Participation

The women who grow more than half the world's agricultural produce have gained international recognition and aid since the start of the global food crisis in 2007.

The High Court of Justice on Wednesday instructed the state to review its stance regarding the inclusion of a woman in a commission investigating the Israel Defense Forces raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla in May, and issued a deadline of several hours to explain why there are no women sitting on the panel.

Iraqi Kurdistan: As the 13th convention of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) of Iraq draws nearer, Fazil Mirani, head of the political bureau of the party said that his party is not supportive of the quota system, meaning to predetermine certain amount of seats, for women.

“We are not with quota. We support women to be elected leaders of the party by men and women's votes,” said Mirani.

One of the key targets in the SADC Protocol on Gender and Development is 50% women in all areas of decision-making by 2015.

Progress towards equal representation of women in political decision-making over the past 10 years has been slow and uneven.

Counting is not yet complete in the Solomon Islands election, but there is one result that is already certain - no women will be represented in the national parliament this time around.

Twenty five women contested the election, but not one has been successful. It is a disappointing result for organsations who have been working so hard to get women into parliament.

Elena Kagan has been sworn in as the newest justice in the US Supreme Court. She is President Barack Obama's second appointment to the US's most powerful court and only the fourth woman to serve on the nine-member panel. The 50-year-old becomes the youngest serving Supreme Court judge. She will serve alongside President Obama's first appointment, Sonia Sotomayor.

Letitia A. Long became the first woman director of a major U.S. intelligence agency Monday, taking her post as chief of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency at a ceremony at the agency's half-built, high-tech campus in Springfield, Va. Long saluted what the relatively new agency has accomplished, from aiding troops on the battlefield, to helping draw together intelligence from across the national security spectrum.

At the 15th African Union Summit held in Kampala from 19-27 July, Isis WICCE joined several civil society organizations in Africa to put up activities to inform the Heads of State to bring the issues of women to the discussion table. In collaboration with Femmes Africa Solidarite (FAS) through a program called Gender is my Agenda (GIMAC), Isis-WICCE held a pre-summit consultative meeting on strengthening gender in the African Union.

In commemorating August 9 - National Women's Day - the African National Congress (ANC) pays tribute to countless sung and unsung heroines of our struggle for their contribution in the liberation of South Africa.

A lifetime of frustration in Burmese politics has not wearied Cho Cho Kyaw Nyein. Her years as a political prisoner have not blunted her sense of humour.

"Some people call us the 'three princesses of Burma', but to the government, we are the three witches," she laughs as, free now, she walks through the gardens of her once stately, now crumbling colonial home on a hilltop in the Burmese capital.