Cruz vs. Paul: A GOP road to nowhere

Hillary Clinton continues to have an overwhelming lead over other possible 2016 Democratic presidential candidates. Although the former first lady and secretary of state has not said whether she'll run, a group of PACs and advocacy organizations have begun the process of raising money and aiding a hypothetical campaign.

Vice President Joe Biden has twice before made unsuccessful bids for the Oval Office -- in 1988 and 2008. A former senator known for his foreign policy and national security expertise, Biden made the rounds on the morning shows recently and said he thinks he'd "make a good President."

Sen. Marco Rubio, a Republican rising star from Florida, was swept into office in 2010 on the back of tea party fervor. But his support of comprehensive immigration reform, which passed the Senate but has stalled in the House, has led some in his party to sour on his prospects.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has fallen out of the top spot among potential Republican presidential candidates with a political scandal roiling his administration.

Rep. Paul Ryan, a former 2012 vice presidential candidate and fiscally conservative budget hawk, says he's "keeping my options open" for a possible presidential run but is not focused on it.

Sen. Rand Paul said last March that he was seriously considering a run for president in 2016. If the tea party favorite decides to jump in, he likely will have to address previous controversies that include comments on civil rights, a plagiarism allegation, and his assertion the top NSA official lied to Congress about surveillance.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz plans to travel to states that factor into the early nomination process. The first-term Republican and tea party darling is considered a gifted orator and smart politician. He is best known in the Senate for his marathon filibuster over defunding Obamacare.

Maryland Democratic Gov. Martin O'Malley released a "buzzy" political video in November 2013 in tandem with visits to New Hampshire. He also headlined a Democratic Party event in South Carolina, which holds the first southern primary.

Republican Texas Gov. Rick Perry announced in 2013 that he would not be seeking re-election, leading to speculation he might mount a second White House bid.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said recently it's too early to announce whether he'll run. Jindal has said he wants to focus on "winning the war of ideas" before making a decision on his presidential ambitions.

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, a social conservative, gave Mitt Romney his toughest challenge in the nomination fight last time out and has made trips recently to early voting states, including Iowa and South Carolina.

Political observers expect New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to yield to Hillary Clinton should she run in 2016, fearing there wouldn't be room in the race for two Democrats from the Empire State. Should she not jump in, Cuomo would then be a potential candidate.

Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin is considered a possible Republican candidate, but he recently told CNN that his priority is to first help the GOP capture the Senate in next November's midterms.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has said his decision to run for the Republican nomination will be based on two things -- his family and whether he can lift America's spirit. His father and brother formerly served as President.

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• Sen. Rand Paul takes verbal shot at his potential 2016 rival Ted Cruz


• Julian Zelizer says if GOP faces a choice between the two for nomination, watch out


• He says many voters won't back party that's extreme, obstructionist or libertarian


• Zelizer: Republicans hurt by Chris Christie's woes, have to hope for Jeb Bush to run

Editor's note: Julian Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the author of "Jimmy Carter" and "Governing America."

(CNN) -- A fight has broken out between two of the most prominent members of the Republican Party: Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul.

In an op-ed for Breitbart News, Paul took a shot at Cruz, without actually naming him, when he wrote, "I will remind anyone who thinks we will win elections by trashing previous Republican nominees or holding oneself out as some paragon in the mold of Reagan, that splintering the party is not the route to victory." This was just one more flash point in the ongoing tension that has characterized their relationship.

The back-and-forth has captured considerable attention since both men have been discussed as possible contenders for the Republican nomination in 2016.

Each is seen as representing a different faction of the Republican right: Cruz the take-no-prisoners, slash-and-burn conservatives who will do just about anything to obtain their objectives and Paul the libertarian voice pushing back against all forms of government.

If Cruz and Paul turn out to be the major spokespersons for the debate about where the Republican Party should go, then the party is going to be in some big trouble.

Cruz represents an extremist wing of the GOP that can't seem to govern. Since the emergence of the tea party in 2009, the Republican Party has been shaped by a group of politicians who have been willing to employ extraordinarily aggressive tactics in the pursuit of cuts to domestic spending. Nobody has symbolized this style of leadership more than Cruz. He led the drumbeat to shut down the federal government to force President Obama's hand on spending and has favored the Republican refusal to raise the debt ceiling. Cruz has also been a master of the filibuster, employing variations of the tactic to bring the Senate to a standstill.

