Peggy Whitson

Yury Malenchenko

For the first time, a woman is at the controls of the International Space Station, with NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson taking over the helm from Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin.
“We appreciate everything you’ve done over the course of last six months. It is a very impressive mission. You guys performed exceptionally So thank you I relieve you, Fyodor, from your command,“ said Peggy Whitson, RussiaToday reported.
The Soyuz TMA-10 spacecraft brought the previous ISS expedition--along with the first Malaysian astronaut Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor--back to Earth on October 21.
The 16th ISS mission, including Peggy Whitson and Yury Malenchenko, is to spend a total of 190 days in orbit.
The crew is due to stage two spacewalks and host a planned December shuttle flight, bringing a European-built laboratory. A Russian cargo ship is also due to arrive before the year is out.

Women who regularly get fewer than 7 hours of sleep each night may have a higher risk of developing high blood pressure, a new study suggests.
British researchers found that among more than 10,000 adults who were followed for five years, women who routinely slept for 6 hours or less were more likely than their well-rested counterparts to develop high blood pressure, Reuters reported.
Compared with women who said they typically got 7 hours of sleep a night, those who logged in 6 hours were 42 percent more likely to develop high blood pressure, while those who routinely slept no more than 5 hours had a 31 percent higher risk.
There was, however, no clear relationship between amount of sleep and blood pressure among men, the study authors report in the journal Hypertension.
The findings suggest there may be a “gender-specific“ relationship between sleep deprivation and high blood pressure, according to the researchers, led by Dr. Francesco P. Cappuccio of Warwick Medical School in Coventry.
The exact reason for the finding is unknown.
A number of studies have linked poor sleep quality to an increased risk of high blood pressure, diabetes and heart disease. Much of this research has focused on people with the breathing disorder sleep apnea, but some evidence suggests that sleep deprivation, in the absence of any overt sleep disorder, also takes a health toll.

The United States isn’t making the grade when it comes to women’s health, a new report contends.
The report gives the country an overall grade of “unsatisfactory“ because it meets only three of 27 benchmarks for women’s health.
Those benchmarks are the percentage of women aged 40 and over who get regular mammograms; the percentage of women who visit their dentist annually; and the percentage of women aged 50 and over who are screened for colorectal cancer, HealthDay said.
Not one state received an overall “satisfactory“ grade in the area of women’s health.
Three states--Massachusetts, Minnesota and Vermont--received “satisfactory minus“ grades, down from eight states in 2004.
Eleven states, as well as the District of Columbia, received failing grades-- Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia--double the number that failed in 2004.
All other states received a rating of “unsatisfactory,“ according to the report, released by the National Women’s Law Center and Oregon Health and Science University.
“As the years pass, states are further behind in the quest to meet national goals for women’s health,“ Judy Waxman, vice president for health and reproductive rights at the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC), said during a teleconference.

About 61.5 percent men worldwide consider violence against wives as justifiable, only in Dhaka 40 percent women fall victim to domestic violence.

Domestic violence is still considered a “personal matter“ and ignored by Bangladesh community. Besides, the country does not have an effective domestic violence protection act. As a result Bangladesh ranks 4th highest in violence against women.
According to statistics about 61.5 percent men worldwide consider violence against wives as justifiable. Which shows the mind set about women’s position in family, reported Nation.ittefaq.com.
According to UNFPA (United Nations Population Fund), only in Dhaka 40 percent women fall victim to domestic violence. Not all violence occurring in the family is reported.
UN Declaration on elimination of violence against women define violence as an act of gender based violence that results likely in physical, sexual or psychological harms or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary depriving of liberty, whether occurring in public place or private life.
Murder by family members, physical assault, dowry violence, acid throwing, battering, deprivation of food and other resources, sexual abuse, rape, emotional abuse and forced marriage are domestic violence, which happened in Bangladeshi families every time. These are so normal matters that they are not identified as violence.
The scenario of domestic violence worldwide is 1 in 3 women have been coerced to have sex or have been abused one way or another. Most often the abuser is the family member or known to the women.
In the perspective of Bangladesh this scenario is really horrible. About 135 women were murdered between January and August 2007 for dowry. In the year 2006 the total death figure was 259. The occurrences of violence were 334 only for dowry.
The reported violence related incidents in 2006 was 301 but only 106 cases were filed. The data shows that about 201 women were murdered by their husbands and 35 were murdered by the husband’s family members.

A US research team has found that increased exposure to sunlight-- which increases levels of vitamin D in the body--may decrease the risk of advanced breast cancer, according to a study reported in the latest issue of American Journal of Epidemiology.
The researchers from the Northern California Cancer Center, the University of Southern California, and Wake Forest University found that women with high sun exposure had half the risk of developing advanced breast cancer, which is cancer that has spread beyond the breast, compared to women with low sun exposure, Xinhua reported.
These findings were observed only for women with naturally light skin color.
The fact that this difference occurred only in light skin color group suggests that the effect was due to differences in vitamin D production, said the researchers.
And the difference was seen only in women with advanced disease, suggesting that vitamin D may be important in slowing the growth of breast cancer cells.
“We believe that sunlight helps to reduce women’s risk of breast cancer because the body manufactures the active form of vitamin D from exposure to sunlight,“ said Esther John, lead researcher on the study from the Northern California Cancer Center.
“It is possible that these effects were observed only among light-skinned women because sun exposure produces less vitamin D among women with naturally darker pigmentation.“
Skin color is an important factor that determines how much vitamin D is produced in the body after sun exposure.
Dark-skinned individuals produce up to 10 times less vitamin D than light-skinned individuals for the same amount of time spent in the sun.

