| Empowering Women:
    Economic Necessity.  
[Asia] It's a
    question officials in Asia often hear: what makes your economies so 
vibrant?  Answers include young and 
swelling populations,
    decreased debt, growing cities, emerging middle-class consumer sectors, 
evolving markets
    and, of course, China's rise. | 
  
    | A 
Fund Reserved for
    Women.  [Japan] 
In Japan, one of
    the latest buzz phrases to arrive is "women 
only." | 
  
    | Comfort
    Women Removed from Textbooks.  [Japan] Japan's top government 
spokesman played
    down the education minister's recent remarks praising the removal of 
references to
    "comfort women" from the revised history textbooks and 
reiterated Tokyo's
    apology to the victims. | 
  
    | Awareness Raising
    Programs.  
[Nepal] Jhuwani
    Community Library organizes frequent awareness raising programs for 
women, and organizes
    interaction programs promoting dialogue and discussion around women's 
rights. | 
  
    | Sex-Slave Trade
    Flourishes.  
[Thailand] For Mylee,
    life  as it is for so many Thai women  is anything but a 
fairytale, yet her
    lot is better than many of the women and children caught in the no-man's 
land of Southeast
    Asia's human-flesh trade. | 
  
    | Domestic Violence.  [India] At least 21 per cent of 
upper-class women
    face domestic violence in some form, be it physical harassment, marital 
rape or
    psychological persecution. | 
  
    | Clinical
    Trial of the World's First Contraceptive Spray for 
Women.  [Australia]  The
    Population Council Inc, an international research organization based in 
New York, and
    Acrux Limited (ASX: ACR), the Australian pharmaceutical company which 
specializes in
    administering drugs through the skin, today announced positive results 
from the first
    clinical study of a novel contraceptive spray for women. |