This image of obstructionist governance might excite the most loyal activists in the party, but it is not a style conducive to presidential leadership and it is not a style that plays well at a national level.

Senators Ted Cruz, left, of Texas, and Rand Paul of Kentucky.

Republicans have suffered greatly in the polls as a result of these kinds of extremist tactics. One recent poll found that four out of five Americans don't trust the Republican Party. "That's just about as bad as it gets," noted MSNBC host, and Republican, Joe Scarborough. Many Americans question whether the Republicans can govern. A Cruz candidacy would perfectly set up a Hillary Clinton candidacy by allowing Democrats to emphasize her ability to get things done and make the political system work.

Rand Paul represents a different problem: He is a politician whose rhetoric is totally at odds with the history of the GOP. Since the 1930s, libertarians have had trouble gaining traction within the party.

The reality has been that most Republicans have embraced the federal government as a permanent part of national politics. In the area of national security, the party has been a driving force behind the expansion of the military establishment since the Cold War.

While some Republicans like Paul might now rail against the surveillance tactics of the National Security Agency, the recent power of this agency was built on the foundation that Republicans built with the war on terrorism under President George W. Bush.

Neither have Republicans been a true small government party in domestic policy. Studies have shown how federal spending has grown more dramatically under Republican presidents, including Ronald Reagan, than Democrats.

Most Republicans have avoided cutting most of the big-ticket programs, such as Social Security or farm assistance, while pushing for an expansion of government in other areas, such as Medicare Prescription Drugs. Republican legislators have been as skillful at pork-barrel politics as anyone from the other side of the aisle.

Though Paul may claim he will do things differently, Democrats could have a field day challenging the veracity of such claims given the weight of history that he faces.

The weaknesses of both men—Cruz in terms of his style and Paul in terms of his rhetoric—point out how desperate the GOP is to find someone who can build a broad coalition, something that is essential for a presidential victory, particularly when Republicans will likely be facing a formidable candidate.

The problems of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie have been a huge blow to the party, and there are not many alternatives at this point who are willing to run to replace a figure who, in terms of style of governance and rhetoric, would have a better chance of appealing to voters beyond the base. This is the reason former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is getting so much buzz, as potentially the only other person who can fill this void.

If Republicans can't find some alternative and the primaries revolve around the tension between Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, Democrats will be in excellent position to retain the White House in 2016.

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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Julian Zelizer.

How TED got famous

Workers finish preparations for the TED conference to be held in Vancouver, British Columbia, this week.

• TED got its start as a conference in Monterey, California, 30 years ago


• Today the organization has a big media footprint, with 1,600-plus talks available online


• Many predictions made on its stage have come true, including popularity of touch screens


• Speakers at this week's conference include Bill Gates, Sting, and Tim Berners-Lee

Vancouver, British Columbia (CNN) -- In February 1984, a group of tech enthusiasts gathered in Monterey, California, to share thoughts on three subjects -- technology, entertainment and design. It was the start of the acronym (and the organization) TED, which marks its first three decades this week with a conference in Vancouver.

The first speaker back in 1984, Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of MIT's Media Lab, predicted that devices with touch screens would come into widespread use, more than 20 years before Apple's iPhone delivered on that bet.

On Wednesday, the 1,300 attendees at this year's conference will be shown a video with clips from Negroponte's 1984 talk, along with snippets of TED Talks that predicted advances in the use of robots, development of a driverless car, and technology that enables scientists to grow human body parts.

Each of these predictions has come true, notes TED's June Cohen. One that largely hasn't, at least in any practical sense, is the personal flying car, Cohen said in an interview with CNN. (One conference included a presentation on a small plane that can be driven on roads, but it hasn't come into widespread use.) "It's a very Jetsons concept," she said. "I am waiting for that flying car."

Chris Anderson, curator of TED

Negroponte has been invited to give the first talk at this year's conference, one of many TED "all-stars" slated to reappear on the conference's stage. Among them: "Eat, Pray, Love" author Elizabeth Gilbert, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, inventor Ray Kurzweil, robotics expert Rodney Brooks, educator Salman Khan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, Whole Earth Catalog founder Stewart Brand, and Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the World Wide Web.

