A women's rights activist from Jordan, during an İstanbul conference on women's empowerment in the midst of the Arab revolutions, told Today's Zaman on Thursday that such collaboration among women activists is not only beneficial but also crucial for gender equality in the region.

The bodies of two women who had been raped and murdered in Gerud locality were found in the region of Kara, South Darfur on Sunday.

Speaking to a local radio station in Nyala on Monday, the government accused the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM-AW) led by Abdul Wahid of carrying out the attack.

Leymah Gbowee of Liberia was one of three women to be honored with the 2011 Nobel Prize. As a human rights defender, Gbowee identifies herself as a social worker and her community organizer focused on protesting the use war rape and child soldiers in Liberia's civil war.

With US forces having completed their pullout, Iraqis are hopeful their country will regain its lofty status in the Arab world, but one group expects little to change for the better: women.

Six hundred fifty-one women in Guatemala have been killed so far this year, with 22% of them losing their lives in gang-related violence, often triggered by the victim's rejecting the killer's advances, according to the Presidential Commission against Femicide.

Minister of Social Welfare, Gender and Children's Affairs, Steven Gaojia, has said that women need to be united and speak with one voice.

He made the statement at a one day sensitization meeting on the Gender Equality Bill with Members of Parliament and councillors organized by the Network for Female Ministers and Parliamentarians at the Lacs Villa Guest House on Friday.

Thousands of Egyptian women have held rallies in Cairo against their treatment by security forces.
Demonstrators brandished photos of a woman who was beaten and dragged along the ground, exposing her underwear - an incident that has outraged Egyptians.

The rally took place in Tahrir Square, which has seen five days of deadly clashes between protesters and troops.

On Friday, I was at a dinner event at which prominent businessman Marc Lasry said he used to dance with and have “a secret crush on” US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. “She was quite a dancer,” he added, while calling Mrs. Clinton on stage to speak on women's rights.

Sharp statements about religion, powerful calls for international commmitments and resounding applause, marked the crowded seminar with the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize laureates in Stockholm 12 December.