The popular couple are no strangers to gaining a ridiculous amount of double clicks on practically anything they post on Instagram, and Kim’s younger sister isn’t too far off, either. But, the time has come where Kendall has surpassed her famous family members—she broke Kimye’s record.

Last year, we reported that Kim and Kanye’s gorgeous wedding photo where they kiss as husband and wife became the most-liked photo on Instagram with nearly 2 million likes, and now it turns out that one of the supermodel’s social media pics has gained more attention and thus become the new record on Instagram. Can you guess which pic it is?

WATCH: You need to see this hilarious throwback video of Kendall and Kylie

Yes, there are definitely lots of options and potential contenders but it was actually the photo of Kendall lying down in a gorgeous white and sheer gown with her brunette tresses spread out around her face forming little hearts.

It was a close race, though. Kimye’s photo is currently at around 2.47 million and counting, while Kendall’s squeezed by with 2.48 double taps. Nothing like a nice, close social media competition.

After hearing the news of her triumph, the 19-year-old had to take a quick second to taunt her older sis and brother-in-law, because, duh. She went to Twitter to retweet the news that included the two record-breaking pictures and adding a “Take that KimYe!”. LOL, congratulations Kendall!

The post Kendall Jenner Just Broke Kim Kardashian and Kanye West’s Instagram Record appeared first on Alaafia African Family Resource Center.

“Today is a very special day for two reasons. Firstly, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was published in the UK 18 years ago! I’m also very excited to confirm today that a new play called Harry Potter and the #CursedChild will be opening in London next year,” Rowling, 49, tweeted to her 4.8 million followers.

“It will tell a new story, which is the result of a collaboration between writer Jack Thorne, director John Tiffany and myself. #CursedChild,” she continued. “I don’t want to say too much more, because I don’t want to spoil what I know will be a real treat for fans. However, I can say that it is not a prequel!”

And, yes, Rowling was also quick to answer the obvious question: Why won’t it be turned into a novel? “I am confident that when audiences see the play they will agree that it was the only proper medium for the story,” she explained. “I’ve had countless offers to extend Harry’s story over the years, but Jack, John and Sonia Friedman are a dream team!”

She continued: “It has been a huge pleasure to share with them (and soon, with you!) this untold part of Harry’s story.”

This is the first play to be authored by Rowling. It’s set to open next summer. Sign up now for the Us Weekly newsletter to get breaking celebrity news, hot pics, and more delivered straight to your inbox!

The post Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Play Making London Stage Debut, J.K. Rowling Explains Why It Won’t Be a Novel appeared first on Alaafia African Family Resource Center.

She wrote on the New York Times Opinion on Saturday, May 30, that she was haunted by a feeling of guilt, because her fame had indirectly made her father a target of kidnappers. She disclosed this in an essay in the newspaper:

“My father was kidnapped in Nigeria on a Saturday morning in early May. My brother called to tell me, and suddenly there was not enough breathable air in the world. My father is 83 years old. A small, calm, contented man, with a quietly mischievous humor and a luminous faith in God, his beautiful dark skin unlined, his hair in sparse silvery tufts, his life shaped by that stoic, dignified responsibility of being an Igbo first son.

“He got his doctoral degree at Berkeley in the 1960s, on a scholarship from the United States Agency for International Development; became Nigeria’s first professor of statistics; raised six children and many relatives; and taught at the University of Nigeria for 50 years. Now he makes fun of himself, at how slowly he climbs the stairs, how he forgets his cell phone. He talks often of his childhood, endearing and rambling stories, his words tender with wisdom.

“Sometimes I record his Igbo proverbs, his turns of phrase. A disciplined diabetic, he takes daily walks and is to be found, after each meal, meticulously recording his carbohydrate grams in a notebook. He spends hours bent over Sudoku. He swallows a handful of pills every day. His is a generation at dusk.

“Kidnappings are not uncommon in southeastern Nigeria and, unlike similar incidents in the Niger Delta, where foreigners are targeted, here it is wealthy or prominent local residents. Still, the number of abductions has declined in the past few years, which perhaps is why my reaction, in the aftermath of my shock, was surprise.

“My close-knit family banded together more tightly and held vigil by our phones. The kidnappers said they would call back, but they did not. We waited. The desire to urge time forward numbed and ate my soul. My mother took her phone with her everywhere, and she heard it ringing when it wasn’t. The waiting was unbearable. I imagined my father in a diabetic coma. I imagined his octogenarian heart collapsing.

“‘How can they do this violence to a man who would not kill an ant?’ my mother lamented. My sister said, ‘Daddy will be fine because he is a righteous man.’ Ordinarily, I would never use ‘righteous’ in a non-pejorative way. But something shifted in my perception of language. The veneer of irony fell away. It felt true. Later, I repeated it to myself. My father would be fine because he was a ‘righteous man.’

