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After the helicopter accident in Azerbaijan Province in Iran, many different users on social media were filled with joy and expressed their happiness at the sudden death of the 8th Iranian president and his companions in this accident.
A Lebanese Christian social media activist, posted an intresting tweet in the description of this reaction towards late Dr. Amir-Abdollahian, the former Iranian Foreign Minister.
This user wrote: “If you see wolves dancing and clapping because of a demise; know that the death, was a death of a lion.”
By composing a poem describing late Dr. Hossein Amir-Abdollahian , Naghmeh Mostashtar-nizami expressed her devotion to his services and efforts for the Iranian nation and other oppressed Muslim nations.
Aye! from the carousel, Aye! From time / This loss is heavy, the loss of restless lovers
You are gone, dear man, and after you are gone, it remains/ The memories of that look, which rest on our hearts
O’ the hope of Palestinian children, your place is empty/ Among the restless streets that are waiting
The flag of Iran and Iranians is now eternal/ With the glory of your zeal on the peaks of honor
Your body became the butterfly of the love country, you burned/ Like a phoenix, your pure spirit is now spreading
This loss is heavy and hard to bare, the loss of a magnificent idol/ This wound is filthy with blood, on the green body of spring
Kiss on the forehead of a commander means eternity/ You, gave your word on the red circuit of this pledge
“Assonant with Ismail (PBUH)”, “Comrade with Ibrahim (PBUH)”/ You have flied from earth and now gained salvation
O dear Amir, kind towards friends, solid towards enemies/ Honor, faith and passion is now left from you
On May 20th, the 8th Iranian president alongside his minister for foreign affairs and 2 other high grade authorities of the Islamic Republic of Iran; passed away in an helicopter crash that happened in Tabriz-Azerbaijan province.
This tragedy has been extremely hard for the Iranian nation, the burial and funeral of that took part in 5 different states of Iran; shows a huge crowds of millions that are mourning the loss of a great president.
Employment
In an interview, the Deputy Minister of Women and Family Affairs of the 13th Government mentioned: “Empowering women who are in charge of households”, ” Granting Insurance” for them , “Entrepreneurship” and “Creating appropriate employment” for women have been among the first priorities of the 13th government.
In 2021, for the first time, a presidential government in Iran unveiled a national plan for sustainable family-oriented businesses. In this plan, women entrepreneurs supported the employment of female heads of households completely so that they could achieve sustainable employment.
Also, the “women’s employment” and “working from home” are among the interpretations and plans taken by this government. According to this; the employment system for women is related to their age period which is between the age of 20 and 60 years old. The employment conditions for working women are in a way that they have a comfortable situation in terms of the type of work, working hours, telecommuting or presence.
“Working from home” is a condition that if there is a great basis for continuing work at home, a high percentage of women in Iran are more comfortable to do their work at home; so apart from having a monthly income they can pay more attention to their children and home.
Social and psychological studies on women in Iran; alongside women who are eager to work outside the house and be active in the society, there are women who want and need a chance to have an income and to be with their family and house. In other words, they more comfortable this way.
Insurance
Regarding mothers being covered by insurance, housewives insurance was also planned for rural women with more than three children. As a result, now rural housewives with more than three children are covered by governmental social insurance.
Infertility insurance and other aids for pregnant women until the end of breastfeeding was another new program that came to fruition in this government.
Maternity Leave
Maternity leave was increased to 9 months by this president, and despite what was said in September 2021, a circular was issued for the full-time presence of employees, but Dr.Raesi made an exception for women with primary school children under six years of age. Remote working of these women continued subject to the approval of department managers.
Removing the obstacles for young people to get married and to start a family, was one of the other issues that the 8th president paid attention to, and for this purpose, along with other incentives, an increase in what is called in Iranian Banks “Marriage Loans”.
He put marriage in the program in such a way that at the end of September 2021, it was announced that rural and nomadic couples born in the 1980, in addition to the general marriage loan that all couples can use after marriage, will receive a special marriage loan of at least 100 million tomans by the end of that year.
Vice President for Women and Family Affairs on the sidelines of the “Global Commitment to Family Movement” meeting; Presenting the document, explaining the strategies and creating an elite discourse” said: “With the president’s follow-ups, we witnessed the promotion of women’s status from the position of advisor to deputy or general manager. This promotion made it possible for women to appear in the councils of executive bodies and have the right to veto. have instructions regarding votes related to the field of women and family. This was a great move and established the position of women.
