Women around the world marked International Women's Day yesterday, highlighting inequalities in all walks of life and demanding that more be done against poverty and violence. Marches were held in 50 cities.
In Pakistan, the government pledged reforms to combat discrimination against women, while in China state media announced training courses to get women back into the work place.
Women in Albania took over the editorial helm of the country's press to mark the day, and in Tokyo around 1,000 people showed videos and heard speeches calling for women's rights to be protected.
Afghanistan's ruling Taliban, which has strict Sharia rules limiting women's actions, marked International Women's Day by bringing about 700 women, most of them medical workers, to a women's hospital in Kabul. Six women were also released from a prison in Kabul.
Several organisations marked the day with awareness campaigns against so-called "honour crimes" - murders or injuries caused by men to female relatives they suspect of sexual activity outside marriage.
Violence against women in South Asia is "far more extensive than is generally acknowledged", a forthcoming study by the UN Children's Fund says, and it describes how women are injured or killed through kitchen "accidents" or acid attacks.
Amnesty lamented that despite promises made five years ago in Beijing during the Fourth World Conference on Women, there have been very few positive developments.
In Austria, women demonstrated against the stance by the new coalition government which groups Mr Jorg Haider's Freedom Party and the conservative People's Party, accusing it of forcing them back into the kitchen.
In France on Tuesday a bill was passed by the French National Assembly forcing employers to ensure equality at work.
Kuwaii women activists marked the day by filing a court case against the interior minister and parliament speaker demanding full political rights.
In London, "working girls" of the Soho red light district held a one-day strike.