The recent savage rape and assault of scores of civilians in the remote and troubled far east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is a “brutal reminder” of the obstacles faced in keeping the peace in conflict zones, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today.

August 26th is Women's Equality Day in the United States. It was on this date in 1920 that passage of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, granting women the right to vote, was adopted and thus became the law of the land. It was the culmination of a massive, peaceful civil rights movement by women that had its formal beginnings in 1848 at the world's first women's rights convention, in Seneca Falls, New York.

The shooting of a female Afghan politician on Monday demonstrates the fragility of the modest gains made by Afghan women after the fall of the Taleban, Amnesty International said on Thursday.

Nida Khyani, a female Provincial Council member, was left in critical condition after being attacked in a drive-by shooting in Pul-e-Khumri, the provincial capital of Baghlan in northern Afghanistan.

This week, for the first time, the United States submitted a report to the U.N. Human Rights Council, a rotating body of countries that peer-review U.N. member countries' human rights records. This submission is historic. Where the Bush administration spent years criticizing the U.N. and human rights processes, in this report the Obama administration has stressed an end to U.S.

Cuban president Raúl Castro Ruz chaired the political-cultural ceremony celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC). On this occasion, Raúl commended the role played by women in the success of the Cuban Revolution.

When an all-male state Senate committee earlier this month rejected Hawaii's first female nominee for chief justice because she didn't have administrative experience or a "judicial temperament," many lawyers, male and female alike, were quick to call foul.

"Even the appearance that there is a glass ceiling in any profession in Hawaii is thoroughly repugnant," Honolulu attorney Joe Fadrowsky told the panel.

Although the human rights violations in the Indian-held Kashmir has been continuing by the Indian security forces since the partition, yet the same practice has intensified in wake of the current phase of Kashmir struggle which began on August 12, 2008 when Indian forces killed Hurriyat Conference leader Sheikh Abdul Aziz along with five other persons who were protesting against the government decision to allot 800 kanal of Kashmiri land to a

ABU DHABI - More women are needed to make up for a shortfall in diplomats, according to the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Dr Anwar Gargash.

In 2009, the Office of Military Affairs and the Gender Unit of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) initiated a process to develop for the first time guidelines for Integrating a Gender Perspective into the Work of the United Nations Military in Peacekeeping Operations.

The number of women running for seats in the Afghan parliamentary elections has increased though cultural obstacles remain, a candidate said.

Afghanistan is to have parliamentary elections Sept. 18. The number of women competing for the estimated 64 seats reserved for women on the 249-seat parliament rose from 328 in 2005 to 406 for September elections.