The Al Qaeda has appealed to Muslim women, particularly those in Saudi Arabia, to travel to Yemen and wage jihad. The appeal was made by Wafa al-Shahri, wife of Al Qaeda's second in command in Yemen, Said al-Shahri.

Wafa al-Shahri was directing her message in particular to Al Qaeda colleagues in Saudi Arabia.

Sometimes we choose a new beginning; sometimes a new beginning is forced upon us. Either way, a new beginning requires the courage to embrace and lead change. Few know that courage better than war survivor Zainab Salbi, founder of Women for Women International.

Lisa Shannon has run 30 miles straight, alone, on a steep and forested Portland trail. But on this particular rainy February day, she is running just a mile, barefoot, through the Democratic Republic of Congo.

President Paul Kagame has promoted all Rwandans and given each one a platform to showcase their ability, a move that has worked as a stepping stone towards the development of the nation, the Speaker of Parliament, Rose Mukantabana said yesterday.

There are fears of escalating sexual violence as UNMIL and NGOs scale down their activities, leaving a void that national institutions, with limited capacity, cannot fill.

The UN's Regional Information Network (IRIN) reports that humanitarian workers in Liberia worry that as the UN and NGOs scale down aid operations, the fight against sexual violence will suffer, given a limited capacity in national institutions to take it on.

The United Nations Operation in Côte d'Ivoire (UNOCI), on Wednesday, 19 May 2010, began a three-day workshop in Korhogo, 580 km from Abidjan, to train and sensitise its staff on the theme: “Gender and peacekeeping operations” as part of activities to celebrate the second anniversary of Security Council Resolution 1820 scheduled in June 2010.

President Joseph Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo would like to see the U.N. start drawing out its peacekeeping forces in June and be completely gone by August 2011.

Margot Wallstrom, the secretary general's special representative for sexual violence in conflict, thinks otherwise, and told the U.N. Security Council so before last week's visit by council members and other diplomats to the Democratic Republic of Congo.

More than 60 percent of Chileans surveyed by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) are opposed to full equality between women and men, according to a new national report released by the agency on Friday.

Humanitarian workers in Liberia worry that as the UN and NGOs scale down aid operations, the fight against sexual violence will suffer, given a limited capacity in national institutions to take it on.

Thirteen years ago a local official in north-east China's Heilongjiang province tried to extort money from a woman named Liu Jie, who operated a successful cow farm.

Liu protested at local courts, to no avail. In retaliation, the official destroyed her farm and stole her cows. She took her case to Beijing, where instead of receiving justice, she was detained and beaten.