Participation

Nura Koleji rubs her toe in the ochre dust, hugs her knees to her stomach, and keeps her eyes firmly downcast – until we hit on the one topic she is bubbling to talk about. It is not how she fled her village of Lanya when AK47-wielding soldiers arrived from the north during the Sudanese civil war.

Iraqi security forces have been training women in an effort to enhance security amid Al Qaida strikes.

Officials said the Iraq Army and police were recruiting young women for field missions. They said many of the recruits, in a program overseen by the U.S. military, have been stationed at checkpoints and inspect female pedestrians for explosives.

Pakistan has appointed its first female foreign minister, filling a key Cabinet position days ahead of peace talks with archrival India.

A statement from the Foreign Office says Hina Rabbani Khar is also the youngest foreign minister in Pakistan's history, but it does not state her age.

Women's progress is essential to Central Asia's prosperity, top U.S. State Department officials said at the opening of a three-day economic conference in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

A little over a week ago, the largest country in Africa split in two. But violence continues between the two new countries.

Israel could soon have a new government ministry and accompanying minister dedicated entirely to improving the situation of the country's women and promoting their equality in all spheres of society, Likud MK Gila Gamliel said Monday.

Today, the world welcomes its newest country: the Republic of South Sudan. This new nation in the heart of Africa is the historic result of a peaceful, popular vote on independence, in which roughly 99% of people living in Sudan's southern regions elected to split from the Northern, Arab government that had ruled over them -- and engaged in a brutal civil war against them -- for decades.

There were not too many women involved in the main programme of events to mark the independence of South Sudan on Saturday but that does not mean women did not contribute their fair share to the hard-fought liberation of the country.

They were key members of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), with one entire battalion branded the “girls battalion” being led by the noted female commander, Agier Agum.

Four Afghan women are in Texas training to become among the first female pilots in the Afghan Air Force.

The four women, all in the early 20s, are breaking the mold in male-dominated Afghanistan as foreign troops continue to help build the nation's military. The only female pilot now in the Afghan Air Force is almost 40 and a holdover from the Soviet era.

The latest UN Women report released on Wednesday, in New York, once again positions Rwanda as the country with the highest representation of women in politics and participation in the development of their country.