Asia

For the women's sector, nine years of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo means nine years of devastation, corruption, scandals and political repression and killings. Women's group Gabriela challenged President Benigno Aquino III to reverse it and waste no time in taking concrete measures.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard's ascendency deserves recognition for the historic moment that it is. Yet this new chapter for Australian women doesn't reflect the rest of their story in politics. Federally, concern is no longer about a lack of progression, but arresting a slide to regression.

Interim leader Rosa Otunbayeva has been sworn in as president of the troubled republic of Kyrgyzstan. Mrs Otunbayeva took power after bloody street riots in April which ousted President Kurmanbek Bakiyev. The former foreign minister becomes the first female president of an ex-communist Central Asian country.

The World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) has been informed by reliable sources of the imminent execution of Ms. Zeynab Jalalian, a 27 years old Kurdish political prisoner, who was arrested in 2007 and sentenced to death for “enmity against God” in January 2009, after having been accused of connections with Kurdish opposition groups. OMCT calls upon the Iranian Judiciary to immediately suspend the execution sentence of Ms.

An interview with Suraiya Kamaruzzaman, a human rights activist and one of the founders of Flower Aceh, the first women's group set up by Acehnese women to deal with the consequences of the Indonesian army's violent crackdown on the Aceh Freedom Movement (GAM).

AWID: Why did you start the organization Flower Aceh (FA)?

Today, at the Waterfront Hotel in Davao City, 150 women from Muslim communities all over the Philippines are gathered to engage each other for the sake of their families and communities. The “Regional Conference of Muslim Women Peace Advocates” is the culmination of one year of consultations organized by the Philippine Council for Islam and Democracy (PCID) and the Magbassa Kita Foundation Inc.

During a recent visit to Papua New Guinea, former Prime Minister of New Zealand and current United Nations Development Programme Administrator, Helen Clark (pictured), highlighted the significant opportunities which exist in PNG to promote investment in public service delivery, empower women, and advance the country's development agenda.

Bassam al-Kadi heads the Syrian Women's Observatory, which aims to change the way both the government and the culture regard women in Syria.

Three decades of wars, massacres and sectarian killings have left Iraq with as many as a million widows, by Iraqi government count. Hameeda Ayed is one of them.

Amnesty International welcomes the establishment of a new United Nations (UN) agency dedicated to strengthening its work on women's human rights, and in particular the opportunity it presents to address violence against women in the Pacific.