TURKEY: NGOs Unite to Demand Say in Human Rights Bill

Turkey’s new human rights bill has a flaw – not a single rights group was consulted in the drafting.

RIGHTS-FRANCE: Domestic Violence – Everybody’s Business

Several people are gathered outside a window, staring wide-eyed at a scene within. They watch as a man brutally beats a woman, pounding her face with his fists, kicking her. No one says anything, until an onlooker screams agonisingly: "stop".

LITERATURE/WOMEN: “When a Woman Wins, It is Still a Story”

The Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded 102 times to 106 Nobel laureates between 1901 and 2009. Only 10 of those winners were women. Meanwhile, the Man Booker Prize has been awarded to 15 women in 40 years.

ECONOMY: Government Failures Feeding Next Financial Bubble

Numerous failures by industrialised countries’ governments and central banks in managing the financial crisis are feeding the next bubble, which most likely will again provoke economic woes such as recession, unemployment, and poverty, according to economists and analysts.

RELIGION-BALKANS: Death of Patriarch Brings Controversies Into Spotlight

It is not often that anything in Serbia can bring several hundred thousand people together, but that is exactly what happened Thursday when the Patriarch Pavle, head of the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC), was buried in a monastery graveyard near Belgrade.

Q&A: Glass Half-full 15 Years After ICPD – Part 2

Fifteen years after the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), the glass is half full, according to Purnima Mane, deputy executive director of the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA). And not much better for the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Violence Against Women (CEDAW) after 30 years.

SPECIAL OP-ED: People First, Turning Words Into Action

The promotion of women's rights at the global level should not be limited to treating the female population as a gender that is discriminated against and must be protected.

CLIMATE CHANGE: The Danish Example

Whether a new internationally binding treaty to reduce greenhouse gases and forestall climate change will be signed next month remains to be seen. What is clear though, is that if there is a place in the world that deserves to be the stage where this treaty ought to be signed, it is the Danish capital of Copenhagen.

KOSOVO: Ten Years On, Forensics Continues to ID Missing

Pictures of missing people have been hanging for years next to the gate to the fence surrounding Kosovo’s parliament. Some of them have been there for so long that the features of the faces can hardly be seen anymore - a good example of how slow and painful the process of discovering the fate of the missing is.

SLOVAKIA: Velvet Touch Brings Communists Back

As Slovaks mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of communism this week, former dissidents have lashed out at top political figures, including the prime minister, who they say are trying to paint the totalitarian regime of old in a positive light.

RIGHTS: Tick the Right Box If You Feel French

The stereotypical image of a French person is of someone wearing a beret and carrying a baguette under his arm. But can one wear a burqa and also be French? Can one prefer pitta bread to baguettes and still be French?

DEVELOPMENT: Climate Change Likely to Increase African Hunger Woes

Africa, the continent already most affected by hunger and food scarcity, is likely to see its woes increased due to climate change and the changing rain patterns it provokes, experts and scientists say.

DEVELOPMENT: To Grab, Or To Invest

The World Food Security Summit in Rome this week opened up a dispute between what may be investment in farmland to some, but is seen as land grab by others.

FINANCE: Icelanders Question IMF Loan

After eight months of waiting, Iceland is finally back on the agenda of the IMF. The second instalment of the IMF loan was agreed at the end of last month and has now been transferred to Iceland.

DEVELOPMENT: Hunger Summit’s Failure Exposes Grim Reality

There are two main ways the flop of this week’s United Nations World Food Security Summit in Rome - which has been snubbed by the world’s top leaders, has failed to deliver binding aid commitments, or to set a target date for the eradication of hunger - is being read.

RIGHTS-TURKEY: Transforming Men from Culprits to Allies – Part 1

Success in fighting violence against women may well hinge on partnership with an often overlooked but still a critically vital party - men themselves.

DEVELOPMENT: Hunger Summit Passes Toothless Declaration

Fears that the United Nations World Food Security Summit would fail to deliver effective measures to defeat hunger were borne out Monday when world leaders and government officials approved a toothless declaration on the first day.

DEVELOPMENT: Farmers Not Invited to Food Summit?

World farmers are not part of the official delegations at the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) food summit on food security that opened here Monday. But they came anyhow to express their views, since, they say, it is their communities that are most impacted by the food crisis.

ENERGY-DENMARK: Samso Island, Beyond Fantasy

On the Danish island of Samsø, a model of energy self-sufficiency, even cow's milk helps reduce emissions of climate changing gases.

GENDER: “Truly Exciting If the U.S. Could Ratify CEDAW” – Part 2

CEDAW or the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Violence Against Women (CEDAW) was adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in 1979.

GENDER: Laws, Budgets and Pigeonholes – Part 1

The fight for women's rights came about hand in hand with the struggle for democracy, civil rights and national liberation in different countries and periods, says Inés Alberdi, executive director of UNIFEM.