Others speaking at this weeks's conference, titled "The Next Chapter," include Bill and Melinda Gates, Sting, author Isabel Allende, and former Rep. Gabby Giffords and her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly. On Tuesday, Charmian Gooch, co-founder of the anti-corruption group Global Witness, will reveal the wish for which she was recently awarded the $1 million TED Prize.

TED's breakout moment

While much of this year's conference harks back to TED's start in 1984, the organization really didn't assume its current form -- and its expansive public footprint -- until eight years ago.

In 2006, TED's leadership decided to put its archive of recorded talks online for free. The thinking was that there were limits to how much impact a talk could have if its audience was only a thousand people, even if those people were influential ones. As Cohen recalls, it was considered a risky and even radical move.

June Cohen, executive producer of TED Media

"There was a lot of skepticism," she says. "People worried that it might capsize our business model because we were running an expensive, somewhat elite conference. Conventional wisdom would tell you that if you have sort of a luxury item, an expensive conference, you have to keep your prices high and your commodity scarce."

But Cohen says TED never got the pushback some expected from people who had paid thousands of dollars to attend the conferences. "They welcomed it," she said. "They longed to share the talks with friends and family who couldn't be there in the room."

And it didn't discourage people from going to TED, she said. "We raised the price of the conference by 50%, to $6,000, and we ended up selling out a year in advance with a thousand-person wait list. ... That really was a lesson for us in the power of openness." TED followed up by allowing independently organized groups around the world to hold "TEDx" conferences, propagating its 18-minute video format.

TED staff members can reel off the resulting numbers: 1.9 million TED Talk video views a day, 1,600-plus TED Talks online, 9,000 TEDx events in 157 countries.

Making of a TED Talk

A TED Talk -- most of the main conferences have more than 60 of them -- is typically a carefully curated and rehearsed presentation by a thinker, an expert or an artist who's passionate about his or her subject, which can range far beyond the original "technology, entertainment, design" boundaries.

Shot by as many as eight cameras, with professional set design and lighting, the video builds to an emotional (and intellectual) climax and is intended to be shared widely.

What it is not is an hour-long college lecture, a panel discussion or a question-and-answer session with the audience -- all of which might make for a less dramatic and far less shareable product.

Some critics have argued that TED Talks reduce complex subjects to a string of bullet points or promote a naive utopian view of the infinite possibilities of technology.

That's not the way Cohen sees it. A graduate of Stanford, where she edited the student newspaper, she was working as a vice president at the online arm of Wired magazine when she attended her first TED in 1998.

"I absolutely fell in love with it from my first moment there. I felt like I had found my world and found my people. ... I think one of the reasons it spoke to me was that TED is sort of uniquely designed for people who have a wide range of interests."

Cohen is a passionate advocate for conference sessions that hop from one discipline to another. "For me that's what TED is. It's not a single talk or even a collection of talks, it's the range of territory that we cover. ... And if we've curated it right, what happens to people in the audience during a TED session is that you can almost feel your brain lighting up in different areas. So when you see a designer speak, followed by a poet, followed by a physicist, followed by an entrepreneur, followed by a great musical performance ... it helps us create connections between the ideas that are coming at us."

Not everyone approves. "People with a wide range of interests are often cast as dilettantes or often looked down upon for what is seen as a lack of focus," Cohen says. "I see it as an existence of breadth, and one of the things you find really unites people who attend TED, or people who watch TED talks regularly, is that they do have a great interest in a wide range of areas."

"Interestingly, there's a lot of evidence that that is the kind of thinking we really need today, that the great challenges of our times cannot be solved by experts working in their individual areas, but rather by people who can gather information from a wide range of fields and bring them together."

TED's evolution

The year that Cohen first went to TED was also the first time that Chris Anderson, a magazine entrepreneur, attended. He too was hooked. And in 2001, having sold his company, Anderson purchased TED through his nonprofit Sapling Foundation from TED co-founder Richard Saul Wurman.

Anderson begins each conference with the incantation "It's time for TED" and shares hosting the sessions with Cohen and other staff members. Cohen helps curate the conference and also oversees TED's media arm, which includes a recently relaunched TED.com.

She sees the arc of TED's lifespan as going from a "closed conference to an open platform for spreading ideas." Indeed the organization's motto is "Ideas worth spreading," and the new website makes that tangible.

