Asia

Finance Minister AMA Muhith has said the upcoming fiscal budget will have special focus on women's economic empowerment.

He said the government is actively considering giving special focus on gender budget as it has received enthusiasm in all related ministries and earned some significant successes.

More than 50 human rights bodies and individuals in Assam yesterday condemned the recent killing of four women as a result of the evil customary practice of witch hunting and demanded immediate action from the government to provide safety and security to women in the affected districts.

A Filipina who has been in custody for more than four months since reporting a rape to police is due to appear in court early next month.

The woman identified by the Philippine consulate as AS, 23, has been detained at Al Muraqqabat police station on charges of consensual sex since December 8.

She said she did not request a UAE-based lawyer to defend her during a consular visit on April 6.

In a small room in Benghazi some young men and women are putting out a new opposition newspaper. "The role of the female in Libya," reads one headline. "She is the Muslim, the mother, the soldier, the protester, the journalist, the volunteer, the citizen", it adds.

At least 36,000 people were displaced on 23-24 April amid fresh fighting along the Thai-Cambodian border, officials say.

The two countries are at loggerheads over ownership of an 11th century Hindu temple, registered as a UN World Heritage Site in 2008.

Each side accused the other of firing rockets and mortars over disputed territory along their 798km border, forcing civilians to flee the area.

President Ali Abdullah Saleh has met with tens of thousands of women from different governorates who expressed support for constitutional legitimacy, security, stability and preservation of the country's unity, principals, interests and future generations.

NEW YORK/ISLAMABAD/KARACHI: The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Pakistan`s National Commission on the Status of Women (NCSW), Insani Huqooq Ittehad (IHI) comprising 10 NGOs and other women and human rights organisation have expressed “deep shock” and “disappointment” at the Supreme Court verdict acquitting the accused who had raped Mukhtar Mai about nine years ago.

Being well educated or financially independent does not always come with red carpet treatment for women. Some still fall victim to domestic abuse.

The gloomy observation came from Rifka Annisa, a nonprofit organization which has assisted abused women since it started offering counseling to women and housewives in Yogyakarta in 1993.

The Supreme Court of Pakistan on Thursday upheld the acquittal of five of the six men accused in the gang rape of Mukhtar Mai, the resilient woman who had gained international recognition and emerged as a symbol of the voiceless and oppressed women in the country.

The United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory has called for protection of the rights of the Palestinians detained in Israeli prisons, especially women and children.