Asia

Young Nepalese women from the Newar ethnic community participate in a parade held to mark the declaration of the Newar Autonomous Region in Kathmandu on Dec. 26.

Deputy Prime Minister Sujata Koirala has said representation of women in the High Level Political Mechanism (HLPM) is necessary to ensure women participation in the peace process.

She asked the women lawmakers on Tuesday to start lobbying for inclusion of a woman representative in the mechanism, which is headed by her father Girija Prasad Koirala.

“I am not a woman prime minister,” Indira Gandhi liked to say during her many years as India's leader. “I am a prime minister.” But the question, here in Asia, is whether there really is such a thing as a woman prime minister.

A women contingent of the CRPF will leave for civil war stricken Liberia tonight as part of the United Nations Peace Keeping assignment. The fourth women contingent to be sent to Liberia by the largest paramilitary force in the country comprises 106 women personnel besides 19 male officers and others.

While women in Pakistan are being liberated in the world of today, violence against them is still alarmingly high, and those living in hostels or on there own are particularly vulnerable, said rights activists.

NATO's new strategy in Afghanistan is part military offensive, part training the Afghan security forces, part fostering civil society and part talking with at least some members of the Taliban, to entice them to join the government side. But, talking to the Taliban has some Afghan women worried.

For women in Iraq, the coming national elections offer both a promise and a reminder of the difficulty of change in this male-dominated culture.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke to young women at a Saudi women's college here on Tuesday, the site of a spirited exchange five years ago with a female official of the Bush administration over the rights of women in Saudi Arabia.

In what appeared to be the first burst of activism in months not related to the disputed presidential election, about 1,200 Iranians signed a statement against a bill that would further curb women's rights, the feminist Web site Change for Gender Equality reported.

Iraqi security forces have arrested an Al Qaeda operative suspected of recruiting women to carry out suicide attacks, the U.S. military and Iraqi security officials said Saturday.

Mohammed Shaker Mahmoud, 30, was detained Thursday evening at his home in the former al Qaeda stronghold of Al-Mukhaissah village in Diyala province, north of Baghdad, an Iraqi military official said on condition of anonymity.