“I understood then the hush that surrounds kidnappings in Nigeria, why families often said little even after it was over. We felt paranoid. We did not know if going public would jeopardize my father’s life, if the neighbors were complicit, if another member of the family might be kidnapped as well.

“‘Is my husband alive?’ my mother asked, when the kidnappers finally called back, and her voice broke. ‘Shut up!’ the male voice said. My mother called him ‘my son.’ Sometimes, she said ‘sir.’ Anything not to antagonize him while she begged and pleaded, about my father being ill, about the ransom being too high. ‘How do you bargain for the life of your husband? How do you speak of your life partner in the deadened tone of a business transaction?’

“Kidnapping’s ugly psychological melodrama works because it trades on the most precious of human emotions: love. They put my father on the phone, and his voice was a low shadow of itself. ‘Give them what they want,’ he said. ‘I will not survive if I stay here longer.’ My stoic father. It had been three days but it felt like weeks.

“Friends called to ask for bank-account details so they could donate toward the ransom. It felt surreal. Did it ever feel real to anybody in such a situation, I wondered? The scramble to raise the money in one day. The menacingly heavy bag of cash. My brother dropping it off, through a circuitous route, in a wooded area.

“Late that night, my father was taken to a clearing and set free.

“While his blood sugar and pressure were checked, my father kept reassuring us that he was fine, thanking us over and over for doing all we could. This is what he knows how to be, the protector, the father, and he slipped into his role almost as a defense. But there were cracks in his spirit. A drag in his gait. A bruise on his back.

“‘They asked me to climb into the boot of their car,’ he said. ‘I was going to do so, but one of them picked me up and threw me inside. Threw. The boot was full of things and I hit my head on something. They drove fast. The road was very bumpy.’

“I imagined this grace-filled man crumpled inside the rear of a rusty car. My rage overwhelmed my relief, that he suffered such an indignity to his body and mind.

“And yet he engaged them in conversation. ‘I tried to reach their human side,’ he said. ‘I told them I was worried about my wife.’

“The next day, my parents were on a flight to the United States, away from the tainted blur that Nigeria had become.

“With my father’s release, we all cried, as though it was over. But one thing had ended and another begun. I constantly straddled panic; I was sleepless, unfocused, jumpy, fearful that something else had gone wrong. And there was my own sad guilt: He was targeted because of me. ‘Ask your daughter the writer to bring the money,’ the kidnappers told him, because to appear in newspapers in Nigeria, to be known, is to be assumed wealthy. The image of my father shut away in the rough darkness of a car boot haunted me. Who had done this? I needed to know.

“But ours was a dance of disappointment with the authorities. We had reported the kidnapping immediately, and the first shock soon followed: State security officials asked us to pay for anti-kidnap tracking equipment, a large amount, enough to rent a two-bedroom flat in Lagos for a year. This, despite my being privileged enough to get personal reassurances from officials at the highest levels.

“How, I wondered, did other families in similar situations cope? Federal authorities told us they needed authorization from the capital, Abuja, which was our responsibility to get. We made endless phone calls, helpless and frustrated. It was as though with my father’s ransomed release, the crime itself had disappeared. To encounter that underbelly, to discover the hollowness beneath government proclamations of security, was jarring.

“Now my father smiles and jokes, even of the kidnapping. But he jerks awake from his naps at the sound of a blender or a lawn mower, his eyes darting about. He recounts, in the middle of a meal, apropos of nothing, a detail about the mosquito-filled room where he was kept or the rough feel of the blindfold around his eyes. My greatest sadness is that he will never forget.”

The post Nigeria: Revealed – How Chimamanda Adichie’s Fame Led to Father’s Kidnapping appeared first on Alaafia African Family Resource Center.

Modise’s contribution to women’s football was valuable, he said yesterday, and while she was hanging up her boots as a player, it was not goodbye as she would continue to be part of sport as an ambassador and mentor.

“I’m not saying goodbye to the football association, I’m saying see you later. I would really like to contribute to building football in this country,” she said.

“The question of honouring people who have made a contribution in sport is a matter that we are attending to, through the Hall of Fame. People like Portia, I think in even in women’s sports, those that came before her have not achieved what she has achieved in the field of play,” said Mbalula.

“She definitely belongs in that Hall of Fame in terms of honour and respect. She needs to be inducted into that Hall of Fame for all her achievements. She is one of the brightest stars of women’s sport.”

It was important that efforts be made to train her as a coach so she could pass on her talent through training others.

The Mail and Guardian newspaper stated that Modise “is South Africa’s most successful soccer player. She’s the most capped female player and the top goal scorer. Across the board.”

Modise, who was born in Soweto, Johannesburg, was the longest serving player in Banyana Banyana, with 124 caps. She scored 101 goals in national team colours, making her the first African footballer to ever score 100 international goals, according to Safa.

