Dundee Women’s Festival to go digital with host of events

Dundee Women’s Festival will be a largely online affair this year and will celebrate International Women’s Day.

The annual event has been forced to go predominately digital because of the ongoing pandemic.

This year’s festival, dubbed ‘The Power of Women’, will run between March 5 and 14.

The line-up includes talks about Jessie M King – “Dundee’s first professional female journalist” – and female entrepreneurs in Palestine.

A handful of events, such as lessons on sewing reusable period pads at Dundee and Angus College, will take place physically.

Organisers hope that by having the festival online this year it may widen the interest beyond Dundee and find new audiences.

Prue Watson, chairwoman of the organising board, said: “Despite these challenging times, the festival is taking place thanks to the power of women, and I and my fellow trustees hope it will bring some light and positivity to the confusion which many of us are feeling right now.

“The events tackle concerns currently affecting many people, men as well as women – including the art of sleep, online pressures, and resilience and wellbeing.”

A tanker fire caused the closure of the busy A92 in Fife yesterday morning, causing tailbacks for motorists.

Fire crews were alerted to the vehicle blaze at 5.50am on the stretch of the road between Cowdenbeath and Dunfermline.

Sections of both the southbound and northbound carriageways were closed and local diversions put in place to allow firefighters to tackle the incident.

The B981 Cowdenbeath to Crossgates road was brought to a standstill for a time as motorists were directed off the A92 away from the incident.

A spokesperson for Scottish Fire and Rescue Service said: “We received a call about a fire on a tanker. Both rear tyres were well alight.

“The fire has now been extinguished and the fire service are cooling the rear axle of the vehicle.”

The road was reopened shortly after 8am, however driving conditions were made treacherous on that stretch for motorists due to freezing water on the roads used to extinguish the fire.

A clean-up operation continued for around two hours before traffic on the A92 returned to normal.