Airin Shivaee, an Iranian astronomer, is the first Iranian woman to visit the Antarctica. The Iranian woman astronaut, Anousheh Ansari, who went to moon on a $20 million journey, is the financial sponsor for Shivaee.
Shivaee visited Antarctica within the framework of Student on Ice (SOI) program, Fars News Agency reported.
She and other students and scholars from all over the world are taking part in a two-week visit to Antarctica. She was chosen after being interviewed by experts from amongst a large number of candidates.
Shivaee departed Tehran for Paris in late December to join other students in Buenos Aires. After arriving in the Argentine capital, she and others will go to the world’s southernmost city, Ushuaia where they will depart for the South Pole.
The university students are attending an expedition to study the consequences of global warming. During their visit to Antarctica, a total of 64 students and university students will accompany 25 scientists, experts and guides from all over the world.
A total of four Iranians had previously visited Antarctica, including Iranian astronomer, Babak Amin Tafreshi and Hamid Jodeiri Khodashenas who went to the South Pole to study a solar eclipse.
Antarctica is the coldest, driest, highest and most intact place on earth. It contains about 90 percent of world’s drinking water and plays a crucial role in earth’s ecosystem. Geoff Green, the team guide will accompany the students during their expedition. The famous Russian astronaut, Mikhail Tyurin who has the experience of staying for 215 days in the International Space Station will accompany the students in their journey to the South Pole.

A self-made entrepreneur, Amina is one of eight licensed brokers in Sanaa's wholesale fruit market.

These days, the biblical land of Sheba has an unlikely queen. She’s Amina Al-Amrani--a 57 year old, mother of seven, better known as Yemen’s “Queen of Oranges.“
Amina can’t read or write but she’s become an urban legend as one of the top wholesale fruit brokers in the country, according to CNN.
“I stood strong and persisted. I kept working and I kept trading and that’s how I gained the experience,“
Al-Amrani said.
A self-made entrepreneur, Amina is one of eight licensed brokers in Sanaa’s wholesale fruit market.
She sells almost 200 tons of fruit daily--worth about a quarter of a million dollars--but is hesitant to disclose her profits.
She has thirty men working for her and she’s a broker for about 400 farmers around the country.
“Competition is tough, they’re all men in this field. Because I’m a woman and I’m successful some people try to hassle me to drive me out of the market“.
After 20 years in the business, she’s made her mark.
In the mountains overlooking Sanaa, Amina visits old clients and friends at the first farm she ever dealt with, back in 1983.
“I used to sell coral necklaces to the women in this family. One of them still owed me money, and she said that when the peaches ripen she’ll sell them to pay me. I just took the peaches. When I sold them, I made a good profit. Then I kept coming back to buy more.“
Even then she left an unforgettable impression.
Farmer Ali Al-Tahuma said, “She’s the first businesswoman I ever met. She’s not like other women who just hide behind their veils.“
Today Amina exports her fruits to countries around the Persian Gulf as well as Egypt and Sudan, and she’s attended agriculture conferences in places as varied as Germany and China.
In rural areas of Yemen it’s estimated that over 80 percent of women work in agriculture, mostly doing unpaid manual labor on their families’ farms.
In the formal economy, women still account for less than one quarter of the workforce.
Maha Ghaleb, director general of the Working Women’s Directorate said: “We have to work on the mentality of people, on their perceptions of working women.
“Still the perception is not clear of working women, the role of working women, the role of women in this society.“
It’s a conservative society. Many families still consider it inappropriate for women to work closely with men outside their family.
Amina says she owes her success mainly to her husband’s support.
“It was very difficult because my family didn’t accept it at all,“ she said.
“My mother screamed at me that I was shaming the family and my brothers didn’t speak to me for four years.“
Now Amina financially supports most of the family members who once ostracized her.
Maha Ghaleb says she’s a role model for other Yemeni women.

Saudi women cannot travel without the written permission of a male guardian.

Saudi women activists last Wednesday began a fresh effort to get a ban on women drivers lifted in 2008, handing in a new petition to King Abdullah urging him to quash the restriction.
Signatories of the petition “hope that 2008 will be the year in which Saudi women obtain their natural right to drive a car,“ according to the document.
Campaigner Fawzia Al-Oyouni told AFP the petition is part of a continuing effort to quash the ban in the oil-rich but ultraconservative kingdom, where women are forced to cover from head to toe in public.
The petition follows a similar one sent to the king last September signed by more than 1,100 Saudis.
“We hope to send a new petition each time we manage to get 1000 new signatures,“ Oyouni said.
Saudi women cannot travel without the written permission of their male guardian, who could be the woman’s grandfather, father, uncle, husband, son or brother.
Although women cannot drive themselves, they can be chauffeured around by hired drivers.

