Saturday, October 9, 2010

Four Arabs on Forbes most powerful women list


PARIS (Kamal Qubeissi)
Four Arab women, three of whom from the Gulf region, were included in the worlds' 100 most powerful women list released Wednesday night by Forbes magazine.

The 2010 list, topped by U.S. first lady Michele Obama, ranked Queen Rania al-Abdullah of Jordan 76 for her campaigns in the fields of education, women issues, and human rights as well as her role in bridging the gap between the U.S. and the Arab world, according to Forbes website.

Queen Rania of Jordan is the only Arab woman outside the Gulf region on the listQueen Rania is described as the "queen of social media" as more than 1.3 million people follow her on Twitter and more than 300,000 are her fans on Facebook. This is in addition to her website and You Tube channel. Queen Rania ranked 95 in the 2009 list.

Apart from Queen Rania, the other three Arab women on the list are from the Gulf region. Sheikha Lubna al-Qasimi, the Minister of Economy in the UAE, ranked 70 for being the first woman to hold such a position in the country in addition to running an online auction company and managing the agency in charge of the automation of the government. She is also known as a women's rights activist. Qasimi ranked 94 in last year's list.

Qatar's first lady Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser al-Missned ranked 74 for her efforts in the fields of education, women, and children. She is specifically known for her campaigns against domestic violence, child labor, and the marginalization of the disabled. This is Missned's first time in Forbes's 100 most powerful women list.

Maha al-Ghunaim, managing director and cofounder of Kuwait's Global Investment House, ranked 94 for successfully running one of the region's most famous investment companies and playing a major role in boosting the economy of Kuwait. Ghunaim was included in Forbes's 2006 list, the same year she was named Businesswoman of the Year by the UAE magazine Arabian Business.

Politics, media, and business
Michelle Obama is Forbes's most powerful woman for year 2010The top 10 featured a diversified group of women. In the field of politics, German Chancellor Angela Merkel ranked fourth and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ranked fifth whereas in the field of media and entertainment talk show host Oprah Winfrey ranked third, singers Lady Gaga and Beyonce Knowles ranked seventh and ninth respectively, and talk show host Ellen DeGeneres ranked tenth.

In the field of business, chief executive of Kraft Foods Irene Rosenfeld ranked second, chief executive of PepsiCo Indra Nooyi ranked sixth, and chief executive of Westpac ranked eighth.

Michele Obama made a huge leap from place 40 in 2009 to number one in this year's list for her rising popularity among the American public as well as her championing of several causes like school nutrition and her famous Let's Move! Campaign against child obesity and which influenced several companies, like Coca Cola and Kellogg's, to pledge reducing the calories in their products by the year 2012.

(Translated from Arabic by Sonia Farid)

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