The number of women in the Angolan National Assembly repre sents 39 per cent of the total number of parliamentarians in the country and the figure meets the world's established quota, according to a report from the Angolan News Agency (ANGOP).

The was revealed Thursday in New York, US, by the Angolan MP, Faustina Fernandes Inglês de Almeida Alves, while addressing the 1-12 March Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) meeting, as part of the 54th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women which began Monday at UN headquarters.

The 591-page study released by Freedom House on Wednesday, supported through grants by the U.N. Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), contends that while women in the region suffer from greater inequality than women elsewhere, they now enjoy greater economic opportunities, access to education, and increased participation in the political process than in years before.
"There are more women entrepreneurs, more women doctors, more women PhDs, and more women in universities, than ever before," said Jennifer Windsor, executive director of Freedom House. "However, substantial roadblocks remain for women pursuing careers. These findings remind us of the complexities of women's status in the Middle East."

At the end of her term on Mar. 11, Michelle Bachelet will be stepping down with a tremendous level of popularity: 83 percent, a record in her country, and almost unheard of in the rest of the world.

The inauguration of rightwing President-elect Sebastián Piñera that day will close a chapter in the history of this South American country of 17 million people, governed by the centre-left coalition Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia since the return to democracy in 1990.

As a result of the gender equity policies implemented by the Bachelet administration, Chile will be the Latin American country with the most gains to show at the Mar. 1-12 meeting of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, in which governments will gather in New York for the 15-year review of the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform of Action adopted in 1995 at the Fourth World Conference on Women, held in the Chinese capital.

According to Pew Research Center Social and Demographic Trends survey of 2,250 American adults conducted from June 16 to July 16, 2008, "What the public does not say is that women inherently lack what it takes to be leaders," Live Science quoted Pew analysts, as stating. "To the contrary, on seven of eight leadership traits measured in this survey, the public rates women either better than or equal to men,” they added. For example, the most important leadership trait according to the respondents is honesty. And half of all adults surveyed said women are more honest than men, while just one-in-five indicated men are more honest.