Sixteen years after the Rwandan genocide, many women are struggling to come to terms with the violence they endured.

According to the association of genocide widows NGO, Avega Agahozo, sexual violence was used to humiliate, degrade and abuse women during the 6 April to 16 July 1994 killings. In many cases, the violence was meted out before, during or after the women had witnessed the killing of a relative.

At first glance there is nothing disturbing about the man playing tennis on the red clay courts of the Hotel Karibu. Other guests in the grounds of the hotel walk serenely across its manicured lawns, dine in thatched-roofed rondavels, or sip drinks while admiring Lake Kivu.

Sometimes I wish eastern Congo could suffer an earthquake or a tsunami, so that it might finally get the attention it needs. The barbaric civil war being waged here is the most lethal conflict since World War II and has claimed at least 30 times as many lives as the Haiti earthquake.

Yet no humanitarian crisis generates so little attention per million corpses, or such a pathetic international response.

Julie had just blown out the kerosene lamp and was lying in bed next to her husband when suddenly the stillness of the night was pierced by enraged shouts and the sound of a door being kicked open. Eight armed men burst into her house in a small village in Democratic Republic of Congo's North Kivu province, wielding machetes and automatic rifles.

The Security Council today extended for another year the United Nations political mission in Burundi, calling for full support for next year's elections in the war-scarred African country while voicing concern at continuing human rights violations, sexual and gender-based violence, restrictions on civil liberties and political violence.

The UN Security Council faces a Srebrenica moment when it votes on December 21st to renew the mandate for MONUC, its largest global peacekeeping mission, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

The tiny new nation of East Timor came to the United Nations last month for its first women's rights checkup and picked up a few kudos.

Although still under house arrest, Aung San Suu Kyi has returned to an active political role by initiating dialogue with both Myanmar's junta and Western nations, analysts say.

In the space of seven days, after a Yangon court rejected the pro-democracy leader's appeal against her recently extended house arrest, her status appeared to shift rapidly from political prisoner to potential key negotiator.

To be an outspoken critic of the government brings a heavy price in Cambodia, the South-east Asian country struggling to put behind decades of war and brutality, including the Khmer Rouge genocide.