BEIRUT // ISIL has beheaded or shot 17 men in Syria in the past two days as it faces increasing attacks from unidentified gunmen in areas it controls, a monitoring group said on Friday.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which uses a network of sources across the country to report on the war, said the spike in executions follows the killing of 10 ISIL fighters in hit-and-run attacks in several areas around Deir Al Zor province this month.
Syrian state news agency SANA said on Thursday ISIL executed three civilians and displayed their bodies in the town of Al Mayadin.
There have been no claims of responsibility for the recent attacks on ISIL, attributed by Syrian state media last week to “popular resistance” to ISIL.
Last year, Reuters reported on Syrians who say they have been hunting down ISIL fighters in Deir Al Zor province operating in small groups in a guerrilla campaign that has emerged as a response to brutality.
* Reuters
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Gender equality in the workplace still 200 years away
It will take centuries to achieve gender parity in workplaces around the globe, according to a December report from the World Economic Forum.
The WEF study said there had been some improvements in wage equality in 2018 compared to 2017, when the global gender gap widened for the first time in a decade.
But it warned that these were offset by declining representation of women in politics, coupled with greater inequality in their access to health and education.
At current rates, the global gender gap across a range of areas will not close for another 108 years, while it is expected to take 202 years to close the workplace gap, WEF found.
The Geneva-based organisation's annual report tracked disparities between the sexes in 149 countries across four areas: education, health, economic opportunity and political empowerment.
After years of advances in education, health and political representation, women registered setbacks in all three areas this year, WEF said.
Only in the area of economic opportunity did the gender gap narrow somewhat, although there is not much to celebrate, with the global wage gap narrowing to nearly 51 per cent.
And the number of women in leadership roles has risen to 34 per cent globally, WEF said.
At the same time, the report showed there are now proportionately fewer women than men participating in the workforce, suggesting that automation is having a disproportionate impact on jobs traditionally performed by women.
And women are significantly under-represented in growing areas of employment that require science, technology, engineering and mathematics skills, WEF said.
* Agence France Presse