Asia

Women may get 79 or 14 percent of the total seats in the House of Representatives following April's legislative election; a figure that was lower than the historic high of 18 percent or 103 seats in the 2009 election, researchers said Monday.

This is despite more women candidates, accounting for 37 percent or 2,467 of the total 6,619 candidates, contesting the 560 House seats.

Yangon ( AsiaNews) - The current political initiatives "based on religion", including the proposal for the amendment of the law on mixed marriages, "are not in agreement with the goals of peaceful coexistence between all faiths". At the same time, they do not contribute to the fight against "extremist violence and conflict" but only serve to "distract the public in view of the 2015 elections".

Islamabad: While candidates for next month's mayoral elections in Balochistan come from across the political spectrum, they have one thing in common: they are all men.

With three days to go before the final round of voting in the Indian election, first-time candidate Ravindra Singh is a man with a mission. He wants to use the last few days to consolidate the female vote in his favour.

Kavita Krishnan is a central leader of the Communist Party of India―Marxist-Leninist (CPI-ML) and editor of its magazine Liberation.

Osama bin Laden, Al-Zarqawi, Mullah Omar: we know these names because they were on a kill list, a targeted roster the United States uses to pursue and kill people who are a threat to our national security.

JAIPUR: The National Commission for Women, chairperson, Mamta Sharma on Friday hit out against Congress government in centre for failing to allocate funds under the Nirbhaya Fund announced in 2013 union budget.

Baghdad, 6 February 2014 – The Government of Iraq today launched its National Action Plan on UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (2014-2018), thus becoming the first country in the Middle East and North Africa Region to launch such a program.

Jakarta. The order by authorities in Aceh to have a woman and her married lover caned for adultery, even after she had been gang-raped by vigilante enforcers of Shariah, has spurred a maelstrom of criticism and soul-searching about the place of Islamic jurisprudence in Muslim-majority but secular Indonesia.

As the recent abduction of nearly 300 Nigerian girls by terror group Boko Haram sheds light on the dramatic situation of women's rights in many countries, IBTimesUK has decided to tell the story of Sadia Khan, a Pakistani refugee in Sri Lanka, who fears she might be killed by Pakistani authorities.

"People think that in Pakistan crimes are committed only by the Taliban," the young activist told IBTimesUK.