Dr Ensiyeh Khazali, Vice President for Women’s Affairs, while condoling the martyrdom of the President and his companions in the helicopter crash due to Ayatollah Raesi’s special attention to solving problems in the field of women and family, said: “Dr. Raisi was the first president who was especially concerned about the implementation of laws. He was truly concerned about women and family affairs and creating areas for women’s growth and prosperity, and his special efforts were seen in the action stage.”
Great Positions in The Society
Regarding recruiting women in great social, political, economic positions within the society Dr. Khazali added: “The president appointed women for the first time with the aim of participating in the Supreme Councils. For the first time, he allocated a special budget and credit for women and families in provincial trips. His repeated emphasis on solving and facilitating the problems of youth and families and facilitating marriage and many other moves that were taken in the direction of population growth and family consolidation.”
The President’s Deputy for Women and Family mentioned the allocation of 70,000 plots of land to large families last year as one of Dr. Raesi’s other important measures in the field of families and population.
Khazali added: “Appointing women in high councils, assigning credits to this area in provincial trips, were among the other actions that were done for the first time by Mr. Raesi. Among the enacted laws, we can mention the law on population youth, marriage facilities, insurance for pregnant women, women’s special food basket, and insurance for rural housewives; and insurance policy that was implemented for the first time in this government.”
In the end, she added: “Nothing has changed after the tragical death of Dr. Raesi, the work will be done with the same seriousness and diligence as Mr. Mokhbar ordered, the work needed will be done exactly the same as the previous procedure.”
Prior to the premiere of his latest epic ‘Megalopolis’, veteran filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola (‘Apocalypse Now’, ‘The Godfather’) is facing reports that he behaved inappropriately on set.
His return to the Croisette this year is one of the major talking points amongst cinephiles.
However, veteran filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, who is in Competition for the Palme d’Or with his latest project Megalopolis, is now facing reports that he ran a chaotic set, which included him smoking pot, leaving cast and crew stranded for direction, and behaving in “an old school manner” with female extras on set.
The story was first reported by The Guardian, which cited sources who said Coppola, 85, made women sit on his lap and tried to kiss several topless or scantily clad female extras.
Megalopolis executive co-producer Darren Demetre denied claims that director Coppola behaved inappropriately with female extras on set.
“I was never aware of any complaints of harassment or ill behaviour during the course of the project,” Demetre told The Hollywood Reporter in response to reports in The Guardian.
“I have known and worked with Francis and his family for over 35 years,” Demetre said. “There were two days when we shot a celebratory Studio 54-esque club scene where Francis walked around the set to establish the spirit of the scene by giving kind hugs and kisses on the cheek to the cast and background players. It was his way to help inspire and establish the club atmosphere, which was so important to the film. I was never aware of any complaints of harassment or ill behaviour during the course of the project.”
One crew member shared: “He would often show up in the mornings before these big sequences and because no plan had been put in place, and because he wouldn’t allow his collaborators to put a plan in place, he would often just sit in his trailer for hours on end, wouldn’t talk to anybody, was often smoking marijuana…”
They added: “Hours and hours would go by without anything being filmed. And the crew and the cast would all stand around and wait. And then he’d come out and whip up something that didn’t make sense, and that didn’t follow anything anybody had spoken about or anything that was on the page, and we’d all just go along with it, trying to make the best out of it. But pretty much every day, we’d just walk away shaking our heads wondering what we’d just spent the last 12 hours doing.”
His latest epic, Megalopolis, has been described as “a Roman epic set in modern America”, and screens for the press in Cannes tomorrow.
What was supposed to be a grand return for the cinematic titan and two-time Palme d’Or winner (The Conversation; Apocalypse Now) has been now severely overshadowed, and the news adds itself to the looming threat that a bombshell #MeToo report is about to be published during the festival.
Megalopolis, a passion project four decades in the making – which has reportedly set the director back $120 million dollars from his own pocket – has apparently been a marketing nightmare for distributors.
Sources say Coppola is looking for a distributor in the US that will release the film later this year, in time for an awards-season campaign.
The film follows Adam Driver as an idealist architect up against Giancarlo Esposito as a pragmatist mayor. The cast also includes Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Jason Schwartzman, Laurence Fishburne, Kathryn Hunter and Dustin Hoffman.
Megalopolis screens tomorrow for the press at the Cannes Film Festival. Stay tuned to Euro news Culture for further updates and the film review
Source: Euro News
When it comes to pain, stereotypes relating to sex and gender tend to come into play. But, is a male’s threshold really higher than a female’s? Are women really more sensitive than men?
These are some of the questions the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) hopes to answer by the end of 2024 with new research.