A widget on each video allows a user who has shared a talk with others to see how many views the talk has gotten from those who have clicked on that person's link. Through the site, TED speakers can provide suggestions for further reading and for ways to take action on the issues raised in their talks.

The boom in online video

Still, the heart of what TED offers is the short, tightly edited online video itself, and Cohen acknowledges that what was once unique to the organization has become available elsewhere. "Over the years, the format of a recorded talk has gone from a novelty to a bit more of a staple online. I think that's great news for everyone."

As for the criticism TED has gotten, Cohen says, "the more people you're influencing, the bigger target you'll become. It's a natural part of growing up as a media organization."

"We work very concertedly with all of our speakers to make sure that their talks are deeply substantive and authentic. So there's no formula for a great TED talk. ... We always make it very clear to our speakers that it is essential that they not dumb down their material."

Cohen says the aim is to have the audience "stretch up," and to help make that possible, she cites the advice often attributed to Albert Einstein: "Make things as simple as possible but no simpler."

And, she adds, "It's important to remember what a TED Talk is. A TED Talk isn't a scientific paper and it isn't a full-length book. It's a short talk meant to reach an intelligent general audience."

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Barcelona Emergency Services ask Brit for €600

Mathew Wintercross, 27, went to the emergency room without his NHS medical card and Reception asked him for €600 before they would attend to him.

He tried to get medical treatment after a cycling accident at both Hospital Sant Pau and CAP Sardenya before, finally being attended to in Valld’Hebron.

Hospital Sant Pau has attributed this matter to a ‘misunderstanding’ originating in Reception as emergency treatment should be free for everyone regardless of whether they have a card or not.

Mr Wintercross, a resident of Barcelona, left the first two hospitals without making a complaint as he was unaware of his rights.

The Sant Pau hospital attends to more than 34,700 medical incidents per year and 0.5% of these involve foreigners.

Most of these treatments are not paid for as the system does the billing after the fact, not before.

Joan Luis Pique, head of the Catalonian Health Service, has assured that all emergency medical attention is guaranteed and only billable in special circumstances.

Fuengirola saddened by TV Chef Clarissa Dickson Wright 's death

Fuengirola will be saddened by the death of Clarissa Dickson Wright, the TV cook who became famous as one of the Two Fat Ladies.

The hugely popular show, which aired on the BBC in 1996, saw the chef and her pal Jennifer Paterson travel the country on a Triumph Thunderbird motorcycle with sidecar.

Clarissa, 66, a frequent visitor to the Costa del Sol’s Fuengirola, passed away at Edinburgh’s Royal Infirmary on Saturday.

Clarissa’s agents Heather Holden-Brown and Elly James said: “Loved dearly by her friends and many fans all over the world, Clarissa was utterly non-PC and fought for what she believed in, always, with no thought to her own personal cost.

“Her fun and laughter, extraordinary learning and intelligence, will be missed always, by so many of us.”

Dickson Wright began cooking after her career as a barrister was brought to an end by her alcoholism. The TV star had been teetotal for almost 27 years before her death.

Up until just last year she was the youngest woman ever to be called to the Bar, after she passed her exams aged 21.

TV producer Patricia Llewellyn discovered Clarissa working in an Edinburgh cookery bookshop and decided to introduce her to quirky Paterson, who said she had never had a cookery lesson in her life.

In the show, the two women travelled the country on a Triumph Thunderbird motorcycle driven by Paterson, with Dickson Wright in the sidecar, and made it their mission to prepare meals from scratch for members of the public.

Spokeswoman Ms James said Dickson Wright “hadn’t been well for a little while” and had been in hospital since the beginning of the year. Co-star Paterson died from cancer in July 1999.

UK Fears United States of Europe

UK Prime Minister David Cameron warned yesterday of a ‘United States of Europe’.

Cameron says Britain will be ‘sucked into a United States of Europe’ unless powers are clawed back from Brussels.

Cameron laid out seven targets for renegotiation of Britain’s membership with the European Union including immigration controls and abolishing the ‘ever closer union’ principle.

The PM said public support for EU membership in Britain is now ‘wafer thin’ and argued that the status quo in Europe ‘is not working’.

He promised to try to secure a better deal for the country – provided he wins next year’s general election.