An Iranian woman at a horse jumping event in Tehran. Photo by Reza Moattariyan

Majority of women in Uganda do not go to government health facilities for HIV testing for fear that they would loose their spouses, the Country director of Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric Foundation, Williams Salmond, has said.
He said few women access health facilities for maternal treatment and HIV testing, adding that only 32 percent of them collect their HIV results, reported Allafrica.
Salmond, who was speaking at the opening of Kiyumba Health Centre in Masaka District, said there are many people who do not know their sero-status and are living with HIV/Aids, thus cannot access Antiretroviral Therapy and counseling. The health centre was constructed by the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric Foundation at Shs86 million.
Salmond urged leaders to sensitize women and pregnant mothers against going to unqualified traditional birth attendants.
The officer in-charge of the centre, Benardine Nakirijja, said that out of 200 people from the three sub-counties of Mukungwe, Bukakata and Buwunga who were sampled for HIV testing, 40 were found to have HIV/Aids and that 30 of them were women. She said the people who were tested for HIV were drawn from landing sites in the three sub-counties where prostitution is a booming business.
The District Health Officer, Stuart Musisi, said the infant mortality rate has increased because women in rural areas do not want to go for maternal treatment in health facilities in preference of traditional birth attendants.
He said that the Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission program has faced some setbacks because of the increasing number of unqualified traditional birth attendants.
Musisi said last year, only 25 percent of pregnant women accessed professional maternal treatment.

Females traveling in taxis without their husbands or male relatives are exposed to dangers and often harassed by drivers across the kingdom. “Taxis are very important to me. My husband is always out. I often need to do the shopping for home and so I end up relying on taxis. Moreover, my daughter’s wedding was close and we are doing a lot of shopping these days.
The amount of money we spend on hiring taxis is more than what we spend on paying electricity and telephone bills,“ said Fatima, a housewife, according to Arab News.
Aisha, another housewife, said, “My child had fever and his temperature rose to around 41 degrees Celsius. My husband was drunk and I had to go to the hospital myself late in the night. I caught a taxi. On the way back, the taxi driver tried to molest me.“
She added, “I was so scared. I just asked him to drop me on the road. I walked the remaining distance. I cried as I had to carry my child all the way home.“
Hawraa, another housewife, said, “I wish we could drive and be self-dependent and not be at the mercy of our brothers or sons.
A taxi driver once sexually harassed me, when I was out doing shopping. He tried to drive me to a different location to what I had specified but I realized what he was doing and stopped him. I’m glad God saved me from that person.“

Any woman who has been to a police station would know the attitude of policemen towards them. Realizing a police station is not the most sensitive place for a woman, especially if she happens to be a complainant in a rape or sexual harassment case, Delhi Police is planning to have a centralized cell for registering and investigating cases of crimes against women.
It is proposed that the already existing Crime Against Women (CAW) cell of Delhi Police, acting as a reconciliatory body in marital disputes, should also have a police station where women can register cases, reported In.news.yahoo.com.
Presently the cell cannot register or investigate a case and only handles marital disputes. “We felt that the desired sensitivity towards women is lacking at the local police level.
Keeping this in mind the proposal to have a police station at the CAW cell has been sent to the government,“ said a police officer in the cell.
This will give the cell the authority not only to register cases like rape, molestation and abduction of women but also carry out investigations exclusively for these crimes. “There is a proposal but nothing has been finalized yet,“ said Sudhir Yadav, Joint Commissioner of Police, CAW cell. This might be a good move, keeping in mind the low conviction rate in cases relating to crimes against women.
According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), the conviction rate in rape cases is only 16 percent.
The police hope to improve the record with better investigations carried out by the specialized cell, including officers of the assistant commissioner of police and inspectors.

Women are more likely to make eco-friendly decisions even if it meant spending more money, an Australian survey has found.
Energy Company AGL, conducted the poll on 2000 Australian women and found that the fairer sex is also the greener sex, meaning that they were more inclined towards the betterment of the environment as compared to their male counterparts, reported Zeenews.com.
The analysis of the poll found 36 percent of women actively looked for environmentally sensitive purchases, as compared to 29 percent of men.
It was also found that for protecting the environment women choose white goods, groceries and electronics.
The survey found that women in Queensland actively reduced household consumption, using grey water and choosing environmentally friendly cleaners.
But only 32 percent of Queenslanders used green bags, compared to 40 percent nationally.