The European Union (EU) delegation in Tanzania revealed its "Action Plan on Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment in Tanzania for the period 2010-2012," which will be presented in Dar es Salaam. It is the first of its kind, representing a collective effort by EU member states to "strengthen and coordinate action on gender issues at country-level." The EU collectively by large is Tanzania's biggest donor.

The new action plan is to promote the establishment of gender-sensitive domestic accountability mechanisms as an integral part of good governance. This is set to hold the government accountable to its citizens and empower women and men to voice their interests and needs, especially at local level. The new EU Gender Action Plan aims at capacity building of key stakeholders, strengthening accountability, monitoring and evaluation systems using gender-sensitive performance indicators and supporting concrete actions to redress situations where women and girls are particularly disadvantaged.

Egypt's Constitutional Court backed the right of women judges to sit on the bench in the state's administrative courts, despite opposition from conservatives, state media reported Monday. The ruling follows a dispute within the State Council, the top administrative court, over whether women should be appointed.

The body's general assembly voted overwhelmingly against female judges, reigniting a debate within the country over women holding senior government posts, particularly in the judiciary.

While Aung San Suu Kyi remains the most widely-known woman suppressed for her political views in Burma, the jails in that military-ruled country continue to be filled by lesser-known women dissidents being held on a range of questionable charges.

Mid-February saw the latest group of female political activists thrown into jail with a two-year prison term, including hard labour, for a "crime" they committed four months ago – donating religious literature to a Buddhist monastery, an act that the junta deemed as "disturbing the peace."

A top Islamic cleric Wednesday welcomed the passage of the Women’s Reservation Bill in the Rajya Sabha, describing it as ‘a great step towards women’s empowerment’.

‘This is a great step towards women’s empowerment. I would urge Indian Muslim women to enter politics and get themselves elected to parliament and state assemblies. They will have to empower themselves,’ the Grand Mufti of Kashmir, Maulana Bashir-ud-Din, told reporters here.