NEW DELHI, Mar 8 (IPS) – With assured backing from India’s main
opposition groups, the ruling Congress party hopes to see voted
through in the upper house of Parliament Monday a bill reserving
33 percent of seats in national and provincial legislatures for
women.
WASHINGTON, Mar 8 (IPS) – For weeks, the U.S. public followed the biggest
offensive of the Afghanistan War against what it was told was a
“city of 80,000 people” as well as the logistical hub of
the Taliban in that part of Helmand. That idea was a central
element in the overall impression built up in February that Marja
was a major strategic objective, more important than other
district centres in Helmand.
BANGKOK, Mar 8 (IPS) – Thailand’s labour ministry is on the hunt for half
a million migrant workers from
neighbouring Burma who have gone
underground rather than join a new foreign
workers’ programme,
one that some critics have described as a “confusing”
initiative.
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 8 (IPS/TerraViva) – “Seven Burmese military soldiers attacked me
and three of my friends,” said Chang Chang, from the northern
Kachin State of Burma.
COLOMBO, Mar 9 (IPS) – As a wife of a rice farmer and mother of two
children aged nine and two,
Sanjeevani Bandara’s days are packed
with chores. Yet while she used to be able
to keep up with all
she has to do in a day, this Sri Lankan mother now finds
herself
struggling to accomplish even the most basic tasks.
KATHMANDU, Mar 9 (IPS) – The climate of fear that has been growing in this
Himalayan country since the murder of two media entrepreneurs and
other attacks on journalists may well push them to turn to more
self-censorship.
BANGKOK, Mar 9 (IPS) – Cambodia’s new penal code, which comes into force
later this year, should be accompanied by stronger law
enforcement measures if the country’s women and girls are to be
better protected from rape, says the global rights lobby Amnesty
International (AI).
SINGAPORE, Mar 10 (IPS) – An unfamiliar sight in Singapore – that of vehicles
with foreign licence plates
filling the car park – meets
visitors at the basement of the city-state’s first
casino, which
opened nearly a month ago.
COLOMBO, Mar 10 (IPS) – The war of words between the Sri Lankan government
and the United Nations has begun all over again, this time over
the creation of an experts’ panel on the island’s human rights
record.
KARACHI, Mar 8 (IPS) – Dressed in an abaya (long, loose gown worn by women
to cover their dress) and
a headscarf, Naseem Hameed cannot be
recognised as she alights from a
crowded, rickety public bus to
reach her destination – the sports stadium.