Asia

Amnesty International criticized the TV “confession” of an Iranian woman on Wednesday night in which Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, awaiting execution by stoning for adultery, appears to implicate herself in the murder of her husband.

A leading women's organisation in the country has appealed to newly elected members of Parliament to show integrity and good judgment and act with responsibility and accountability in the process of electing a new prime minister and forming government.

The Solomon Islands caretaker deputy prime minister says if women are successful at next month's national election there will be no need to reserve seats for them.

Fred Fono from the People's Congress Party says when the government rejected a proposal from women's groups that 10 seats be reserved for women, he had argued that that number was too high and should be reduced to 2 or 4 as a compromise.

Following court order to appoint woman to commission investigating flotilla, dozens of rabbis make lists of candidates. 'Alongside values of justice, they will display loyalty to Israel'

The General Union of Palestinian Women for Social Work, which has over 30,000 members and is considered as one of the most prominent and popular women unions in the Middle East, has issued a statement condemning the clerical regime's executions and crimes against Iranian women.

A prominent human rights group has expressed "grave concerns" that Iran will soon execute a women sentenced to death by stoning who purportedly confessed in a televised interview this week.

New York-based Human Rights Watch on Friday criticized Iran for airing the confession of the woman said to be Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani.

Nearly two decades after a peasant woman's suicide first raised national awareness about the danger of religious rulings, and one month after a high court outlawed deadly edicts, killings of women in the name of religion continue in Bangladesh, human rights groups say.

For a young Pacific girl born in the 70s, Pacific women were much more likely to be cleaning the parliamentary loos than sitting on the benches.

But in 1999, when Winnie Laban became the first Pacific woman MP in New Zealand, it dawned on me that the ads I had seen on telly that said "Girls can do anything" also included me, even if I was a Pacific Islander.

The photo of Bibi Aisha, a 19-year-old Afghan woman, on the cover of Time magazine last week is unforgettable. Her eyes are betrayed and defiant. Her mouth is curled in a frown. Her nose isn't there, a scarred gap in its place.

It was hacked off by a Taliban fighter who married her at the age of 12, when she reached puberty, then punished her for fleeing his abuse.

When Jogorku Kenesh, the Kyrgyz parliament, convened in 2005, it had no female members. Only one member of the cabinet of ministers was a woman. The paucity of women in decision-making positions contributed to difficulties in achieving gender equality in the conservative Kyrgyz tradition.