Minggu, 09 Maret 2008
10 Worst Countries for Women
Afghanistan Women in veils picture (source)
From thestar.com
In spite of real progress in women's rights around the globe – better laws, political participation, education and income – the bedrock problems that have dogged women for centuries remain. Even in wealthy countries, there are pockets of private pain where women are unprotected and under attack.
Here are 10 of the worst countries in the world to be a woman today:
• Afghanistan: The average Afghan girl will live to only 45 – one year less than an Afghan male. After three decades of war and religion-based repression, an overwhelming number of women are illiterate. More than half of all brides are under 16, and one woman dies in childbirth every half hour. Domestic violence is so common that 87 per cent of women admit to experiencing it. But more than one million widows are on the streets, often forced into prostitution. Afghanistan is the only country in which the female suicide rate is higher than that of males.
• Democratic Republic of Congo: In the eastern DRC, a war that claimed more than 3 million lives has ignited again, with women on the front line. Rapes are so brutal and systematic that UN investigators have called them unprecedented. Many victims die; others are infected with HIV and left to look after children alone. Foraging for food and water exposes women to yet more violence. Without money, transport or connections, they have no way of escape.
• Iraq: The U.S.-led invasion to "liberate" Iraq from Saddam Hussein has imprisoned women in an inferno of sectarian violence that targets women and girls. The literacy rate, once the highest in the Arab world, is now among the lowest as families fear risking kidnapping and rape by sending girls to school. Women who once went out to work stay home. Meanwhile, more than 1 million women have been displaced from their homes, and millions more are unable to earn enough to eat.
• Nepal: Early marriage and childbirth exhaust the country's malnourished women, and one in 24 will die in pregnancy or childbirth. Daughters who aren't married off may be sold to traffickers before they reach their teens. Widows face extreme abuse and discrimination if they're labelled bokshi, meaning witches. A low-level civil war between government and Maoist rebels has forced rural women into guerrilla groups.
• Sudan: While Sudanese women have made strides under reformed laws, the plight of those in Darfur, in western Sudan, has worsened. Abduction, rape or forced displacement have destroyed more than 1 million women's lives since 2003. The janjaweed militias have used systematic rape as a demographic weapon, but access to justice is almost impossible for the female victims of violence.
• Other countries in which women's lives are significantly worse than men's include Guatemala, where an impoverished female underclass faces domestic violence, rape and the second-highest rate of HIV/AIDS after sub-Saharan Africa. An epidemic of gruesome unsolved murders has left hundreds of women dead, some of their bodies left with hate messages.
In Mali, one of the world's poorest countries, few women escape the torture of genital mutilation, many are forced into early marriages, and one in 10 dies in pregnancy or childbirth.
In the tribal border areas of Pakistan, women are gang-raped as punishment for men's crimes. But honour killing is more widespread, and a renewed wave of religious extremism is targeting female politicians, human rights workers and lawyers.
In oil-rich Saudi Arabia, women are treated as lifelong dependents, under the guardianship of a male relative. Deprived of the right to drive a car or mix with men publicly, they are confined to strictly segregated lives on pain of severe punishment.
In the Somali capital, Mogadishu, a vicious civil war has put women, who were the traditional mainstay of the family, under attack. In a society that has broken down, women are exposed daily to rape, dangerously poor health care for pregnancy, and attack by armed gangs.
While 10 Best Countries for Women are Iceland, Norway, Australia, Canada, Ireland, Sweden, Switzerland, Japan, Netherlands, France
Celine Dion's Hairy Legs
Her heart will go on…and so will her hair. The singer [Celine Dion] shows off her furry gams at a concert at the Tokyo Dome on Saturday night [March 8].
China Southern Airlines Hijacking Thwarted
Chinadaily reported:
BEIJING -- China on Friday foiled a planned attack on a passenger plane taking off from Urumqi, capital of the northwestern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, an official said here on Sunday.
The plane of China Southern Airlines took off at 10:35, and was forced to land at Lanzhou, capital of neighboring Gansu Province, at 12:40 Friday, because "some people were attempting to create an air disaster," said Nur Bekri, chairman of the Xinjiang regional government, on the sidelines of the ongoing parliament session.
The attackers were stopped in time by the air police, and all the passengers and crew members on board are safe, he told reporters after a panel discussion at the ongoing session of the National People's Congress (NPC).
An official with the airliner told Xinhua in a telephone interview that he cannot confirm whether the incident was a terror attack, "it's up to the police department to verify."
The plane arrived in its destination of Beijing on Saturday. The official did not elaborate on the details, just saying that the authorities are investigating "who the attackers are, where they are from and what's their background."
Malaysia Blogger Jeff Ooi Elected to Parliamentary Seat
Jeff Ooi Chuan Aun (pictured above, wikipedia), a renowned blogger in Malaysia, had won the Jelutong parliamentary seat in Penang with a 16,246-vote majority against his two opponents. Jeff Ooi who joined the opposition party Democratic Action Party (DAP, it won an unprecedented victory during Malaysia's 12th General Election) in 2007 usually heavily criticizes the policies of Malaysia's ruling National Front (Barison Nasional). With the election to the Parliament and his DAP now being a ruling party in the Penang and Perak states, it's interesting to see what he is to write on his blog Screenshots about the involvement in the Malaysian politics.
George Clooney Looks Cool On Esquire Cover
George Clooney looks cool on the cover of Esquire magazine's April 2008 issue, while rolling the sleeves and holding a toothpick in his mouth. Link
Paris Hilton Wears B.M. Ring For Boyfriend Benji Madden?
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