00:00The Bureau of Customs is in coordination with the Department of Agriculture and the Bureau of Plant Industry
00:05telegraphed the arrival of six steel container vans from China at the Port of Manila earlier today
00:11and confiscated its contents of onions and frozen mackerel.
00:15Upon a joint ocular of the intercepted stash, three of the six 40-feet container vans held 74.3 metric tons of shallots
00:23or red onion estimated at 10.3 million, one container vans had yellow onions worth 3.82 million
00:30while the remaining two were found to contain frozen mackerel estimated between 13 to 20 million pesos.
00:38The entire shipment was declared to contain egg noodles, dumplings and spring rolls.
00:43This latest joint anti-smuggling effort is a test case for the newly enacted anti-agricultural economic sabotage oc.
00:50A recent World Economic Forum report cites a disheartening conclusion that it will take
00:58130 years to completely attain gender parity in which men and women contribute equally to all facets of life.
01:04But in the rocky state of Colorado, two women are carving out paths to a successful career as we hear this VOA report.
01:13Living without fear and doing what you love is how Mirna Aishoya, an Iraqi scientist and part-time musician,
01:20describes her life in America.
01:22So the situation for women in Iraq is slightly, not slightly, actually significantly different than the situation in the United States for women.
01:30Aishoya came to the U.S. in 2015 at age 22 after completing a bachelor degree in Iraq.
01:37She graduated from Colorado State University in 2017 with a master's degree in cell and molecular biology.
01:46She eventually found an internship working as a laboratory instrumentation specialist,
01:51conducting tests to verify the performance and quality of medical devices and other tools.
01:58After her internship, she began working as a specialist in this field.
02:02I really liked the technology and I didn't see a lot of women doing that kind of thing.
02:08In the United States, she also found the freedom to play drums professionally,
02:13performing in concerts and festivals, something she says would not be possible for her back home.
02:19Imagine a metal drummer like me in Iraq playing metal, they would associate that with certain beliefs.
02:25March 8th is International Women's Day, a day to celebrate the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women.
02:35UN Women's spokesperson Paloma Escudero says observing the day doesn't mean there isn't more to be done to improve women's lives.
02:44Women remain far from equality in almost every sphere, and we can see that in many wars and crises the world faces, including COVID-19.
02:56It is always women who are impacted first and worst.
02:59Aishoa volunteers with non-profit organizations that help women refugees settle in America.
03:07At one of the events, she met Tatiana Stratilat, a chef who fled her native Ukraine after the Russian invasion.
03:15Aishoa shared with her some tips about immigration, and Stratilat shared her Ukrainian cuisine.
03:21The lives of women in Ukraine and Iraq are different, but women's struggle to succeed in non-traditional careers is universal, Stratilat says.
03:33In Ukraine, as well as here, there are not a lot of female chefs. Most are men.
03:40And it took a lot of time to prove opposite.
03:43Stratilat says she is encouraged that women from different countries support and learn from each other.
03:49After my immigration journey to USA, and I am finally started to work as a chef.
03:56I lead cooking classes for CSU students, for local restaurants, and also I teach Ukrainian authentic cuisine different local communities.
04:05Besides that, I am a private chef instructor.
04:09It has brought me a lot of joy to share my passion to the culinary with women from different countries.
04:15Thanks to the rise of innovative technologies, Aishoa's chosen field is growing, and she is glad to have found her niche.
04:25I've been very interested in aerospace and aerospace technology, so I have thankfully been able to interact with a lot of space agencies like SpaceX and NASA
04:33to help them choose the right lab instrumentations to analyze certain chemicals or, in my current job, to analyze radiation for anything that they are sending up to space or down from space.
04:45A 2024 report by the World Economic Forum says it will take 134 years, roughly five generations, to reach full gender parity across four key dimensions.
04:57Economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment.
05:05Svetlana Pristinska, VOA News, Fort Collins, Colorado.
