Latest update: 07/12/2008 

- Press review


In the papers
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France 24's journalists bring you a round-up of what's in the international press
By Nadia CHARBIT (text)


The National (UAE)
Ghanaians vote in test of democracy

 
In a year that has seen electoral strife in Kenya and Zimbabwe, there are high hopes Ghana will hold up as an example for the continent. The National gives an historical overview of the country known as “West Africa’s biggest success story”.
The daily describes the final rallies before Ghanaians go the polls– with the outgoing 70-year-old president John Kufuor showing off his dance moves on stage.
Ghana has great natural resource: it exports cocoa, gold and, since last year, oil.
Needless to say the stakes are high, and according to the daily it should be a tight poll.
 
 
Daily Guide (Ghana)
Editorial : Sermon of Destiny
 
This private newspaper has already chosen its winner: Nana Akufo-Ado of the NPP, the party of the outgoing President
John Kufuor, whom the daily credits with delivering on promises and moving the country forward.
“The poll could make or unmake the progress made in the last 8 years” says the Guide, which warns Ghanaians of the pitfalls that come with natural resources.
 
 
Aujourd’hui en France (France)
A new Valérie Bègue affair
 
The daily offers a picture of this year’s winner of the French national beauty pageant. But it’s the winner of last year’s contest that is still making the news. Miss France 2007, Valérie Bègue, famously fell out with the pageant’s flamboyant organiser after suggestive and bizarre pictures of her licking cream off a rock in a bikini appeared on the internet….
The clash came to a head last night when the Miss didn’t show up to hand over her crown in person… The daily looks into the scandal and clearly sides with the young beauty queen against her Cruella Devil type manager!
 
 
Meanwhile in the real world, women’s lives aren’t exactly a fairy tale… 80 years after British women were given the right to vote, women are still fighting on many fronts.
The Observer looks into attitudes, hopes, and advances in women’s lives… from contraception to the workplace.
And on a more global level the weekend paper gives an overview of how women are faring in the rest of the world: the good, bad, and surprising facts:
-In Kazakhstan women make up 50% of the work force compared to 46% in the UK
-In Israel over 15% of women hold a bachelor’s degree versus 12% of men
-30% of US girls become pregnant before the age of 20.
 
 

The Post looks at the US’s “non-Barack Obamas” who share the president elect’s last name but not his family tree and are “basking in a little low-watt glory of their own”: from dodging speeding tickets, to being given the VIP treatment in clubs or simply having people no longer botch their name.
Another effect is being asked for favours such as a ticket to the inauguration!
The article explains that there are fewer than 20 Obama families in the US compared to 11 000 Clintons and 60 000 Bushes… 
 
 
 
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