ISLAMABAD: Women carrying dry bushes for cooking purpose in the capital.
Monday, 20 June 2011
Women at Work
LAHORE: A lady vendor roasting the grains for customers at her roadside setup for earn money.
Saudi Arabia's Prince Abdulaziz and Princess Fadwa in wedding ceremony
Saudi Arabia's Prince Mohamed bin Nawaf bin Abdulaziz and Princess Fadwa bint Khalid bin Abdullah bin Abdulrahman leave after the wedding ceremony in Westminster Abbey, in central London April 29, 2011.
lady worker busy in preparing clay made traditional oven (tandoor) at her workplace.
HYDERABAD: A lady worker busy in preparing clay made traditional oven (tandoor) at her workplace.
Most tattooed woman wins Guinness World Record
Julia Gnuse, who will be featured in the 2011 Guinness World Records, has spent more than £40,000 covering almost every inch of her 5ft 2 body with an array of brightly coloured tattoos.
From pictures of punk band the Sex Pistols to Disney characters, there’s hardly a slither of flesh that hasn’t been inked. Only her ears and feet remain their natural colour.
With 95 per cent of her skin covered and 400 tattoos in total, Julia has even earned a place in the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s most tattooed woman and the nickname The Illustrated Lady. But she also admits her passion has turned into something of an addiction.
Bizarrely, Julia, 53, started having tattoos in an attempt to hide a rare skin condition, which left her with ugly blisters. Doctors suggested flesh-coloured tattoos would cover the red scars. But when they failed to fully disguise the marks, she opted for traditional-coloured body art instead.
While the tattoos have detracted attention from Julia’s scars, her skin still erupts in painful blisters. But she says her mission has been worth every penny.“My skin still blisters, but I feel happier and my tattoos have made me more confident,” she says. “They cover the scars and enable me to have a better life.
“Now people stare at me because I am a walking canvas, and not because of some ugly blister. I feel more confident. People want to get to know me. They are fascinated by the tattoos.”
The former singer’s love affair with tattoos began when she was 35 and diagnosed with a rare and incurable skin condition known as porphyria. It causes her to blister when exposed to direct sunlight, and makes her very sensitive to certain fabrics as well as chemicals found in washing detergents.
“I developed it overnight,” says Julia. “It wasn’t just sunlight that affected me. My skin became so sensitive I couldn’t wear a bra as the chafing from the strap caused blisters. They were the size of a 50p piece and I’d sometimes have up to 50 at a time. And they were excruciating. If I knocked a part of my body they’d burst.
“The blisters made me feel unclean and ugly, and living in California, where every other woman is stunning, just made me feel worse. I felt very depressed and unattractive, and stayed indoors all the time. I could have moved somewhere less sunny but I hate cold, dark weather.”A dermatologist suggested to Julia that flesh-coloured tattoos would cover up the scars left by the blisters. Julia followed his advice and, while the needle didn’t irritate her skin or worsen the condition, the tattoos failed to hide the scars. It was then that Julia decided to try colourful designs instead.
She recalls: “I’d always thought tattoos looked tarty, but I was prepared to try it because I hated my scars so much. When I had the first tattoo, a five-inch octopus on my right calf in 1988, I was so scared my hands were shaking. It was painful, but I soon got used to it. And I loved the result so much I decided to have more.”
It was the start of an addiction for Julia, and she began paying almost weekly visits to a tattoo parlour in Los Angeles, California, with each tattoo taking a couple of hours at a time.
“I grew to love the feeling of the needle on my body,” she admits. “I was in the tattoo parlour once a week, looking at Julia’s favorite TV actress and comedian Lucille Ball features prominently on her back, while Elizabeth Perkins from the ’60s TV series Bewitched appears on her bottom.Peeking out from Julia’s breast is Bart Simpson, along with US comic Rodney Dangerfield. “Dangerfield can be rude and dirty, so being on my breast was quite appropriate,” she laughs.
“The only places I’ve kept bare are my feet and my eyes because I wanted to keep some places free of tattoos.”
Julia doesn’t work, so has funded her addiction using a generous family trust fund. But she says at first her family were shocked by her decision to get her body covered with tattoos.
“My parents and sister were pretty shocked, but they saw the tattoos as a creative outlet for me,” she says. “They have no worries about me spending the trust fund money on them. It is paid as an allowance and I can do what I want with it.”
And she insists she’s never encountered any prejudice because of how she looks. “Of course people stare and ask about the tattoos, that’s to be expected,” says Julia. “It’s something I’ve got used to. I don’t consider myself a freak, but a body of art.”
Julia’s currently dating, and says her boyfriend thinks her tattoos are great. “I’ve been with a guy called David for over a year, and we’re very happy. He doesn’t have any tattoos, but he does love the way I look.
“I like men who are interested in me as a person, and not what I look like. Some people will not go out with me because of what I look like, and it does take a strong man to be with me because I do attract attention. They have to be secure in themselves.”
Now Julia’s running out of space for tattoos, but if she does want to get a new design, she just has it over the top of an old one. But although Julia’s tattoos have helped her deal with the effect of her skin condition, they haven’t cured it. Sunlight still makes her blister, so when she ventures out she wears long-sleeved shirts and jeans and shields her face from the sun with a hat.