Nicknamed “Bashin” after the Orlando Pirates goal scoring legend Albert “Bashin” Mahlangu, Modise played a vital role in Banyana’s achievements. She started playing football aged 10, choosing the sport over netball in school. She played for Soweto Rangers at U/10 level and Jomo Cosmos Ladies before joining Soweto Ladies in 1996.

At 13 she captained Basetsana before being called-up to the senior side two years later. She made her debut in the senior national team in 2000. She also had a stint overseas playing for Danish side Fortuna Hjorring for two seasons.

The post South Africa’s Modise Hailed for Top Career appeared first on Alaafia African Family Resource Center.

The Super Falcons, having never beaten Sweden on their three previous occasions, came out flying in the first few minutes and had the Swedes on the back foot for much of the first quarter of an hour.

But an unfortunate own goal from Desire Oparanozie gave the Swedes the lead 20 minutes into the match. Emma Berglund’s flicked header from a corner kick was redirected into Nigeria’s net by the No9’s chest. A poor clearance off another Swedish corner made it 2-0, Nilla Fischer able to tap in to an empty net after the ball made its way through the crowd.

Nigeria’s forward Asisat Oshoala kicks the ball to score a goal as Sweden’s defender Nilla Fischer tries to stop during Group D match of the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup between Nigeria and Sweden at the Winnipeg Stadium on June 8, 2015, in Winnipeg, Manitoba. AFP

Substitute Linda Sembrant handed the lead back to Sweden after good build-up play on the left side resulted in Lina Nilsson’s cross that Sembrant managed direct past Precious Dede with her thigh.

However, Francisca Ordega would salvage a point for the Super Falcons three minutes from time with a shot that managed to slip through the legs of Lindahl, leaving matters level at 3-3.

The post Nigeria: FIFA Women’s World Cup – Nigeria, Sweden in 3-3 Draw appeared first on Alaafia African Family Resource Center.

The post Kenya: Women MPs Threaten Suit Over Gender Rule appeared first on Alaafia African Family Resource Center.

The index, titled the Empowering African Women: An Agenda for Action, was launched as part of the opening events at the week-long AfDB meetings, in a session called “Gender Equality: Where are we?”

Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, AfDB’s Special Envoy on Gender, said at the index’s unveiling ceremony that it’s expected to provide African governments with a benchmark to evaluate the effectiveness of their policies to advance gender equality.

The index, which covers 52 of Africa’s 54 countries, examines the role of women as producers, in human development, as active citizens and leaders and also provides maps for each area.

Its launch comes at a time when women’s empowerment is on the top of the African agenda with the African Union having declared 2015 the year of Women’s Empowerment and Progress towards Agenda 2063, to optimize resources to the benefit of all Africans.

In a brief comment about the index, AfDB President Donald Kaberuka said the Bank has decided to be at the forefront of gender equality efforts: and for this reason the position of Special Envoy on Gender was created.

“At the time of creating the position, the AfDB was great at so many things, but falling short on many others. By creating the position of Special Envoy on Gender, it was a signal that the subject meant a great deal to the Bank’s business and I hope my successor will continue with this trend,” he said.

The index lauds African countries such as Rwanda, which, with 64 percent female representation in public service, including Parliament, has the best gender representation globally, a feat that the AfDB encourages other African countries to emulate.

During a high-level panel to discuss the new index, Frannie Leautier, CEO of the Mkoba Private Equity Fund in Tanzania, said men and boys have a great role to play in ensuring inclusivity for women and girls.

“Without good gender policies in place, women can still make it, but they would have to grow muscles to navigate in the unlevel playing field and I hope stories of successful women can help inspire other women to make it,” said Leautier.

Also on the panel was Ashish Thakkar, founder of Mara Group and Mara Foundation, who said that there’s a need to celebrate more successful women who have made it in spite of the current challenges in many countries in Africa.

Thakkar said, at Mara, the organization has a gender inclusive approach in choosing which start-up entrepreneurs to work with although he said women applicants are still few.

“Out of the over 500 young entrepreneurs we are currently working with, only about 30 percent of them are women. The figure is low. We still have to do a lot to encourage young women that they can make it,” he said.

Saran Daraba Kaba, Executive Secretary of Mano River Union based in Sierra Leone, said helping women achieve higher success should start with enabling them to attain basic level education to set their foundation for bigger achievements.

Members of the panel agreed that African governments must work towards achieving inclusive growth that leaves no one behind including women.

However, the AfDB’s Special Envoy on Gender, Fraser-Moleketi, also challenged women and girls to stand up and claim their rights and space.

“Women must make an effort to claim the space and fill the space because what men can do, they can do too,” she said.

The post Women’s Empowerment At Top of Agenda As AfDB Launches Gender Equality Index for Africa appeared first on Alaafia African Family Resource Center.

