I was blown away to be asked to join a delegation to Israel and Palestine led by Nobel Peace Laureates Jody Williams and Mairead Maguire, and organized by the Nobel Women's Initiative. When NWI first got in touch, I thought it must have been some kind of misunderstanding. I'm a media activist, a writer, and an educator about sexuality and ending sexual violence. I don't get invited on peace delegations led by Nobel laureates every day.
Women's Voices Now is a new and unique non-profit organization based in New York City that seeks to empower women by giving them a platform to voice out their lack of and struggles to obtain civic, economic, and political rights.
On Sept. 23, retired United States Army Col. Ann Wright met with a sizeable audience at the Interfaith Center to deliver a lecture titled "What Are We Doing in Iraq and Afghanistan? How Does It Affect Iraqi, Afghan and U.S. Women?"
An important interview that also reveals a lot about what Obama's surge in Afghanistan means on the ground: "American troops are much more in evidence now, much more active, causing far more civilian casualties. And since the Obama surge, if we can call it that, the civilian casualties have gone up about 25 percent. Six thousand were killed last year. The number is likely to be higher now.
The ‘settlement freeze'—or moratorium on new building of Israeli homes in Palestinian territory—is set to expire on September 30. This is adding increased tensions to the already fraught peace talks being hosted by the United States.
The Palestinians are threatening to leave the peace talks if the freeze is not extended, and the Netanyahu government is giving no indication of what it plans to do.
Nine American mothers whose children died fighting in Iraq were embraced Sunday by dozens of Iraqi women who lost their own children during decades of war and violence in a meeting participants said brought them a measure of peace.
Sixteen months after the end of the civil war in northern Sri Lanka, thousands of former rebel fighters are still missing or in government detention, according to the government and a local NGO, Law and Trust Society.
Last Tuesday at noon, September 14, The Ashby Residential College hosted, "Women as a Barometer of Success in Post Conflict," presented by speaker Ms. Manal Omar. Omar is the Director of Iraq Programs under the Center for Post-conflict Peace and Stability Operations at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP). The USIP is an independent, nonpartisan, national institution established and funded by Congress.
