IHT Quick Read: April 4

NEWS Even as the United States economy displays unanticipated resilience, with a healthy jobs report released on Friday, the outlook for Europe’s economy grows ever dimmer. As it does, the pressure builds on Europe’s most powerful leader, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, and her economic team to find a way to get the Continent growing again. But this puts Ms. Merkel in a bind, as she has to answer to German voters in September when the country holds parliamentary elections. While the European economy may be deteriorating at an alarming rate, the electorate here is still enamored of her as the Iron Chancellor, advocating the austerity policies that are rapidly falling into disfavor elsewhere, among economists as well as the public. Nick Kulish reports from Berlin.

For Iraqis frustrated with poor services, sectarian politics and violence, the governor of Maysan Province, Ali Dwai, provides a rare example of democracy’s potential. Mr. Dwai’s popularity, though, reflects something more than excitement for a hard-working politician. As the only provincial governor of Mr. Sadr’s political party, he represents the maturation of a grass-roots political movement that has sought to mimic Lebanon’s Hezbollah by fusing Shiite faith, military strength and a concern for the common citizen to build political power. Tim Arango reports from Amara, Iraq.

Government investigators have found that JPMorgan Chase devised “manipulative schemes” that transformed “money-losing power plants into powerful profit centers,” and that one of its most senior executives gave “false and misleading statements” under oath. The findings appear in a confidential government document, reviewed by The New York Times, that was sent to the bank in March, warning of a potential crackdown by the regulator of the nation’s energy markets. Jessica Silver-Greenberg and Ben Protess report from New York.

Ten months after being pushed out as chief executive of Barclays, Robert Diamond is trying to be something other than the “unacceptable face of banking.” Despite all the headlines about his role running a bank at the heart of the LIBOR scandal, Mr. Diamond’s role in the matter was minimal, and perhaps wildly overblown. Unlike other chief executives who have lost their jobs since the financial crisis, Mr. Diamond was not ousted by his company’s board. He was pushed out by the British government â€" specifically by Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England. Andrew Ross Sorkin reports from New York.

A deteriorating economy in the European Union is expected to drive unemployment to new highs this year in countries including Spain and Portugal that already are feeling acute pain, the Union’s top economics official warned on Friday. The new forecasts stood in stark contrast with figures from the United States on Friday that showed that more new jobs were created in April than expected, which pushed the unemployment rate to a four-year low. While American job creation is still slower than in a typical recovery, the new data could ease concerns of a sharp slowdown in the U.S. economy. James Kanter reports from Brussels.

ARTS The photographer Garry Winogrand refreshed classic street photography in the 1960s and ’70s, influenced by (and influencing) the increasingly warped sensibility that had started to shape the broader culture. Using a snapshot style, he captured the nation’s unseemly nervous breakdown in stark black and white. Since his death in 1984 at 56, though, Mr. Winogrand’s reputation has waned. But one of the goals of an ambitious exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is to restore and clarify Winogrand’s place in 20th-century photography, to offer viewers the chance to re-evaluate Winogrand’s unruly and grand oeuvre. “Garry Winogrand,” which runs in San Francisco through June 2, is the largest Winogrand retrospective ever mounted and the first major United States museum show of his work since 1988. It is scheduled to travel next year to the National Gallery of Art in Washington (which helped organize it), the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Jeu de Paume in Paris Ted Loos reports.

SPORTS With its systemic corruption, fractious leadership, an entrenched code of silence and some of its members recently embroiled in a high-profile drug trial, professional cycling these days often seems to resemble organized crime more than sport. Fitting, then, that the cycling world will gather in Naples on Saturday â€" not for Camorra-like clandestine meetings, but to start the Giro d’Italia, the three-week Grand Tour that signals the start of the sport’s high season. Recent editions of the Giro have been short on star power, but organizers have managed to up the wattage considerably this year by attracting Bradley Wiggins, the defending Tour de France champion, to headline the 21-stage race that will span 3,405 kilometers, or 2,116 miles. John Brand reports.

This Woman’s Place Is in Her Kitchen

NIEDERMORSCHWIHR, Franceâ€"It is definitely not a man’s world in the Maison Ferber kitchen in Alsace.

