BANGLADESH: Govt Under Pressure After Sacking Yunus

The Bangladesh government is drawing flak from the international community for removing microcredit pioneer and Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus from the Grameen Bank that he founded and led.

Ivorian Women Fatally Shot at Rally

Security forces loyal to Laurent Gbagbo, Cote d'Ivoire's disputed president, have shot dead at least six women at a demonstration in support of his rival, Alassane Ouattara, witnesses said.

Q&A: Rural Women Need Concrete Actions

Burundi will put U.N. Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security into practice with a National Action Plan (NAP) that is ready to be signed within the coming months.

U.S., European Weapons Makers Still Dominate Arms Bazaar

The world's key arms manufacturers are still firmly entrenched in the United States and Western Europe, while some of the newly-emerging military industries in China, India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Israel, Turkey and Kuwait are trailing mostly far behind.

Fresh Protests Break Out In Oman

Fresh protests have taken place in the Gulf sultanate of Oman, following a wave of pro-democracy demonstrations across the Arab world. The unrest in Sohar has been a rare outbreak of discontent in the normally calm sultanate of Oman.

Shining a Light on Women’s Rights

How does a woman challenge deeply entrenched cultural practices to convince her husband, her brother or father that she can demand equal rights?

LIBYA: Thousands of Foreign Labourers Trapped in Turmoil

As violent unrest continues unabated in Libya, with the potential to descend into what U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called a "protracted civil war" in statements to lawmakers here this week, international rights groups are raising the alarm over the resulting humanitarian crisis and the particularly desperate plight of stranded immigrant labourers.

EGYPT: Mubarak Regime ‘Provoked’ Attacks on Christians

Ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak portrayed himself as a paradigm of stability in a country he once described as a "powder keg" of sectarian unrest. Yet far from promoting stability, his regime may have actually been the source of much of the religious strife it claimed to suppress.

BAHRAIN: Migrants Stuck With Added Problems

Thousands of foreign labourers here are squeezed into houses the government says are uninhabitable, but they are unlikely to get any relief soon, with the non- stop protests in the capital hurting many businesses.

Vietnam, Laos Split Over Mekong Dam

The first in a new series of 11 dams planned across the Mekong, South-east Asia’s largest river, could break a special bond between two communist-ruled countries.

Meet the Other U.N. Women

Tucked away from the high-level plenary sessions of the 55th Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), a small chapel opposite the United Nations headquarters came to life Wednesday morning with the voices and stories of the real women behind U.N. Women.

KENYA: One Woman’s Turbulent Journey to Success

Mount Elgon in Western Kenya is one of the most marginalised regions in the country. It is so marginalised that it is the only area where not even an inch of tarmac road has been constructed.

Pakistan Minorities Minister Killed

Pakistan's minister for minorities has been shot dead by armed men in Islamabad.

Israel Grows Ever-Harsher in Treatment of Migrants

A new report from the Global Detention Project (GDP) on Israel's immigration detention policies reveals the tough reality behind the feel-good story offered in the Academy Award-winning "Strangers No More", an inspirational documentary about students from migrant families who attend the Bialik-Rogozin school in Tel Aviv.

Q&A: Fossil Fuel Lobby Following the Playbook of Big Tobacco

Powerful fossil energy interests are preventing the United States from making the necessary transition to 21st century energy sources, one of the country's leading environmental economists documents in a just-published book.

Vicious Cycle of Maternal Mortality

Addressing the National Convention of the Medical Committee for Human Rights in Chicago, Illinois in 1966, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stated unequivocally that, "Of all the forms of inequality in the world, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane."

Families Trapped in Cote d’Ivoire

Armed men have blocked some 60 families without food or water from leaving a church in Cote d'Ivoire's commercial city, the U.N. says.

BRAZIL: Women in “Pacified” Favelas Claim Their Rights

The peace imposed on the more than 200,000 people living in the Complexo do Alemão group of favelas in Rio de Janeiro by Brazil's military police is helping to pave the way for the recognition of basic human rights.

LIBYA: Recovering From Horror, Waiting for More

The walls outside the Al-Jalah Hospital in downtown Bengazi are covered with posters of missing persons, mostly teenagers and young men who disappeared after the protests began. Inside, hundreds of gunshot victims recover from the street battle between Muammar Gaddafi's forces and Benghazi's citizens.

Kurd Issue to the Fore Ahead of Elections

Sultan Quyun, 58, longs for the day when the decades-long conflict between the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and Turkish security forces will come to an end. For her, the end of violence does not just hold the promise of a possible resolution of the Kurdish issue in the country, but would bring about, she hopes, a much-awaited reunion with her son.

YEMEN: U.S. Rebuts Saleh’s Charges

Amid growing pressure on President Barack Obama to intervene more forcefully in Libya, the White House Tuesday sharply rebutted charges by Yemen's president that Washington is conspiring against his government and other Arab regimes.