Asia

Every day after school, Puoet Sokhea comes home to a ramshackle hut in Rovieng district, Preah Vihear province, and begins her daily chores. She stokes the fire, washes pots and pans, sets the rice to boil. She has nine brothers and sisters, her parents and an aging grandmother—and few opportunities to help support them.

Bangladesh, with two women leaders dominating the country's political scene both as Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition in Parliament, has called for women empowerment and recruitment of women in senior positions of the United Nations.

Female MPs, both religious and secular, have slammed the under-representation of women in Iraqi institutions, especially government, sparking public soul-searching by male parliamentarians.

On Saturday night parliament adopted a resolution affirming that "the issue of women is a priority" and creating a monitoring committee on women's affairs, Speaker Omar al-Nujaifi announced.

The Karen are one of the largest ethnic groups in Burma, with a population estimated to be around 7 million. The Karen people have long faced severe repression and oppression there, an historic reality that is now tragically (and surprisingly openly) repeating itself.

Canada should threaten to withhold aid to Afghanistan unless women are fully included in the peace process and push for more women in the country's security forces, a new Senate report says.

Canada should also put resources into helping build the justice system, particularly in remote communities, and provide gender sensitivity training for the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police, as well as their Canadian trainers.

Nine years after religiously conservative Taliban fighters forced women into hiding, many have emerged from the shadows.

Today, women are visible everywhere on Kabul's dusty roads, on their way to work and school, striding past donkey carts loaded with key limes and pomegranates, making their way past Toyotas and SUVs.

A JOINT study by Fiji School of Medicine and the World Health Organisation revealed that majority of women who are victims of violence are indigenous Fijians.

Senior lecturer of the department of public health and primary care of FNU Dr Timaima Tuiketei who is one of the researchers said during the study they took data from 16 health centres around Fiji and analyzed them.

Global Report of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) "State of the World Population 2010" was launched at the National Press Center of Uzbekistan on 16 December.

UNFPA office in Tashkent and Women's Committee of Uzbekistan joined hands in organization of media-briefing to launch the Report and discuss the issues of women's rights and empowerment in times of crises.

A new Senate committee urges the government to put women's rights in Afghanistan at the top of its priority list for the post-2011 mission.

A Palestinian woman being held in prison by the Israelis has entered the fifteenth day of a hunger strike. Linan Abu Ghalma, 28, from Nablus in the occupied West Bank was abducted from her home by the Israeli occupation forces in July at the same time as her sister. It is reported that her health is deteriorating badly.