If the Conservatives win another term he says he’ll hold an in-out referendum on Britain’s membership in 2017.

The Prime Minister vowed to campaign to stay in the EU – if Brussels agrees to his new terms.

The list of negotiations includes stricter immigration controls, tougher rules on access to benefits, less red tape where businesses are concerned and freeing the police and courts from ‘unnecessary interference’ by the European Court of Human Rights.

Cameron said the principle of ‘ever closer union’ among EU member states, preserved in the European treaties, should be abolished because it is ‘not right for Britain’.

The proposals coincide with a ComRes poll for the Independent on Sunday and Sunday Mirror, which indicates that Ukip will win the largest share of the vote (30%) in the European elections in May, with the Tories falling into third place with 21%.

Cameron’s plan has met with criticism though.

Douglas Carswell, Conservative MP for Clacton, said: “John Major promised less red tape and talked about returning powers to national parliaments. Tony Blair talked about a more flexible Europe.

“For the past 20 years various prime ministers have promised these sorts of changes but they never happen. As someone campaigning for Britain’s withdrawal, the vagueness and vacuousness of this argument makes it far easier for me.”

Belafonte: Reject Uganda anti-gay law

• Harry Belafonte, Mathilde Krim: Uganda passed law that makes it a crime to be gay


• They say this drives HIV/AIDS vulnerable population into shadows; undermines AIDS fight


• They say U.S. has made big progress in human rights crisis of discrimination against gays


• Writers: U.S., show world this is priority; redirect funds away from government to aid groups

Editor's note: Harry Belafonte is a Grammy Award-winning musician, civil rights activist and a trustee for amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research. Mathilde Krim, Ph.D., is the founding chairman of amfAR.

(CNN) -- It is a tragic irony that two countries in Africa -- Nigeria and Uganda -- that for many years experienced the subjugation of colonial rule have recently enshrined into law discriminatory practices that dehumanize their own citizens.

In Uganda, a draconian bill recently signed by President Yoweri Museveni makes it a crime to be gay. Any person convicted of "the offense of homosexuality" faces life imprisonment. Anyone found guilty of "funding or sponsoring homosexuality or other related activities" will be sentenced to a seven-year jail term.

Apart from being a flagrant abuse of human rights, the new law will severely impede the efforts of any organization conducting HIV prevention and outreach programs serving gay men in Uganda.

Gay men, other men who have sex with men, and transgender individuals are disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS -- in Uganda and the world over. Driving a community that is already stigmatized further into the shadows will seriously undermine progress on the global epidemic, progress that depends on reaching the most vulnerable populations.

Opprobrium from the U.S. and other nations is greeted by Uganda's leaders with a familiar refrain: Stop trying to impose your values on us. But the United States is as entitled as any nation to espouse a set of values, and if those values enshrine the right of all people to be treated with dignity and respect, then we should make every effort to export them.

The struggle against HIV/AIDS, now in its fourth decade, has always also been a human rights issue.

In the early days of AIDS in the United States, when confusion, ignorance and hysteria reigned, there were those who called for people with HIV to be quarantined or tattooed. Until recently, HIV-positive people were barred from entering the United States. Fighting for its life in the early 1980s, the gay community rose up and the struggle for gay rights became the civil rights struggle of the tail end of the 20th century.

It is far from over, but with the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell," which sanctioned anti-gay discrimination in the military, and victories on same-sex marriage in 17 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, we have made substantial progress. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has called gay rights one of "the defining civil rights challenges of our time."

Gay Ugandans committing suicide

Did Pastor promote homophobia in Uganda?

Responding to the passage of the anti-homosexuality law in Uganda, President Barack Obama said it would "complicate" the United States' relationship with Uganda.

Instead, the passage of this blatantly discriminatory piece of legislation should fundamentally alter our relationship with Uganda, a country that receives close to $500 million annually from the U.S. in foreign assistance, largely for HIV/AIDS programs.

To make its position abundantly clear, the U.S. should redirect its assistance for HIV/AIDS and other health and development concerns toward nongovernmental and civil society organizations working in Uganda. Indeed, if protecting the human rights of gay people is in fact a priority of U.S. foreign policy, then we should re-examine our relationship with all countries receiving foreign aid and restructure our relations with those that criminalize homosexuality.