Its goal is to tackle, understand, and create awareness of the disparities between sex and gender in relation to pain, which it defines as an “unpleasant sensory and emotional experience”.
According to the World Health Organistion (WHO), sex refers to “the different biological and physiological characteristics of males and females, such as reproductive organs, chromosomes, hormones, etc”.
Gender, on the other hand, refers to the characteristics of women, men, girls, and boys that are socially constructed. This includes norms, behaviors, and roles, as well as relationships with each other.
What do we know so far?
In regards to sex, various researchers have in the past conducted laboratory experiments where, through pressure or temperature stimuli, they caused pain in voluntary participants.
Their results indicate that women may be more sensitive to pain than men, which means they have a lower threshold. However, it has also been found that experiencing pain has a greater impact on men than on women.
This begs the question: where do the differences lie? Is it our brains or the things we do to regulate pain that make the distinction? Are hormones involved? Science has no clear answer to these questions, although certain studies do find disparities in hormonal or brain response to painful stimuli.
In fact, some studies find no difference between men and women when taking into account other aspects, such as psychological variables specific to each person. Examples of these include the level of anxiety or the strategies that each person has for coping with negative situations.
Hormones could play key role
About half of chronic pain conditions are more common in women, with only 20 per cent having a higher prevalence in men.
Dr Javier Medel, an anesthesiologist and head of the pain unit at the Hospital Vall d’Hebron in Barcelona, explains that “there is a biological component to this, involving receptors, hormonal differences and even genes,” but that all the studies conducted up until now are purely “experimental”.
Hormones can exert an influence on pain in a variety of ways by altering sensitivity to pain, altering biological processes associated with pain (for example inflammation), driving hormonally dependent pathologies (for example endometriosis), or impacting moods to alter the pain experience.
Clinical pain research suggests that gender may also affect how an individual contextualizes and copes with pain.
‘Pain is very subjective’
Traditionally, masculinity is stereotypically associated with bravery and toughness, while femininity is linked to sensitivity. Some research suggests that, regardless of sex assigned at birth, people who perceive themselves as more masculine have a higher threshold and tolerance for pain.
“Pain is very subjective,” Medel told Euro news Health, adding that “everyone experiences it differently, and biographically speaking, it depends on how you have responded to painful stimuli in the past”.
He also explains that this not only depends on gender, but also on ethnicity, as a women or a man’s role my vary between these. In northern Europe, for example, “they have a different conception of pain due to the weather,” he says.
Delayed diagnosis due to bias
Due to gender stereotypes, there exists certain biases for women patients in the healthcare system in general.
Dr Laia Pratcorona, a Gynecologists’ and active promoter of women’s health in medicine, explains that “due to the vision that women are more emotionally unstable,” diagnosis and treatment can be delayed, increasing mortality rates.
“If a women attends a GP because of pain and doesn’t fit certain clinical parameters, the first thing they normally do is send them to see a psychiatrist,” she said.
Females have also been and are under-represented in clinical trials. In the past, they have been excluded due to their unstable hormone levels during their menstrual cycle.
But this, explains Pratcorona, “is a problem when it comes to drug dosages,” as these same drugs are then administered to women (with periods).
What more can be done?
Both Medel and Pratcorona concur on the fact that more investigation needs to be done on the matter and also more divulgation, which is what the IASP aims to achieve by the end of the year.
Pratcorona told Euro news Health that “many people are not aware of this bias within medicine” and this is why her and another co-workers are trying to get a subject called ‘Gender and Medicine’ implemented in the Autonomous University of Barcelona.
Medel explains that now it is obligatory to include both males and females in medical investigations, but that “the next step is to also include different genders”.
Source: Euro News
Bjørg Hjorth Nørgaard, 19, has not finished high school yet but has already enlisted to pay a duty to her country.
The young woman has volunteered for Denmark’s four-month military training camp before university, fully aware that war has returned to Europe.
“It’s a personal journey … I have signed up at my own free will,” she said.
“It’s no longer an argument that men fight wars, women do it as well now.”
Young men in the country have for a long time been conscripted based on a lottery system.
If your number is called, it is compulsory to attend four months of basic military training, although others are welcome to join voluntarily, including women.
But Denmark’s government is planning to make it gender-neutral, meaning 18-year-old women will be in the lottery too.
The time commitment for conscripts will also increase to 11 months so trainees can learn more combat skills.
“It has a more serious note now … and there’s this more serious aspect of war in Europe that has an effect on all of us,” Bjørg said.
“It’s a necessary thing and it’s just a reaction to what’s happening in the world.
