Ever since the young school going peace activist Malala Yousufzai was attacked by armed gunmen in Swat, numerous questions over the efficacy of the ongoing drone attacks in the region have surfaced. Following the attack on October 9th 2012, widespread outrage from all quarters of the world including all political and religious parties of Pakistan poured in condemning the move, of which the Tehreek -e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) have claimed responsibility.

As the Syrian Revolution continues, its consequences continue to affect refugees who have fled the violence in the country, especially women who are paying a double price as victims of violence in these armed conflicts. Within this context, news on Syrian refugee girls forced marriages or even campaigns to marry them off to “protect their virtue” have gone viral on social media.

On International Day of the Girl, check out the interactive map created by Slate and the New America Foundation to illustrate which countries around the globe have the best and the worst levels of gender inequality. Using data from the UN, the World Bank, and other sources, the map features each country's average female life expectancy, literacy rate, HIV infection rate, and the number of girls living on less than $2 a day.

Campus Divas For Rich Men is a Facebook page dedicated to hooking up female Kenyan university students under the age of 26 with rich men of any age. The page has used the slogan “Money can buy us.” After receiving coverage on Kenya’s radio stations such as Kiss 100, Hot 96 and Classic 105 as well as exclusive coverage by Standard Newspaper, Daily Nation and Kenya’s KTN and K24 television stations, netizens created the following hashtags to discuss the Facebook page and share their opinions about it.

A video report from Reuters TV examines the "bamboo ceiling," i.e. the glass ceiling in China. As the intro notes, "many women have been successful at the top of China's business ladder, but they are largely absent when it comes to politics -- and an upcoming leadership transition looks unlikely to change that." Watch the just over three-minute video after the jump.

An image that has become synonymous with the Syrian uprising—any Syrian you speak to knows its intricate details—is of a woman in a blood-red dress standing outside the parliament building in Damascus, holding a sign that says: “Stop the killing. We want to build a home for all Syrians.” With the uprising rapidly descending into civil war and with the media transmitting images of young men with AK47s rather than placard-waving crowds, the weapons could easily supplant the woman in our collective consciousness.

Lightening the skin is a common practice in Africa where the sale of skin lightening products is legal in many countries. However, the use of these creams is not safe: stretch marks, pimples, hair, hypertension and diabetes are all risks user take. In Senegal, a whitening product named “Khess Petch” is creating controversy on the web. Bloggers and infographics designers have taken the idea to task and organized a counter-campaign.

Proscovia Alengot Oromait has become Africa's youngest Member of Paliament (MP) at the age of 19, after she won the Usuk county election with 11,059 votes. The outspoken youngster replaces her father who died earlier this year. Alengot is a member of National Resistance Movement, headed by President Yoweri Museveni. Other people who stood for the post included, Charles Ojok Oleny with 5,329 votes, Charles Okure from FDC with 2,725 votes and Cecilia Anyakoit of UPC with 554 votes.

A new infographic designed by Hyperakt for the Thomas Reuters Foundation looks at which G20 countries are worst and best for women. "Some of the facts," per the accompanying text: "The US is ranked #6: Behind Canada, Germany, UK, Australia and France. 90% of women in Indonesia claim to have suffered sexual harassment in the workplace. In China, 1/4 of women think it's justifiable for a man to beat his wife....In India, it is more than 1/2. 14,000 women in Russia die annually from domestic violence."

The Union Women and Child Development Ministry in India is considering a draft bill which, if passed by parliament, would make it legally compulsory for husbands to pay out a portion of their monthly income to their homemaker wives, for doing household chores. As per the Ministry's proposal, a model is being framed which will allow for valuation of the work done by homemakers in economic terms and then recognition of this contribution to the economy by compensating homemakers for their labour.

The Islamic regime began requiring Iranian women to wear the veil (hijab) in public soon after it seized power in Iran in 1979. Three decades later, Iranian police still carry out veil crackdowns every summer to keep a tight grip on the way people dress. On 10 July, 2012 a Facebook campaign by “Iranian Liberal Students and Graduates” was launched to say ‘No' to compulsory hijabs.

In a newly released video, Pussy Riot gave "a gigantic feminist thank you to musicians, activists, and everyone around the world". Members of the group who were not arrested--who number 20 in all--produced the video for the MTV Awards. Balaclava-clad, the women scale walls covered with an image of Putin--and set it on fire. The band thanks fellow musicians Madonna, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Bjork, and Green Day who spoke up about the three Pussy Riot members recently sentenced to two years in jail.

Earlier this week, the list of what many are calling Russia's ‘political prisoners' grew yet again. On August 28, an Other Russia activist Taisiya Osipova was sentenced to eight years in prison for drug possession — four years more than the prosecution had requested. Osipova, a diabetic mother, was originally sentenced to ten years, but her case was sent back to a district court for a retrial, after then-President Dmitri Medvedev publicized his disapproval of the sentence and promised to have state prosecutors “deal with the case.”

In a country which has experienced constant political instability, how can civil society mobilise itself to prevent further coups d'état and to build a participative democracy based upon its communities? Some possible ways forward were suggested by a group of 70 young people at a meeting promoted by the Movimento Ação Cidadã (Citizen Action Movement) in Cacheu, Guinea-Bissau, at the end of July, in which they debated the April 12th 2012 coup d'état.