As Archbishop Desmond Tutu rightly declared in condemning the Ugandan anti-homosexuality law: "There is no scientific justification for prejudice and discrimination, ever. And nor is there any moral justification."

What does exist, however, is the very real possibility that this cancerous bigotry will spread to other countries wishing to scapegoat an easily targeted minority.

If they have an ounce of humanity, the governments of Uganda and Nigeria will repeal these odious laws without delay.

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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Harry Belafonte and Mathilde Krim.

It's time to stop child marriage

Too Young to Wed, 2011: Stephanie Sinclair traveled to Yemen for an assignment on child brides. Here, she captures Nujood Ali and her younger sister, a couple of years after 10-year-old Ali fled an abusive husband in his 30s.

• Campaigners in Yemen want law against child marriage in the country


• Around one third of girls married before they are 18, according to the UN


• Nawal Ba Abbad says younger marriage leads to more complications during childbirth


• Some girls are sent into arranged marriages as young as 9 years old

Editor's note: Dr Nawal Ba Abbad is a doctor from Sanaa, Yemen, who in partnership with White Ribbon Alliance Yemen has campaigned tirelessly for a law against child marriage in her country.

(CNN) -- Throughout my career as a doctor I have traveled from the mountains of Yemen to its deserts. I have seen first hand what happens when children give birth to children. I have seen the tombstones of girls who died too young because they married too young.

Yemen is one of only two countries in the world with no legislation on a minimum age of marriage.

With a national dialogue underway to establish a new constitution, there is now a chance to establish a safe age of marriage, protecting young girls who are currently married off as young as 9 years old.

As I advocate to end child marriage in Yemen, I always remember my best friend at school. We would talk about our future and what we wanted to be when we grew up. We had big aspirations, as young girls should. My friend was the smartest girl in our class. Everything felt possible.

But when she was 13, she was told to leave school to prepare for her wedding. Her dreams ended. We were all so upset. I still remember her wedding day as we tried to support her. It was such a sad day for us all, a stark comparison for so many whose wedding day is remembered as the happiest of their lives.

We have a chance to establish a safe age of marriage, protecting girls who are brides as young as nine years old.

Nawal Ba Abbad

I was lucky. My parents did not want me to marry as a child. They were my firewall, protecting me from the pressure of all the people in my community who said I should marry. They were determined to give me a brighter future.

As I carried on my studies, and became a doctor, the image of my friend's wedding always stayed with me. So many girls in my country don't have the right to say "No, I don't want that man or this kind of life." My friend moved away and we didn't stay in touch.

My friend's story is not unusual. The UN estimates that one in three girls in Yemen are married before 18. Around the world, approximately 14 million girls are married as children every year.

The right to choose

To think of all the girls in my country who are forced into marriage, lose their personalities, their happiness and just have to obey what they are told to do, is what drives me forward in my work.

Child brides don't talk about it, but they suffer. A recent study in Yemen has shown that girls who have their rights taken from them in this way do not forgive their parents, and there is a breakdown of family relationships.

11-year-old: I ran away from being sold

As a doctor I see the complications young girls are suffering from as they give birth before their bodies are ready. Girls not Brides, a civil society network campaigning against child marriage, suggests that girls under 15 are five times more likely to die giving birth.

Child brides: A global problem

Read more: Yemeni girl goes on YouTube to plea for education, not marriage

Yemen has one of the highest maternal death rates in the world. According to the White Ribbon Alliance, one in 90 women die in childbirth in my country. I cannot bear to continue to watch young women giving up their lives and having to give birth too young.

We must support our girls and women by providing better maternal health care, access to family planning and safe abortion.

We must work together to end early marriage so that all girls have the right to choose when and whom to marry and are able to finish their education, strengthening the bonds that are so important to us, with our friends and our family.

We know how to fix these problems. We can tackle many issues if we tackle early marriage.

Together in partnership with the White Ribbon Alliance in Yemen and many other activists we have been campaigning for a safe age of marriage for many years. Since the uprising in 2011, a new constitution is being drafted in my country.

This is an opportunity to establish a minimum age of marriage. But it is a narrow window of opportunity.

Too often girls have no voice, no choice, no access. I am determined to help them have a better future. My friend did not fulfill her dream, but by ending child marriage together we can make sure that girls in Yemen and around the world can fulfill theirs.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Nawal Ba Abbad.