KABUL Monday, March 08, 2010 (IRIN) – As the world marks International Women’s Day, ambivalence, impunity, weak law enforcement and corruption continue to undermine women’s rights in Afghanistan, despite a July 2009 law banning violence against women, rights activists say.

MANILA Monday, March 08, 2010 (IRIN) – Warnings have been raised over food security in the Philippines as the El Niño phenomenon wreaks havoc across vast agricultural areas, leaving staple crops such as rice dying in parched earth, officials say.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today expressed concerns about the lack of progress on political reconciliation, the treatment of internally displaced persons (IDPs) and the setting up of an accountability process in Sri Lanka since the United Nations signed a joint statement with the Government last year in the wake of the end of its civil war [...]

The countries of Asia and the Pacific have not duplicated their economic success in the realm of gender equality, according to a new United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) report, which found that discrimination and neglect are threatening the very survival of women in the region.

LAHORE Sunday, March 07, 2010 (IRIN) – Experts say it is only a matter of time before wind carries a deadly wheat stem pathogen into Pakistan, the ninth largest wheat producing nation in the world. Known as Ug99, the disease could potentially decimate the country’s highly vulnerable wheat crop and cause a huge food security [...]