Asia

Speaking to the US congress in May, Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu boasted that his country is a beacon of freedom in the Middle East and North Africa, that it is the only place where Arabs "enjoy real democratic rights".

For Maria Saifuddin Effendi, it began with a bar of chocolate. As a Pakistani, Maria's first experience of India was her Indian roommate at a South-Asia workshop: a roommate who greeted an irritable and jetlagged Maria with a warm smile and a bar of Cadburys' chocolate. The following year, a second workshop brought her to New Delhi, to another Indian roommate, another series of midnight conversations, and another set of Indian friends.

Nepal's efforts to help conflict-affected women and girls gain a stronger footing in society may not be enough for the widows, rape victims and former Maoist combatants now tainted by social stigma, activists say.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says Solomon Islands can lead the Pacific by example on human rights issues and ending violence against women.

Women in Kashmir are the worst sufferers of conflict. Experts say women generally have less tolerance for trauma. Some Kashmiri women have devised their own methods of escape by often transporting themselves into the unreal world of television soap operas and others are not able to forget gruesome tragedies they witnessed. Shams Irfan reports.

In the Pacific, despite women's leadership in peace building, organizing dialogue, providing inputs to defence reviews, mediating between conflicting parties, ending violence against women and defending human rights, women's participation in peacebuilding is still a matter for debate. Women struggle to be heard and are not given sufficient recognition and resources to up-scale their work.

Statistics shows the status of women is better than last couple of years in Pakistan. The situation could more satisfactory if the policies formulated by the parliamentarians for women folk in the past. This was stated by the speakers at a workshop organized by the Individual-land in collaboration with USAID and Aurat Foundation titled "Gender equality and equity" here at local hotel on Saturday.

Several hundred Palestinian and Israeli women demonstrated on Saturday on each side of Israel's Qalandiya checkpoint, the main passage point between Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Assembling nearly a week ahead of a Palestinian bid for statehood at the United Nations Security Council, the women all gathered under the slogan "Women want an independent Palestine".

Uprisings espousing principles of democracy, participation and human rights have spread across the Arab world. Arab women have been both on the frontlines and in the background of these struggles –in fact, they have been involved in every nationalist struggle where gender equality might have been a positive result.

Armed violence continues to affect large numbers of Iraqis, with minorities, women and children suffering disproportionately, torture widely reported and impunity rife, according to a United Nations report released today.

“The human rights situation throughout Iraq remains fragile,” the report notes, also citing so-called “silent” human rights violations, such as entrenched poverty.