Asia

Since the 1967 occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Israel has demolished close to 25,000 Palestinian homes in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem in violation of both human rights law and international humanitarian law, leading to mass displacement and violations of their housing, land and property rights.

Long-term activism in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır has empowered women to protect themselves through support networks, according to an official for a local municipality.

What challenges do women face in politics?

There have been many constraints on women entering into politics. This is why in 2002 the affirmative action plan was put in place, which reserved 60 seats for women in the National Assembly and 17 in the Senate.

Displaced Iraqi female-headed families who have returned home are still experiencing major livelihood challenges, says the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

An IOM survey of 1,355 female-headed displaced families who have returned to their places of origin found that 74 percent are struggling to secure adequate nutrition for their families.

The government is formulating two action plans with an objective to address the woes of those women and children who were externally and internally displaced during the decade-long armed conflict.

The action plans are National Plan of Action for Rehabilitation and Reintegration of Conflict Affected Children, and NPA on United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 and 1820 on women peace and security.

Twenty-five years ago an Afghan girl with green eyes haunted the cover of National Geographic. She became the iconic image of Afghanistan's plight, a young refugee fleeing the war between the Soviet-backed communists and the American-backed mujahideen. Today the iconic image of Afghanistan is again a young woman—Bibi Aisha, whose husband slashed off her nose and ears as punishment for running away from him and his family.

Uzbekistan should "translate words into practice" to improve its human rights situation, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Thursday during a brief visit to Tashkent.

The US is ready to "support and assist in that effort", Clinton added while meeting President Islam Karimov on Thursday during a visit to the ex-Soviet state that lasted only a few hours.

After helping resettle Cambodian immigrants in the United States and earning a master's degree in social work from the University of California at Berkeley, Mu Sochua returned to Southeast Asia in 1981 to work with the 300,000 Cambodian refugees living in camps along the Thai border.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is visiting Uzbekistan today as part of her short Central Asian tour, and her actions there will be watched probably more closely than anywhere else on her trip. The U.S. is walking a tightrope in Uzbekistan, relying on the country heavily for its role as a transport hub for military cargo to Afghanistan but wary of embracing a government with one of the worst human rights records on the planet.

UN Secretary-general Ban Ki- moon is in Central Asia following recent unrest in the region to discuss empowerment of women and the UN's contribution to building stability and peace with regional leaders, UN spokesman Farhan Haq said here on Tuesday.