Bizarrely, having devoted so much time and money to her body art, Julia has now decided to have the bright blue tattoos on her face toned down.
Using a process known as dermabrasion, a specialist has removed the top layers of skin with a laser and in doing so has lightened the look.
“I just suddenly thought I might look a bit strange when I’m much older with a full face tattoo,” she says. “But I intend to keep the rest. They are my trademark after all – I’ll always be remembered for them.”
designs and deciding what I wanted on my body. I loved being stared at for my tattoos rather than my scars.”
Local Press: Saudi women and smoking
A recent report revealed that the number of smokers in Saudi Arabia has reached more than 6 million.
I find this number very strange, especially in an educated society that realizes the dangers of smoking, whether they are health, social or financial hazards.
What caught my attention in this high number is that out of these 6 million smokers, 1 million are women. This number is big and scary.
Besides the dangers, what is the woman smoker going to tell her children at home when they see her smoking as she is supposed to be a role model for them?
What is the smoking woman teacher going to tell her students at school when they find out that she smokes?
The gentle and beautiful women should not sully their lips with cigarettes. The gentle and beautiful women should not replace the smell of perfume on their bodies with the smell of smoke.
One million women smokers is indeed a dangerous number. The majority of them are young women.
This raises many questions. What are the reasons behind 1 million women smoking in a conservative Saudi society? Is it because of the lack of family supervision? Is it because of unemployment and plenty of free time? Is it because women are working outside home and not paying attention to the kids any more? Is it because women are searching for gender equality? Is it because they would like to imitate actors on TV? Or is it because of the Internet?
There are many questions that need to be answered by experts. This is a dangerous subject and we need a national project to fight smoking. We do not need useless seminars or distribution of brochures. We need to use modern ways to fight smoking.
Woman resumes testimony on Iraq rape allegations
A woman is set to continue her testimony on the sexual assault she says she suffered in Iraq at the hands of co-workers for Houston-based military contractor KBR Inc.
Monday will be the second day on the witness stand for Jamie Leigh Jones, who began her testimony Thursday in a federal court in Houston.
Jones says she was raped while working for KBR at Camp Hope in Baghdad in 2005. She's asking for unspecified damages from the Houston-based companies, which split in 2007.
She sued KBR, Houston-based former parent Halliburton Co. and a former KBR worker she alleges raped her. All deny Jones' allegations.
The Associated Press usually doesn't identify people alleging sexual assault, but Jones' face and name have been in media reports and on her own website.
Acid Attack Hoax: Why Did She Say Attacker Was Black?
Bethany Storro, the Portland woman who claimed that an unknown black woman threw acid in her face, yesterday admitted she'd made up the story.
What she can't explain is why she - an attractive woman with a new job - would cause herself horrific pain by searing her face, irreparably, with a substance as caustic as hydrochloric or sulfuric acid.
There could be several answers, says Dr. Samuelle Klein-Von Reiche, a psychologist in private practice in Manhattan.
"One theory is that it could be for the same reasons that some people cut themselves - to take charge of negative emotions, to feeling something more than numbness, to grant release from psychic pain," says Klein-Von Reiche.
Yet permanent disfigurement is extreme for those in the cutting category, isn't it?
Another theory, says Klein-Von Reiche, is that Storro views herself "as a victim and is reenacting some physical or psychological trauma."
But why did she tell police her assailant was black?
Klein-Von Reiche says that the fact that she said it was a black woman is "fascinating."
"Of course it could imply racial issues," she says, "But, she says, it might also have been her unconscious way of saying that she did it herself - black could represent the dark side of herself over which she has little control."
And there's another theory. Paradoxically, Bethany Storro could be a big narcissist.
"We shouldn't minimize the fact that she got enormous notoriety from this," says Klein-Von Reiche, and any sort of attention, positive or negative, is gold for an extreme narcissist.
"At its roots, narcissism is voracious."
Friday, 17 June 2011
Bangladesh Acid Victims Fight For Justice
`The corrosive liquid badly burned my face and part of my child`s head`, said 30-year-old Khodeza.
Khodeza Begum still shivers in fear when she remembers the winter night eight years ago when an unidentified attacker sprayed acid on her and her baby girl as they slept in their Bangladesh shantytown home.
"The corrosive liquid badly burned my face and part of my child's head," said 30-year-old Khodeza, her face partly covered to hide the scars.
"But I received no justice from police or court as I could not identify the offender," she told a conference marking the 10th anniversary of the foundation of the Bangladesh Acid Survivors Foundation (ASF) in Dhaka on Tuesday.
ASF officials, police and victims said acid attacks mostly result from refusal of a sexual advance, demand for dowry or family disputes over land. Most of the victims were young women, they said.
As well as horrific scarring and the inevitable psychological trauma, organisers of the conference said that many victims are denied justice like Khodeza. Others face social isolation and ostracism by families.
"Lucky I am that my husband did not abandon us, unlike the fate that befall on many acid victims," said Khodeza, from Bangladesh's southern Satkhira district.
