PHILIPPINES/US: Women’s Groups Back Recanting Rape Victim

Nicole, the Filipina who accused a United States serviceman of raping her in 2005, has recanted her testimony, but women’s groups supporting her in the case do not see this development as a defeat.

FRANCE: Rights Junior Minister Loses Out to Economic Interests

Rama Yade, France's secretary of state for human rights, is not having an easy time on a number of fronts.

MIDEAST: Women Migrant Workers With HIV Get Raw Deal

Thousands of Asian women flock to the affluent sheikhdoms of the Middle East annually, seeking jobs as domestic workers. For many this quest for a livelihood comes to a humiliating end when they test positive for HIV.

POLITICS: Obama Sets New Course at the U.N.

After nearly a decade of an often tense and estranged relationship with the United Nations, Washington appears to be taking a much more conciliatory and multilateral approach to the world body.

RIGHTS: Girl Soldiers Used Up, Then Thrown Away

To be a teenager and female is bad enough in the midst of a war zone, but it is often little better when the guns fall silent. Caught in a sort of limbo between childhood and adulthood, when it comes to peace and reconciliation, former girl combatants are often treated as invisible, advocates say.

CARIBBEAN: Culture of Sexual Coercion Exposes Women to HIV

The fight against widespread sexual violence in the Caribbean has been joined by a high-profile new women’s coalition that warns it could be a major reason for the spread of HIV among women and girls in the region.

POPULATION: Unchecked Fertility Could Lead to 9 Billion by 2050

The world's population is estimated to top 9 billion people by 2050, and 7 billion by early 2012, with the biggest increase in developing countries of Asia and Africa, says the U.N. population report launched on Wednesday.

RIGHTS-PAKISTAN: Women Defy Militancy, Patriarchy

The challenges and contradictions facing Pakistani women were never so apparent as now. While striding ahead in a country that gave the world its first female, Muslim prime minister, they also face the threat of terrorism which claimed her as a victim.

RIGHTS-PAKISTAN: Child Marriages Mock Laws, UN Conventions

All of seven, Perween sat on a string cot in her bridal finery, awaiting the big moment. She looked a little confused and peered from under her big, red shawl to see what the fuss was all about.

Q&A: ‘ We Were Told To Go To The Mortuary’

Two understaffed and ill-equipped public clinics serving 600,000 people: it is in neighbourhoods like Dandora that the battle to reduce maternal mortality is won or lost.

COLOMBIA: Equal Rights for Same-Sex Partners

Members of the gay civil rights advocacy group Colombia Diversa just celebrated their fifth anniversary with a big event, which the occasion clearly merited due to a recent landmark decision by the Constitutional Court recognising equal rights for heterosexual and same-sex partners in common-law unions.

HEALTH-UGANDA: Pads From Papyrus

The average income in the Kyenjojo district in western Uganda is less than a dollar a day. Spending twice that on a single sanitary pad is an unaffordable luxury for most women.

HEALTH-BRAZIL: Older Women at Higher Risk from AIDS

The HIV infection rate in women over 50 in Brazil has more than tripled since 1996, making this population group the prime target of the government's HIV/AIDS prevention campaign during the carnival festivities.

HEALTH: Obama Lifts "Global Gag Rule"

U.S. President Barack Obama Friday lifted an eight-year ban on U.S. funding for overseas family-planning groups and clinics that perform or promote abortion or lobby for its legalisation.

POPULATION: Bridging the Family Planning Gap

Some 43 countries around the world now have populations that are either essentially stable or declining slowly.

DEVELOPMENT-AFRICA: Better Education Improves Health of Mothers and Children

A new UNICEF report reveals there is still much to be done to reduce infant and maternal mortality in sub-Saharan Africa. Failure to improve care for pregnant women and newborns threatens to undermine progress on all health-related development goals.

RELIGION: Catholic Church Family Meet Slams Door on Diversity

The social diversity and broad range of thinking among Catholics is conspicuously absent from the Sixth World Meeting of Families taking place in the Mexican capital this week, say observers.

HEALTH-NEPAL: On Course to Achieve MDG on Maternal Health

Impoverished Nepal has dramatically reduced maternal mortality cases from 540 per 100,000 live births in 2001 to the present 280 - a feat experts attribute chiefly to the legalisation of abortion.

AIDS-AFRICA: Some Signs of Progress

The latest UNAIDS Report estimated that 33 million people around the globe are living with HIV; 22 million in Sub-Saharan Africa alone. Around 2.7 million new HIV infections occurred worldwide in 2007. However, encouraging new data suggests there have been significant gains in preventing new infections in several African countries with high prevalence rates.

HEALTH-MALAYSIA: Divided Over HIV Testing

A raging debate over mandatory HIV screening has exposed fear and ignorance within government, despite years of awareness campaigns to eradicate prejudice against people living with the virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS).

HEALTH-AFRICA: Maximising the Benefits of AIDS Funding

Significant new investments in the fight against the AIDS pandemic could have positive impacts on broader health systems in Africa if governments handle them right.