First Lady Hillary Clinton, Glenn Close and Marisa Tomei joined with nearly 200 women from the former Yugoslavia to champion women's rights and honor women war victims in post-war Bosnia. In a public letter written for the ceremonies, Clinton urged Bosnian women to cast votes in next month's election that reject "ethnic tensions of the past in favor of a united, multi-ethnic Bosnia where your families can prosper."
Close and Tomei traveled to war-torn Sarajevo on Saturday to join native actors in a production of "Necessary Targets," a play by Eve Ensler about women who were affected by the war in the former Yugoslavian province. The event also focused its attention on the issue of sexual violence in wartime. The U.N. International Criminal Tribunal ruled in 1996 that the violent rapes of Muslim women in Bosnia are gender-based war crimes.
5/20/2013 Afghan Violence Against Women Law Blocked in Parliament - On Saturday, the Speaker of the Lower House of Afghan Parliament delayed a vote on the Elimination of Violence against Women law after two hours of vociferous debate between conservative religious and more liberal members of Parliament. . . .
5/20/2013 Walmart, American Retailers Refuse to Join Bangladesh Accord - Walmart, along with 13 other major North American companies, refused to sign a legally binding agreement to improve working conditions for overseas factory workers that manufacture their clothes after a garment factory collapsed in Bangladesh killing an estimated 1300 workers, the New York Times reports.
The agreement requires retailers pay $500,000 to improve worker safety measures over a five year period. . . .
