history of the People's Republic, since its founding in 1949. Institutionally, he holds even more power than Mao Zedong," says Suisheng Zhao, a professor and Chinese foreign policy expert at the University of Denver.

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