Asia

The UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Robert Serry, received a group of 20 women leaders and peace activists in Gaza, for a consultation on their concerns regarding peace and security in the Gaza Strip. The meeting was the last of a series of Global Open Days on Women and Peace, held around the world in the context of the 10th anniversary of Security Council Resolution (SCR) 1325.

On a cold winter day, Iranian women's rights activist and journalist Fariba Davoodi Mohajer made an about-face: Having worn the hijab for 25 years, she decided to cast her head scarf into the sea. That was in 2006. But she still remembers every detail of that day in Ireland: how she walked along the seaport in Dublin for several hours pondering the act; how she watched as her head scarf was pulled away by the waves.

Iran needs to take all feasible precautions to spare civilians at risk of serious harm from artillery bombardment and other military operations in an area that includes dozens of Kurdish villages inside northern Iraq, Human Rights Watch said today.

The government's tardy response to a recommendation to revoke 154 discriminative bylaws against women have paved the way for the deliberation of 15 new equally discriminative bylaws, the National Commission on Violence against Women (Komnas Perempuan) said Friday.

Girls are made of sugar and spice, and everything nice. Boys are made of snips and snails, and puppy-dog tails.

The famous lines — made popular through an old nursery rhyme — might sound nothing but funny to us. But if we look beyond those amusing words, we will soon realize they are ridden with gender stereotypes.

Earlier this year, Sharia police arrested a 20-year-old college student and her boyfriend for indecency; they had been spending time together even though they were not legally married.

Her boyfriend was released, but she was detained and then allegedly raped by three policemen. Two of the men are on trial, while the third is at large.

Insurance companies in Iran will have to pay the same compensation for women and men in the case of death or injury, the Iranian government has said. Previously, insurance policies have paid women or their families half of what a man or his relatives receive. Iranian Justice Minister Gholamhoseyn Elham said the companies would also have to make equal payouts to Muslims and non-Muslims.

Three women and a child from one family were killed and six others wounded when gunmen attacked a house near the city of Fallujah in Anbar province early on Wednesday, a provincial police source said.

A UN report on Iraq shows human rights in the country remain a cause for concern, in spite of improvements in security.

Addressing a meeting of the Community of Democracies in Krakow, Poland, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke of the importance of robust, non-governmental civic organizations to prosperous, democratic societies: "Citizens," she said, "must be free to come together to advocate and agitate, to remind those entrusted with governance that they derive their authority from the governed."