Nobel Women's Initiative

An all-women team of cluster bomb searchers has been breaking new ground and gender barriers in Lebanon’s still dangerous south. 

The country’s only all female team - once local teachers, nurses and housewives - was set up by de-mining NGO Norwegian People's Aid (NPA) to clear areas littered with unexploded cluster bombs dropped by the Israeli military in the 2006 July War. 

Stand in solidarity with the women human rights defenders in Burma by supporting their campaign for a United Nations General Assembly resolution establishing a Commission of Inquiry on possible war crimes and crimes against humanity in Burma. UN member states will meet this September at the sixty-fifth session of the General Assembly, where ongoing human rights violations within Burma will be discussed.

Over fifty organizations, legal academics and professionals – as part of the August 12 Campaign – have sent letters to President Obama asking that he lift the abortion restrictions on humanitarian aid for girls and women raped and impregnated in armed conflict from accessing abortion information or services.

Nobel Peace laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi met with Burmese labour minister – Aung Kyi – yesterday in Rangoon. In a joint statement, both parties said they were satisfied with the meeting. 

Yesterday Saudi News reported that a Saudi woman is to be tried for driving in what she says was a medical emergency. Police arrested the unnamed 35 year old woman in the city of Jeddah. She was later released with the help of her father who acted as her male guarantor. 

Israeli naval vessels seized control of the French flagged Dignite /Al Karama – the final remnant of the planned “Free Gaza” flotilla. Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) naval commandos boarded the ship in international waters with no resistance from the 16- passenger crew and transferred them to the Israeli port of Ashdod. 

Iranian Intelligence Officials continue to hold women’s rights defender Maryam Bahrman in prison under interrogation – despite an order for her release from other government officials. Bahrman was arrested on 11 May 2011 for charges relating to her women’s rights activities – including her membership in the “One Million Signatures Campaign” calling for legal equality in Iran.

A controversial new law passed on Monday despite concerted efforts by human rights and pro-peace groups to block it. The ‘Anti- Boycott’ law prohibits the boycott of businesses, universities, social and cultural institutions based in Israel and the illegal settlements.  

Aung San Suu Kyi, head of Burma's pro-democracy movement, has begun her tour outside of Rangoon for the first time since being released from house arrest since last November.   In June, the Burmese regime threatened that if Suu Kyi embarked on her tour, "There may be chaos and riots as evidenced by previous incidents."