Benazir Bhutto

• December 24, 2020

Pakistan is where I’ve had some of my favorite Christmases. Founded as a Muslim state by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the nation honors his birthday on Dec. 25 as a national holiday. “Merry Christmas & Greetings on Quaid-i-Azam Day” were frequent email greetings I received when I lived there as a diplomat. As our Covid-Christmas …

UN Diplomats, WORLDVIEWS

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TOPIC: WOMEN

The ‘Incredible Courage’ of Asma Jahangir, Pakistan’s Human-Rights Advocate

Barbara Crossette

• February 17, 2018

Only a few days before Pakistan’s most famous human-rights advocate, Asma Jahangir, was felled by a heart attack on Feb. 11, she was speaking out in support of a group of ethnic Pashtuns who had marched across the country from their homes along the Afghanistan border to protest military brutality. A Pashtun boy had …

Asia, Human Rights, Women

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GEOPOLITICS

At the UN, Pakistan Gets Respect

Barbara Crossette

• July 18, 2017

When Maleeha Lodhi arrived at the United Nations in 2015 as Pakistan’s ambassador, she brought with her a broad background in academia, journalism and diplomacy: a Ph.D. in political science from the London School of Economics, where she later taught political sociology; the first woman to edit major newspapers in Pakistan; ambassador to the …

Asia, Geopolitics, Nuclear Disarmament

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TOPIC: WOMEN

Feminists Made the Difference: How Women Won National Leadership Roles

Torild Skard

• April 23, 2017

Hillary Clinton did not make it to the top, but Theresa May, the British prime minister, and Angela Merkel, chancellor of Germany, did. Since Sirimavo Bandaranaike became the world’s first female prime minister, in Sri Lanka in 1960, one-hundred women have been heads of state or government around the world. How did they get …

Governance, Women

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BOOKS

Misogyny Didn’t Stop Them: The World’s Most Important Female Leaders

Joanne Myers

• April 1, 2017

From Asia and Africa to Europe and the Americas, women remain important forces of change as government leaders in the modern era. Indira Gandhi, the daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister after its independence, was one of the earliest — and the only woman in India — to hold that position, from 1966 …

BOOKS

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Just About Everyone Wanted Benazir Bhutto Dead

Irwin Arieff

• January 12, 2014

Why write a whodunit when you can’t say who done it? This is the challenging task undertaken by Heraldo Muñoz, a veteran Chilean diplomat and United Nations official, in his new book, “Getting Away With Murder: Benazir Bhutto’s Assassination and the Politics of Pakistan.” In 2009, the UN asked Muñoz to head an investigation …

BOOKS

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A UN Expert on Women Who Refused to Be Silenced

Barbara Crossette

• July 1, 2013

In the global annals of women’s rights defenders over the last half century, Nafis Sadik’s name will always rank high, though little may be known about her among the broad American public, focused as it usually is on Western feminists with Western issues. As head of the United Nations Population Fund in 1994, Sadik …