Police sometimes take the side of the offenders for a bribe and protect them from law, Nur Jahan, another acid victim, told the conference, which was attended by about 600 acid victims from Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, Cambodia, Uganda and Nepal.
Samina Afzal Naz, an official of the Acid Survivors Foundation Pakistan, said acid attacks over spurned sexual advances or land disputes were also a problem in her country.
"We started working in Pakistan only two years ago and have already identified 149 acid victims in the Punjab region," said Samina.
ASF officials said the number of acid attacks in Bangladesh had decreased since the government enacted tough laws that set death as the maximum penalty for acid throwers.
"When we founded ASF in Bangladesh in 1999, the number of acid victims annually recorded was around 500 in the country. The number has now gone down well below 100," said John Morrison, the founder of the organisation.
Access to good medical care for victims remains a problem, however, ASF officials said.
Bangladesh, home to nearly 150 million people, has only one 50-bed burns unit in a public sector hospital, they said.
"It is only a drop in the ocean," said Monira Rahman, the Executive Director of ASF Bangladesh, adding that the foundation is running a 20-bed hospital to supplement government facilities.
Coaches doing their job very well
Pakistan women’s cricket team captain, Sana Mir said on Thursday that she is very happy with her coaches adding that they are doing their job very well.
Mir contradicted a news item published in a section of the press saying that they were fully satisfied with their coaches.
“It is due to our hard work and devotion of our coaches that we won the first gold in the Asian Games last year,” she told APP on Thursday.
“It is due to our coaches that women’s cricket over the years has transformed into a specialised sport.
Sana, who was Player of the Tournament at the 2008 Women’s Cricket World Cup Qualifier, currently ranks 16th in the ICC Women’s ODI bowlers rankings.
Answering a question, Sana said that only those women can be good coaches who have played cricket themselves. Sana said that the central contracts awarded to them were a great achievement for women cricketers of the country.
“The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) is having domestic competitions for women players on a regular basis and that is improving our standard,” Sana said.
Sana pointed out that the recently concluded Twenty20 Pentangular Women Cricket Tournament is a result of the PCB’s effort and commitment to the women’s game adding that women need encouragement and compensation for their hard work.
Saudi Women Called on to End Driving Ban
Saudi Organizers of a campaign to end Saudi Arabia’s ban on driving by females called on women in the kingdom who have international driving licenses to defy the prohibition by using their cars today.
The plan followed an online initiative that led to the detention of one of the campaign’s activists, Manal al-Sharif. Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world that bans women from driving.
“Saudi Arabian authorities must stop treating women as second-citizens and open the kingdom’s roads to women drivers,” Amnesty International said yesterday in a statement. “Saudi Arabian authorities must not arrest licensed women who choose to drive, and must grant them the same driving privileges as men.”
A group of Saudi men and women, including al-Sharif, began organizing the campaign in May through the Facebook and Twitter social-networking websites. The organizers insisted their coordinated plan wasn’t a protest. Saudi Arabia, which has the world’s biggest oil reserves, has avoided the mass demonstrations that have toppled the leaders of Tunisia and Egypt and threaten the governments of Libya, Yemen and Syria.
Al-Sharif, a 32-year-old computer security consultant, was arrested last month in the city of al-Khobar, in Eastern Province, after she drove on more than one occasion and urged other women to drive in a video she posted on YouTube, according to Amnesty International. The human-rights organization said al- Sharif was forced to sign a pledge that she wouldn’t drive again and was released 10 days later.
“Since her arrest, several women have reportedly been arrested on various occasions for driving in different parts of Saudi Arabia and released shortly after signing pledges not to drive in future,” Amnesty said.
Saudi Arabia enforces restrictions interpreted from the Wahhabi version of Sunni Islam. A woman isn’t allowed to apply for a driver’s license, though some drive when they’re in desert areas away from cities. They can’t travel or get an education without male approval or mix with unrelated men in public places. They aren’t permitted to vote or run as candidates in municipal elections, the only balloting the kingdom allows.
The last time a group of women publicly defied the driving ban was on Nov. 6, 1990, when U.S. troops massed in Saudi Arabia to prepare for a war that would expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait. The Saudi women were spurred by images of female U.S. soldiers driving in the desert and stories of Kuwaiti women driving their children to safety, and they were counting on the presence of the international media to ensure their story would reach the world and lessen the repercussions.
King Abdullah has taken steps this year to ensure that regional turmoil remains outside his borders, pledging almost $100 billion of spending on homes, jobs and benefits. He also has promised to improve the status of women. He opened the country’s first coeducational university in 2009 and appointed its first female deputy minister, Nora bint Abdullah al-Fayez, the same year. He has said he will provide more access to jobs for women, who make up about 15 percent of the workforce.
A change of policy in 2008 allowed women to stay in hotels without male guardians, and an amendment to the labor law allowed women to work in all fields “suitable to their nature.”
New York-based Human Rights Watch said in January that “reforms to date have involved largely symbolic steps to improve the visibility of women.”
New York-based Human Rights Watch said in January that “reforms to date have involved largely symbolic steps to improve the visibility of women.”
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