“If I pulled the number, I would do it … I think it’s important to join your country and live up to your duty in society and if I had to do it, I would do it.
“It won’t be the only thing that secures us, but it will send a signal to Russia and the US as well, that we’re ready to take this next step and we can fight back.”
Why is Denmark changing the rules?
It is a politically contentious defence plan to build the country’s army as it prepares for Russia’s growing threat in the region.
Denmark — which has a population of 6 million — has an army of just 9,000 professional soldiers and, each year, 4,700 conscripts undergo basic training.
The Danish defence minister has described the expansion as “vital” to increasing troop numbers amid Europe’s worsening security situation.
In a statement, the Danish Defence Ministry said it needed conscripts to better support professional armed troops and that the addition of more military personnel was essential for the ability to deploy operation units.
When announcing the new policy, Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said the country was “rearming” to avoid war.
In 2023, there were 4,717 conscripts in Denmark. Women who volunteered for military service accounted for 25.1 per cent of the cohort, according to official figures.
After weeks of debate, the Danish government reached agreement with several parties opposed to female conscription, meaning that following the next general election in 2026, women will be called up for military service.
The aim of the policy is to increase the number of conscripts to 7,500 per year and the time commitment to 11 months.
Some locals support the move to mandatory service
David Knudsen, 18, is among the young Danes who support the changes.
“For a long time, we have rested on the umbrella of NATO and the United States without paying as much as we probably should have,” he said.
“And now, we also see ourselves in a situation where the next US president could perhaps be unwilling to defend us if the need suddenly arose someday, so we have to invest.”
The high school student plans to complete his military service with Bjørg this summer before enlisting in an aviation academy to become a pilot.
“If Russia was to invade us, of course we wouldn’t be able to stand a week without the support of NATO and the US,” he said.
“But it’s definitely a sign of a change in mentality, the way we approach military and defence in general.”
David believes the legislative changes are necessary from a security perspective but also important to changing societal views.
“The biggest resistance … here in Denmark against this new policy is actually from some of the parties in the parliament, which assert the physiological differences between men and women,” he said.
“As young Danish people, we don’t really feel any significant resistance against doing this.
“It’s a declaration of equality between the genders because as long as it’s not the same for a woman, it supports the narrative of men being the strong gender and women being the weak or inferior gender.
“And that’s something we need to resist against because we believe it has no real place in society.”
Some young Danes have viewed national service as a personal journey before university and while the lottery system remains, most of the conscripts in recent years have been voluntary.
But some believe that will change if the length of the conscription requirement more than doubles.
How Putin’s war became a ‘watershed moment for Danish security’
The changes will bring Denmark’s policies closer to its Nordic neighbours Sweden and Norway, where mandatory service is applicable to both men and women and lasts for 12 months and 19 months respectively.
According to Kristian Søby Kristensen, the director of the Centre for Military Studies at the University of Copenhagen, Vladimir Putin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine was the catalyst for a “watershed moment in Danish security politics”.
The push for Western leaders to declare Vladimir Putin ‘illegitimate’
One of Vladimir Putin’s fiercest critics calls on Australia and other Western nations to declare his leadership illegitimate following a Russian presidential election that was widely considered a sham.
“We are seeing a major build-up of the Danish armed forces and a major reorganisation, together with NATO allies, trying to make the Danish armed forces more ready to fight in a conventional war,” he said.
Beyond attempting to bolster the size of its military, the Danish government has injected another $7.7 billion into the budget between 2024-2028.
It means the country will now meet the NATO threshold of spending more than 2 per cent of GDP on defence.
“It’s a contentious political subject and is also part of wider negotiations about how to develop the Danish armed forces,” Dr Søby Kristensen said.
“So, there may be a deal where we end up with complete gender-neutral conscription or there might be another deal where we have a hybrid.”
While Denmark was among NATO’s founding members, Finland, which shares a large land border with Russia, was admitted in 2023 after years of neutrality. Sweden joined in March.
Two minority parties in the Danish parliament, the Liberal Alliance and the Danish Democrats, have voiced opposition to the changes, breaking a long-held tradition of defence policy receiving unanimous support in the country.
“The government at the moment is fighting hard to negotiate a kind of compromise that will make everybody at least somewhat happy,” Dr Søby Kristensen said.
“Both increasing the pool of people for the armed forces in some form of fashion and making more demands on the female part of the population in terms of military service.”
While there appears to be broad public support for the policy changes from young Danes, Anna Marie Herskind, 19, said she would only fulfil the service if she was forced to.
“I have not turned myself into this military service first of all because it hasn’t been clear of what a woman’s chance is in military service,” she said.