A deaf Iranian woman performs the national anthem on the sidelines of a conference on Opportunities and Challenges in the Oil, Gas and Petrochemical Industries of Iran and Iraq, on Jan. 3. (Photo by Ali Hassanpour).

For all the men who despise going to markets or malls with their partners, this might come as a huge relief, for a new survey has found that women prefer going alone for shopping.
The top reason for such a choice was found to be the partner’s ’bad behavior’ during shopping trips, ranging from sighing, looking pointedly at their watches or refusing to come into a shop, said Economictimes.indiatimes.com.
The survey, conducted by McArthur Glen (Scotland largest designer outlet), reviewed 2,000 couples, and found that 89 percent of women preferred shopping alone or with children than with their partner.
Of the 89 percent, 50 percent said that they couldn’t tolerate the way their partners look bored or moaned about shopping. Meanwhile, 31 percent of men insisted on standing outside the store.
In case of men, more than a third said that they were frustrated by their wife or fiancŽe insisting on going into every shop, and 34 percent said it took their partners too long to make a decision.

Relatively young women who are obese and who have polycystic ovarian syndrome are at increased risk of developing coronary atherosclerosis, also referred to as “hardening of the arteries,“ which is unrelated to other known risk factors for heart disease, a new study shows, reported Reuters.
“These findings underscore the need to screen and aggressively counsel and treat these women to prevent symptomatic cardiovascular disease,“ Dr. Rupal Shroff and colleagues from the University of Iowa, Iowa City, conclude in their report, published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.
Polycystic ovarian syndrome is a hormone disorder usually diagnosed in women in their 20s or 30s.
The disorder is characterized by numerous cysts on enlarged ovaries that are surrounded by a thick, scarred capsule.
Symptoms include irregular or no menstrual periods, excessive hair growth and infertility. However, pregnancy may be possible after medical treatment or surgery.

A survey to study the behavior pattern of the youth in India revealed a high rate of unemployment among the educated women.
The survey was conducted by the Mumbai-based International Institute of Population Sciences (IIPS) at a time when the government has begun work to formulate the nation’s next National Youth Policy, the Indian Express reported.
The findings showed that on average half of educated women are unemployed, higher than among men. “Because of educational levels and social status, women do not want to do lower or inferior jobs,“ said Dr. Usha Ram, one of the coordinators for the IIPS survey.
The first-ever survey also found lack of comprehensive knowledge about HIV/AIDS in youth, high rate of tobacco consumption among men and their low participation in community programs.
The study also showed, more women than men were married before the prescribed legal age (18 years for a girl and 21 years for a boy).
“Awareness and knowledge of HIV is high, but correct knowledge is not there,“ said Dr. Usha Ram. The survey found that participation of young men in community programs is very low and even poorer among young women.

More and more women are taking the major spending decisions in their homes, with most of them becoming the breadwinners in their families, according to a new research.
The new research has revealed that four in every 10 women earn more than their spouses, ANI said.
The survey, conducted on 2,000 women of 40 years and above, showed that 80 percent of women were taking over the charge of household bills and finances, while the husbands were responsible for making important financial decisions.
Also a quarter of women admitted to have set aside an emergency fund without their husband’s knowledge over fears that their husbands are not capable of making right financial decisions.

Exercise is not a cure for hot flashes, but it does help postmenopausal women cope with stress, anxiety and depression, a Pennsylvania study has found.
The researchers had hoped to prove that exercise could be a less risky alternative to hormone replacement therapy for women suffering from hot flashes, said study author Deborah B. Nelson, a professor of public health and obstetrics and gynecology at Temple University in Philadelphia, HealthDay reported.
But, she added, “we didn’t find a relationship between physical activity and hot flashes.“
However, the study did find that more exercise led to lowered levels of perceived stress. “The level of anxiety, stress and depression were significantly lower among physically active, postmenopausal women compared to postmenopausal women in the lowest“ level of physical activity, the researchers reported in the January issue of Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise.
Still, the results are significant, because the hot flashes women experience as they go through the menopausal transition are often a temporary problem, Nelson explained. Women live a long time in postmenopause, which can be a period when they may struggle with stress, anxiety and depression, she said.