Citizen Cartwright

U.N.: 85 million Asian women are 'missing'

That's the estimate for China and India, where women are dying from discriminatory treatment in health care, lack of access to nutrition, and neglect. And because girl fetuses are being aborted and baby girls killed because of a preference for boys.

The findings are in a report by the U.N. Development Program that's being released Monday, which is International Women’s Day.

King day of service

The trend toward celebrating Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday as a day of community service is continuing, with, for example, more than 200 planned volunteer activities in the nation's capital.

Closing the gender gap

Iceland is number one in an annual assessment of how well nations are dividing their resources and opportunities among men and women, and the top four nations all are Nordic countries.

The United States is 31st out of the 134 nations in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index 2009.

BBC News

World Economic Forum