When India made it law in 1993 that a third of all seats on local government councils had to be held by women, the vision was that those female-headed councils would spend more government funds on public goods such as schools and wells. As a byproduct, women's status might improve.

The Fiji Women's Rights Movement has indicated its wish to participate in the consultation stages of the constitutional and electoral processes.

In a statement, movement executive director Virisila Buadromo said: "FWRM wishes to participate in legitimate constitutional and electoral processes.

The outgoing batch of the Philippine United Nations Police (UNPOL) Contingent in Timor-Leste was recently honored in a "Medal Parade" in recognition of their service to the peacekeeping efforts of the UN Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste (UNMIT).

On 31 October 2000, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1325 (SC1325) affirming the importance of women's voices in the resolution of war and conflict. http://www.un.org/events/res_1325e.pdf (accessed 20 January 2012) For women and women's organisations, this was an extraordinary achievement.

What most of us know about Rwanda – other than the fact that it is a small country in central Africa – is that in 1994 there was an horrific genocide where hundreds of thousands of people were murdered in 100 days.

On the diplomatic front the Korean ambassador to the United Nations was named president of the forty-one-nation governing body for UN Women.

The election of Kim Sook as the head of the U-N Women Executive Board was formally recognized at a regular session of the UN group in New York.

President,

Distinguished Delegates,

Allow me to first wish all of you a Happy New Year. It will not surprise you to hear me say that my special hopes are for the women of this world! I hope that this year, no matter how great the challenges we all confront, will be a year when the voices of women will be heard even more.

Family and Social Policy Minister Fatma Şahin will join leaders across the globe as Turkey's first female minister and politician to attend the World Economic Forum (WEF), the Cihan news agency reported on Monday.

The Caribbean nation of Haiti, still struggling to recover from the devastating 2010 earthquake, is once again trying to cope with the sexual abuse of minors by U.N. peacekeepers - for the third time in five years.

Myanmar and its army are continuing a “systematic repression” of citizens, namely in ethnic areas with ongoing conflicts, despite the government's promise of reform and its ceasefire agreements with some ethnic armed groups, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said.