“I’ve seen it more as a personal journey than military service and I’ve chosen to make that journey by travelling the world instead.
“I think most Danes are in for this new transition, we have seen it in Norway and Sweden as well, so I knew this would happen at some time.”
Ayatollah Seyed Ebrahim Raisi, the 8th President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, who had an air accident on Sunday evening, May 19th , on his way back from an opening ceremony in the city of Tabriz, in Warzaghan region of East Azerbaijan province, along with all his companions attained the lofty status of martyrdom at the same time as the night of the birth of the 8th Shiite Imam, Imam Reza (a.s.).
Alongside the Iranian President, there was:
Dr Amir-Abdollahiyan , the Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs
Ayatollah Seyed Mohammad Ale-Hashem, Iran’s Leader representative in East Azerbaijan
Dr Malek Rahmati, Governor of East Azerbaijan
General Seyed Mehdi Moussavi, Commander of the President’s Protection Unit
JahanBanou News Agency offers its condolences to The Promised Saviour, Imam Mahdi (A.S), the wise leader of Iran, the noble people of Iran and the women who are martyr breeders of Islam.
We all pray to God to elevate the ranks of these loved ones.
Presidents, prime ministers and certain authorities from different countries such as Russia, Turkey, Qatar, Venezuela, and etc; have sent their condolences regarding this tragedy to Iran’s Supreme leader and the great Iranian Nation.
Female staff at University College London are shaving the hair off their heads to pressure the institution to divest from Israel, joining hundreds of academics calling on the university to divest and boycott Israeli universities.
Standing in front of students and staff, two female staff members from UCL and an alumna shaved their heads on Wednesday in support of Palestinian women in Gaza forced to do the same because of no access to water.
May, a technician at UCL, was the first woman to shave her head in front of a crowd of academics and staff gathered to commemorate Nakba Day.
Speaking in front of hundreds of people, May, who declined to give her full name, said she shaved her hair off to highlight the “dehumanization endured by Palestinian women in Gaza” and to pressure UCL to divest from companies that profit from Israel’s war in Gaza.
“A woman forced to shave her head would be considered dehumanizing in almost any circumstance. But sadly, it is a single tiny drop in the ocean of the unspeakable dehumanization, violence and cruelty inflicted on the Palestine people in front of our very eyes,” May told Middle East Eye.
“UCL is complicit by continuing to have shares in arms companies and bank with Barclays who has increased their investment in companies making money from this genocide.”
Elle, a lecturer at UCL, also shaved her hair off on Wednesday to demand that the university end its research partnerships with Israeli universities.
“I’m here because I have an ethical obligation that my work doesn’t contribute to denying them their dignity, knowledge, history, humanity, or even their existence,” said Elle, who declined to give her surname. “I am here because our liberation is bound up with each other.”
Elle added that her protest was inspired by other women who shaved their heads outside parliament after reports emerged of Palestinian women doing the same to avoid contracting scalp illnesses, as they are unable to wash their hair due to continued displacement in Gaza.
Their protest comes as hundreds of academic staff at UCL joined calls for an academic boycott of Israeli universities while protest encampments continue to grow on university campuses across Britain.
Earlier this week, encampments emerged at King’s College London, the London School of Economics, and Queen Mary University in East London.
UCL declined to comment on the protest when contacted by Middle East Eye.
Cambridge encampment
A pro-Palestine student campaign at the University of Cambridge has escalated, with students occupying the lawn outside the university’s central management building on Wednesday morning.
The campaign began on 6 May, when around 100 students gathered on the lawn outside King’s College, one of Cambridge’s constituent colleges, where they erected tents and demanded the university commit to divesting from companies involved in Israel’s war on Gaza.
The organizers told Middle East Eye previously they are demanding that the university discloses all of its relationships with companies and institutions “complicit in the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestine”.
They said they want the university to end all such relationships, support Palestinian students and academics, and commit to protecting academic freedom.
Now the campaign has moved into a new phase. On early Wednesday morning, the protesters set up a new encampment on the lawn of Cambridge’s iconic Senate House after climbing over its surrounding fences.
The building, which dates back to the 1720s, is the ceremonial center of the university. One graduation ceremony is set to take place there on Friday and another on Saturday. The encampment threatens to disrupt them both.
The protest’s organizers, Cambridge for Palestine, said in a press release on Wednesday morning that they provided the university’s senior administration with a deadline of 5pm on Tuesday 14 May to hold a negotiation meeting. Instead, the administration opted to communicate with the encampment through the Cambridge University Student Union.
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Source: The Middle East Eye
