Syria elects first female parliament speaker

 Oil prices rebounded Monday as investors worried about plummeting Nigerian production after a militant attack in Nigeria.

Output of Nigeria's Bonny Light crude has fallen by an estimated 170,000 barrels per day (bpd) following recent attacks on pipeline infrastructure, according to media reports Monday.

Traders were also encouraged by the speculation that the Federal Reserve will not raise interest rates this month, which will weaken the U.S. dollar and bolster the dollar-priced crude.
Hadiyeh al-Abbas, a member of the ruling al-Baath party, was elected on Monday, as the speaker of the Syrian parliament, the first woman to claim the position in Syria's history.

According to state news agency SANA, al-Abbas was elected during the first session of the newly elected parliament.

SANA said al-Abbas was the first woman to be the speaker of the parliament since the Syrian Parliament was formed in 1919.

Al-Abbas was born in Syria's eastern province of Deir al-Zour in 1958. She holds a PhD in agricultural engineering from the university of Aleppo city in northern Syria.

She was also elected as a member of the parliament between 2003 and 2007.

Her election to the post is deemed as a historic move made in Syria during the country's five-year-old conflict.

Syria's parliamentary elections were held last April in government-controlled areas, with some 3,500 candidates vying for the 250 parliamentary seats amid a boycott by opposition groups. 

source : xinhua