Iran was reelected to a seat on a UN commission on population and development Thursday, drawing an angry reaction from the United States, which cited Tehran's opposition to women's rights.

US Ambassador Susan Rice said the United States was “deeply disappointed” that the UN Economic and Social Council voted to extend Iran's membership in the council's Commission on Population and Development.

Following are UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's remarks at the launch of the Global Partnership for Girls' and Women's Education and the High-Level Panel on Girls' and Women's Education for Empowerment and Gender Equality, in Paris on 26 May:

I know that this is not the right occasion, but let me say a few words about the news of the arrest of Ratko Mladić.

When I was a student in Boston, I rode the subway almost every day. There was a woman who I saw more than once on the Red Line; her face was unforgettable, but not because she was a great beauty.

Almost a decade after Mukhtar Mai was gang-raped, her legacy after years of activism and legal battles that made her Pakistan's most famous champion of women's rights now rests on the fate of her final appeal.

Ms. Mai made front-page headlines when she started her campaign for justice in 2002, challenging not only her attackers but the tribal code of honour that endorses rape as a tool of discipline in rural villages.

In a caucus to gather input for the global campaign 16 Days of Activism to End Violence Against Women, one of its founders Charlotte Bunch reiterates the basic feminist point, now underlying human rights-based laws and policies on sexual violence- that “rape is about power, not sex”. If we take that basic premise to be true, then how do we understand why sexual violence happens in conflict?

Bakira arrived late at the Nobel Women's Initiative conference at Montebello, an envoy from a nightmare period of ethnic cleansing and mass rape nearly twenty years ago. The US-brokered Dayton Accords may have stopped the killing in Bosnia, but Bakira, founder of the Association of Women Victims of War, is not living in peace. 'It's difficult when you meet perpetrators who are still at large -- so many thousands of them.

The caravan has been organised by ActionAid Pakistan and PODA (Potohar Organization for Development Advocacy) to mark nearly one year on from the devastating floods which swept the country in 2010. Women from different flood hit areas of Pakistan including Sindh, Khyber Pukhtunkhwa and South Punjab gathered in the capital on Tuesday to rally public and media support for the cause of poor women affected heavily by the unprecedented floods.

From the earliest times Kashmiri women enjoyed freedom, wielded ample power and exercised responsibility. They had an elevated status than many of their counterparts in India. In Kashmir they were afforded opportunity to distinguish themselves in any sphere of social activity. As a matter of fact they had emerged from domestic into the political stage.

Taliban gunmen have killed the headteacher of a girls' school near the Afghan capital after he ignored warnings to stop teaching girls, government officials have said.

Khan Mohammad, the head of the Porak girls' school in Logar province, was shot dead near his home on Tuesday, said Deen Mohammad Darwish, a spokesman for the Logar governor.

"He was killed because he wanted to run the school," Darwish said.

The campaign made them bear the brunt of a government ban on demonstrations around parliament announced on Tuesday, ahead of a critical ballot battle between Prime Minister Jhala Nath Khanal and the opposition parties with the beleaguered premier seeking one more year to draft the new constitution.