A BRUM DO FOR COUPLE
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle talk to sisters Jean Dickinson and Irene Gould on a walkabout during a visit to Millennium Point in Birmingham as part of the latest leg in the regional tours the couple are undertaking in the run-up to their May wedding.
IT COULD have come straight from the pages of a fairytale: on International Women’s Day, a schoolgirl who dreams of becoming an actress is hugged by a Royal-to-be and told she can achieve whatever she wants.
Sophie Richards had been a face in the crowd in a Birmingham street when Prince Harry and Meghan Markle arrived on the latest stage of their grand tour of the country.
As they came to a group of schoolchildren, Harry began asking about their hopes for the future, and when 10-year-old Sophie said she wanted to act, he took her over to meet his fiancee, who was until recently the star of an American TV drama.
The youngster said afterwards: “It was a dream come true. I will never forget this day. Meghan told me that I can achieve whatever I want to achieve. She said she would like to see me on TV when I become an actress.”
Miss Markle, a chic figure in a coat by J Crew, trousers by Alexander Wang and an All Saints jumper, has been hugging well-wishers throughout her tour of the UK, which has so far taken her to Edinburgh, Nottingham, Cardiff and Brixton.
Yesterday she also embraced 10-year-old Pippa Roberts. “I said, ‘can I have a hug?’ and she said ‘yes’ – it was nice,” said Pippa.
The Duchess of Cornwall, meanwhile, marked International Women’s Day by hosting a reception to celebrate the Women of the World Festival.
Camilla was joined by singer Annie Lennox, entrepreneur Liz Earle, author Kate Mosse, broadcaster Mary Portas and author Kathy Lette at her home, Clarence House.
The festival, which Camilla described as “an astonishing creation”, celebrates women and looks at obstacles that stop them from achieving their potential.
I said, can I have a hug and she said yes. It was nice. Pippa Roberts, 10, who met Meghan Markle.
MARCHERS AROUND the world are marking International Women’s Day in a year where the #MeToo and the Time’s Up campaigns have brought gender rights to greater attention.
Spanish women held the firstever full-day strike and dozens of protests across the country against the wage gap and gender violence.
Under the slogan If We Stop, The World Stops, women working both in and outside their homes, unpaid caregivers and students were called to join the 24-hour strike by the March 8 Commission.
The movement is a platform of feminist organisations that also demands equal opportunities for working women.
CCOO and UGT, two of the main workers’ unions in Spain, called for morning and afternoon two-hour work stoppages.
In Madrid, a massive demonstration was expected. In Barcelona, protesters who disrupted traffic in the city centre were seen in social media videos being pushed by anti-riot police agents.
In the Philippines, protesters decried the president as a violator of women’s rights while in South Korea the #MeToo movement took to the streets.
In India, where endemic violence against women has only recently become part of the public conversation, they marched toward Parliament loudly demanding their rights.
Women in Asia made sure their voices were heard on a day when protests were to ripple across the world.
Hundreds of activists in pink and purple shirts protested in Manila against Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, calling him among the worst violators of women’s rights in Asia.
Protest leaders sang and danced in a boisterous rally in Plaza Miranda, handing red and white roses to mothers, sisters and widows of drug suspects slain under Mr Duterte’s crackdown on illegal drugs.
Myanmar’s embattled leader Aung San Suu Kyi urged women to build peaceful democracies using their strength in politics, economics and social issues.
In Afghanistan, hundreds of women, who would have been afraid to leave their homes during Taliban rule, gathered in the capital Kabul to commemorate the day and to remind their leaders that plenty of work remains to be done to give Afghan woman a voice, ensure their education and protect them from increasing violence.
In China, students at Tsinghua University used the occasion to make light of a proposed constitutional amendment to scrap term limits for the country’s president. One banner joked that a boyfriend’s term should also have no limits, while another said: “A country cannot exist without a constitution, as we cannot exist without you!”
China’s ceremonial legislature is poised to pass a constitutional amendment to allow President Xi Jinping to rule indefinitely.
Photos of the students’ banners, like other content about the proposed amendment, were quickly censored on social media.
Spanish women held the first-ever full-day strike and protests across the country.