Afrique du Sud Le 21 mars 1960, la police de l’apartheid a réprimé dans la violence une manifestation contre les pass, ces documents d’identité imposés par le régime pour limiter et contrôler les déplacements des Noirs. L’Afrique du Sud commémore ce dimanche 21 mars le cinquantième anniversaire du massacre dit de Sharpeville, une commune située au sud de Johannesburg. Retour sur ce jour qui a marqué un tournant dans l’histoire de l’Afrique du Sud. Des victimes dans une rue de Sharpeville, le 21 mars 1960 lors du massacre qui a fait au moins 69 morts et 180 blessés, pour la plupart des femmes et des enfants. AFP

HAVANA, Mar 19 (IPS) - At the age of 17, Meybelin Bernárdez is clear about the future: "When I finish my studies, I'll return to help my community get on its feet," the young Garifuna woman from Honduras, who is studying medicine in Cuba, says without hesitation.

DAKAR, Mar 18 (IPS) - Despite the financial sector boom in Senegal, small and medium sized businesses (SMBs), which represent over 90 percent of the industrial fabric of the country, struggle to access funding for their development, their representatives claim.

NEW YORK, Mar 18 (IPS) - Despite the fact that the United States spends more on maternal health than any other country in the world, deaths in childbirth among U.S. women are on the rise and already surpass the morbidity rates in most developed countries.

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 18 (IPS) - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's decision to appoint a 19-member, all-male high-level advisory group on Climate Change Financing (CCF) has triggered strong protests from women's groups and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) outraged by the composition of the panel.

ROME, Mar 18 (IPS) - Employees at the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) may have cause to fear for their jobs after Yukiko Omura was appointed vice president of the United Nations' rural poverty agency in February.

KIGALI, Mar 17 (IPS) - On average women constitute 18.8 percent of representatives in parliaments across the world according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU). This gender imbalance has been subject to much feminist criticism and many campaigns for change have been staged to address the status quo. The situation is however different in Rwanda.

KARACHI, Pakistan, Mar 17 (IPS) - Saleha Firdaus, a mother of two teenage children, has been moving to the Bollywood beat at a dance studio for over a year now and "loves every moment" of this personal time. For her part, 22-year-old Maheen Jafri was a "bedroom dancer" until she discovered a Bollywood and hip-hop dance studio and "shed my inhibitions totally."

NEGRIL, Mar 16 (IPS) - It's just before midnight, and the music pulsates through the massive speakers perched under the ceiling, scantily clad girls in their five-inch heels moving closer to the iron poles.

MANAMA, Mar 16 (IPS) - Cunning rapists in Bahrain can avoid victimising virgins so they could escape the maximum penalty provided by law, and those who force themselves on young girls can evade punishment by promising to marry their victims.

NAIROBI, Mar 15 (IPS) - Margaret Atieno, a 38-year-old mother of six, says she wanted to avoid her last pregnancy. But consistent stock-outs of contraceptive devices at her health care centre in rural Siaya, western Kenya, gave her no choice but to fall pregnant once again, albeit the fact that she did not want another child.

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 12 (IPS/TerraViva) - When a two-week meeting on gender empowerment concluded at U.N. headquarters Friday, there were several lingering questions crying out for answers.

KANO, Mar 12 (IPS) - Ten years after Nigeria returned to civil rule women still play second fiddle in the male-dominated politics of Africa’s most populous nation, women politicians and activists say.

YAOUNDE, Mar. 12 (IPS) - A support network for women's political participation, is challenging head-on what it calls "electoral apathy", after noting a growing trend in electoral abstention.

MANILA, Mar 12 (IPS) - Filipino voters who have yet to make up their minds about their choice for their next president are being advised: look at each aspirant’s stance on reproductive health to help them gauge the candidate’s leadership mettle and political guts.

BAGHDAD, Mar 12 (IPS) - Under Saddam Hussein, women in government got a year's maternity leave; that is now cut to six months. Under the Personal Status Law in force since Jul. 14, 1958, when Iraqis overthrew the British-installed monarchy, Iraqi women had most of the rights that Western women do.

Revue de presse des hebdomadaires

GOMA, RD Congo , 20 mars (IPS) - Les Chinois sont aujourd'hui plus d'un demi-million en Afrique, cinq fois plus qu'en 2001; le commerce Chine-Afrique a été multiplié par dix en dix ans, et a dépassé en 2008 les 100 milliards de dollars.

NAIROBI, 19 mars (IPS) - Lillian Mutuku, 34 ans, mère de trois enfants, décrit sa maison dans la zone de Katine, dans la province orientale de Tala au Kenya, comme un endroit difficile à vivre. Le sol est pauvre, dit-elle, le soleil tape sans merci et la végétation est clairsemée.

A women group under the banner “the United Women for Peace and Reconciliation” has held a mass rally to raise funds to support Girl’s education in Monrovia and its environs.