Women of Georgia and South Ossetia are capable to bring their contribution into restoration of trust and peace between Georgians and Ossetians. This is the leitmotif of the two-day meeting of female-activists from Georgia and South Ossetia, which is taking place on June 11 and 12 in Baku, in the office of the Azerbaijani society in defence of women's rights named after Dilyara Alieva.

The head of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) is in Georgia to help female internally displaced persons (IDPs) and meet with women's organizations, RFE/RL's Georgian Service reports.

Men are many things, but there is at least one thing they are not. They are not women.

For Nonhlanhla (“Call me Noni”) Dlamini, that is a problem. “At the end of the day, men do not fetch water,” the high-spirited and dauntingly articulate African politician declared “Men do not do the cooking.”

Lebanese-born photographer Rania Matar, who currently lives in the United States, frequently travels back to her native country. On her last trip home in 2007, she documented the changing and striking ways in which Lebanese Muslim women are engaging in politics.

A significant number of girls and women in Iraqi Kurdistan suffer female genital mutilation (FGM) and its destructive after-effects, Human Rights Watch said today in a new report. The Kurdistan Regional Government should take immediate action to end FGM and develop a long term plan for its eradication, including passing a law to ban the practice, Human Rights Watch said.

Indonesia is enjoying a period of relative peace and calm as the violent conflicts that wracked the country at the dawn of the country's democratic transition have been resolved, for the most part peacefully.

A coalition of Afghan war crimes victims is lobbying against the Afghanistan Peace Jirga and the Afghanistan government's effort to begin a reconciliation process with the Taliban and other insurgents. The Afghanistan Peace Jirga, which took place early last week, brought together approximately 1,600 delegates from around Afghanistan to discuss building peace and the motives of insurgency groups.

Lying on his hospital bed in Andijan, in eastern Uzbekistan, 65-year-old Khikmatullo Urunbayev, an ethnic Uzbek grandfather from Osh, in southern Kyrgyzstan, had tears in his eyes as he lifted his arm for us to see.

Women activists have urged the Government and other political parties to promote gender equality by ensuring that women win 50% of the political seats in next year's general polls.

Over 100 women activists from 13 districts made the call in a report passed on Wednesday at Speke Resort Munyonyo. Women leaders from seven political parties, which included NRM, FDC, DP and JEEMA attended.

Another political event takes place in Iraq without much mention of women. And in the rare occasion that women are mentioned, it is often with the token spirit about how wonderful it is that they now have 25 percent of political seats in the Iraqi parliament.