current events

The decision by Turkey’s Constitutional Court to cancel constitutional amendments that would have opened the way for women to wear a headscarf in universities is a blow to freedom of religion and other fundamental rights, Human Rights Watch said today. The court ruled on June 5 that the Turkish parliament had violated the constitutionally enshrined principle of secularism when it passed amen...

Life in Anapra has never been easy. Many of the hundreds of local women murdered in the past 15 years hail from this border town, one of the most violent and marginalized communities in Mexico. And while international attention on the "femicides" abates, the psychology of fear, the cycle of poverty, and a stubborn macho culture are now stirred by a wave of drug-trafficking violence in n...

(WOMENSENEWS)--Over the past few weeks, I have been watching the news about the breakup of the polygamist sect in Texas and the 437 children taken away from their mothers on a religious compound. I hear the women talking about their environment, I see them in their antiquated garb, I feel the pain in their voices while they yearn for their children. And while I seem quite the opposite of these ...

Critics Cost Muslim Educator Her Dream School.  Debbie Almontaser dreamed of starting a public school like no other in New York City. Children of Arab descent would join students of other ethnicities, learning Arabic together. By graduation, they would be fluent in the language and groomed for the country’s elite colleges. They would be ready, in Ms. Almontaser’s words, to beco...

WASHINGTON (RNS) House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the highest-ranking Catholic in the U.S. government, on Wednesday kissed the pope's ring at the White House and said she plans to receive Communion at a massive stadium Mass on Thursday. Pelosi told reporters she is undeterred by requests from some conservative Catholics that she and other Catholic politicians should be denied the sacrament because o...

WASHINGTON (AFP) — A stellar alliance of women from government, advocacy groups, faith-based organizations and Hollywood launched a major anti-poverty campaign Sunday to help poor women and girls around the world. The alliance, which has the backing of Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Queen Noor of Jordan and former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright among other luminaries,...