Global news roundup

Feminists silenced in Iran, making noise in Mexico.

Published January 30, 2008 8:00PM (EST)

Iran: Censors shut down leading feminist magazine, Zanan, after 16 years of publication, for "publishing information detrimental to society's psychological tranquillity." (Via Feministing.)

Thailand: U.N. alleges that famed long-necked Burmese women, their legal status uncertain, are trapped there in a "human zoo."

Afghanistan: Several hundred women staged a demonstration to call for the release of a kidnapped U.S. aid worker. As uncommon as it is for a foreigner to be abducted there, it may be even rarer for women to stage a rally.

Asia: Sexual minorities demand equality.

Mexico: Eufrosina Cruz, 27, decided to run for mayor in a Oaxacan village where women aren't allowed to vote. (The town board tore up the ballots: "That is the custom here, that only the citizens vote, not the women.") Cruz has now "launched the first serious, national-level challenge to traditional Indian forms of government."


By Lynn Harris

Award-winning journalist Lynn Harris is author of the comic novel "Death by Chick Lit" and co-creator of BreakupGirl.net. She also writes for the New York Times, Glamour, and many others.

MORE FROM Lynn Harris


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Asia Broadsheet Iran Latin America Love And Sex Mexico Middle East Thailand