Greater efforts to support girls and young women to acquire skills in information and communications technologies (ICTs) could help address projected shortages of manpower in those professions, the United Nations telecommunications agency said today, marking the first “Girls in ICT Day.”

The woman in Tahrir Square was worried. "The men were keen for me to be here when we were demanding that Mubarak should go," she told me when I visited Cairo last month. "But now he has gone, they want me to go home".

We've all heard stories about how hard it is for girls and women in Afghanistan.

How hard it is to go to school. How hard it is to make their own choices and defy their families. How hard it is sometimes to even leave their houses.

Iranian women will take to the streets in a show of solidarity with Bahraini women who are continually falling victim to violation of government forces.

An all-female delegation of women from Paktika Province convened for the first time April 25.

Influential female Afghan representatives, like the director of women's affairs for Paktika, attended.

“It is my responsibility to reach out and help the women and to let them know they have rights,” said Dr. Bibi Hawa, Paktika DoWA.

Soroptimist International of the Americas (SIA) and Soroptimist International of Europe (SIE) have partnered to donate a total of $60,000 to help women and girls affected by the devastating earthquake that rocked Haiti in January 2010.

FEAR and not enough materials are putting mothers-to-be at risk in Libya's rebel capital Benghazi, where midwives are stretched thin by delivery complications blamed on the stress of conflict.

"We have a shortage of beds, instruments and antiseptic," said Fairuz Sahed, who heads the team of midwives and gynaecological nurses at Al-Jamahiriya hospital.

The "Arab Spring" has received copious attention in the American media, but one of its crucial elements has been largely overlooked: the striking role of women in the protests sweeping the Arab world. Despite inadequate media coverage of their role, women have been and often remain at the forefront of those protests.

Sierra Leone's President Ernest Bai Koroma has called on his countrymen to reflect on their history and future prospects in a spirit of unity. He made the appeal as Sierra Leone marks 50 years of independence from British rule.