The post Why We Need More African Women in Parliaments appeared first on Alaafia African Family Resource Center.

In a USA Today column published on Wednesday, Teresa C. Younger, the Ms. Foundation for Women president and CEO, called on the TLC network to partner with sexual abuse activists in order to launch an education campaign addressing the issue “on the same scale as the network’s relentless marketing of the Duggar family.”

“Today’s headlines offer us the chance to refocus public attention on what to do if you know or suspect a child is being abused — even in your own home or family,” wrote Younger, who heads a group that advocates for prioritizing gender equality in public policy at federal and state levels. “We cannot afford to waste that opportunity.”

After reports surfaced that Josh Duggar was investigated by police in 2006 for molesting underage girls, including some of his sisters, when he was a teenager, the family’s oldest son released a statement last week apologizing for “act[ing] inexcusably.”

Many were quick to call out the hypocrisy of the Duggars’ conservative positions on LGBT rights and abortion.

The now-27-year-old, who is currently expecting his fourth child with his wife, Anna, stepped down from his position at anti-gay lobbying group Family Research Council last week. And, last August, family matriarch Michelle Duggar campaigned against trans men and women in Arkansas being allowed to use the public restrooms associated with their gender identity.

“I don’t believe the citizens of Fayetteville would want males with past child predator convictions that claim they are female to have a legal right to enter private areas that are reserved for women and girls,” Michelle Duggar said in a robocall to voters.

In wake of the news, TLC pulled all episodes of “19 Kids and Counting” from the air. But despite advertisers fleeing the show — including General Mills, Walgreens, Jimmy Dean and Ace Hardware — the program has yet to be canceled, TMZ reported.

It doesn’t need to be for meaningful change to happen, though, according to Younger: “Regardless of whether the network cancels the Duggars’ show or not, TLC can and must help empower every person who knows of or suspects child sexual abuse to take action.”

The post Duggar Scandal Should Prompt TLC To Help Fight Child Abuse, Advocate Says appeared first on Alaafia African Family Resource Center.

If you were asked to name countries where women vastly outnumber men in higher education, somewhere in the ultra-traditional Arab world would probably not be your first guess. And yet, in tiny Qatar, the oil-rich peninsula jutting off Saudi Arabia into the Persian Gulf, nearly seven times as many women as men are enrolled in university, one of the highest rates on the planet, according to the most recent figures compiled by the World Bank.

In fact, Maysa Jalbout, a fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Center for Universal Education, calculated recently that across the Arab world, women slightly outnumber men in tertiary education, with a female-to-male enrollment ration of 108 percent.

Surprisingly, it’s not a brand-new trend. Paolo Verme, a World Bank expert on the Middle East and North Africa, tells OZY that women there have made “huge gains” in the last decade or so in obtaining secondary and tertiary education. Fertility rates have also gone down rapidly across the region in the 21st century. And GDP growth has been on the rise. These are all prerequisites for women entering the workplace, at least based on what economists have found from studying other countries that now have high levels of female employment. So if all of this is happening in Arab countries, why are there still so few women working there?

As Jalbout points out, “Three out of four Arab women remain outside the labor force” — the lowest in the world. That’s true whether they’re college graduates or relatively uneducated. In fact, Verme and two colleagues found that in Morocco, the likelihood of women having a job went down with a high school-level education. He thinks there are a couple different factors at play.

The first is economic — the economies in the region may be growing, but not in the sectors most likely to employ women, like services and light manufacturing. And then there are the social norms. Verme has found that women in the region may get jobs early on, but exit the labor force en masse around the age of 25, aka average marriage age, regardless of whether or not they have children then. Family structures, still quite traditional, have a lot to do with it, says Mayyada Abu-Jaber, founder of the Jordan-based education NGO The World of Letters. In her work conducting youth employment-training programs, she found that more than half of female participants would decline the jobs offered upon completion. Deciding to work was a “collective decision of the family,” she found, and most families decide the vocational job opportunities “are not desirable for women.”

And while norms have shifted when it comes to the value of educating girls, they’ve not yet hit the women’s lib end of the spectrum. Education, notes Abu-Jabber, is now “very important for women” in Jordan, but not as a “transition for the workplace as much as it is becoming more desirable for marriage.” That helps explain why women with secondary education are less likely to work — they’re more likely to marry an educated man with a job that can support them both.

Verme cautions against concluding this all goes back to Muslim society. Look at the high female employment in places like Indonesia or Malaysia, which are majority Muslim. She says gender norms and social structure issues are important to the extent that the economy is weak. “I’m convinced if a country like Morocco was really able to compete in light manufacturing globally, all these other constraints would progressively disappear.”

The post Many Women In The Arab World Are Highly Educated, But Underemployed appeared first on Alaafia African Family Resource Center.