Though the company was created by Maurice Ferber in 1959, the staff is now predominantly female, including Maurice’s eldest daughter Christine, who runs the show, and has some strong thoughts on the difference between women and men in the kitchen.

Ms. Ferber, 53, is known as the “Jam Fairy.” She was born and raised in the house in which she now runs her pâtisserie, jam-making business and catering service.

“When I started working with my father nobody knew us,” she said. “Sometimes we would even give away our products.”

Today, her jam is found in some of the top hotels in the world, including the Four Seasons in Hong Kong, the Georges V in Paris and the Connaught in London, and at the Grande Epicerie in the Bon Marché, the Parisian department store.

Being female in a French kitchen isn’t the easiest of rides. By the age of 15, Ms. Ferber realized that to training seriously she would have to become an apprentice. At the time there weren’t any women apprentices in Alsace.

“I knew that if I wanted to learn, I had to leave,” she said. She went to Brussels, and then Paris where she trained with the renowned pâtissier Lucien Pelletier.

But “I missed my hometown,” she said. “It’s important to me to stay in this town. If people want to buy Christine Ferber products in our shop, then they have to travel to Niedermorschwihr.”

At 18, she joined her father’s kitchen. She started making jam, but her father wasn’t too keen on the idea.

“Jam is a very feminine process,” she explained. “It demands care and patience, qualities men don’t often have.”

Ms. Ferber still fills each jam-pot herself. She loves everything about the process, even tying the little white bows that complete the product.

Her jam’s success convinced her father that his daughter’s idea was a good one. “He let me continue,” she said, “but in very small quantities, in a corner of the kitchen.” That corner in the kitchen is what turned her father’s local business into a global enterprise with annual revenue of more than 2 million euros, about $2.6 million.

Ms. Ferber wakes up around 4 a.m., and is never back home before 9 p.m. She doesn’t have a press officer, not even a business card. Her kind persona, her passion, and her dedication draws people to her. Though she has no children, there is something very motherly about her interactions with her friends and even her apprentices.

On the weekend before Easter, a woman walked into the store asking for a specific chocolate egg she bought last year that she didn’t see in the window, with photographic evidence on her smartphone. A perplexed sales assistant went back into the kitchen and showed Ms. Ferber the photo. “Oh yes I remember! No we didn’t do any of those this year, but if she comes back later today, I can make her one,” she said.

Ms. Ferber contends that women have a different approach to cooking than men. “We have a certain generosity in the kitchen, a desire to make people happy, that few men understand or have.”

A lot of male chefs create something for it to be enjoyed of course, but also for them to be recognized for creating it, she said. For her “the most important recognition is when someone comes back for more.”

Do you think there is a difference between the way men and women cook, professionally or at home? If there is a difference, is it particular to France or more universal?

Freedom Still Eludes the Press, Despite the Arab Spring

ERBIL, Iraq â€" Despite the upheavals of what was optimistically termed the Arab Spring, much of the Middle East still suffers a deficit of press freedom as turmoil continues to unsettle the region.

As the United Nations marked World Press Freedom Day on Friday, a survey of the past year ranked the Middle East at the bottom of an international score card of media freedom.

Reporters Without Borders, which published the index, said 2012 was the deadliest year globally for reporters and citizen journalists in a decade in which 600 have been killed in the course of their work.

Syria, where at least 23 reporters and 58 citizen journalists have been killed since March 15, 2011, was the most perilous place for journalists.

Those killed included Marie Colvin, an American, and Mika Yamamoto of Japan, who were both named World Press Freedom Heroes by the International Press Institute.

Reporters Without Borders said they were victims of an information war waged by both the regime of President Bashar Al Assad, which it said stopped at nothing to impose a news blackout, but also by opposition factions that were increasingly intolerant of dissent.

For the first time, the media-rights watchdog added Syrian rebel groups to its list of so-called predators. It cited the Al Nusra Front and other Islamist rebel groups as among those that were proving to be increasingly intolerant and suspicious toward the media.

There was also a gloomy assessment about developments in countries such as Egypt, where bloggers and other Internet activists were credited for a role in overturning autocratic regimes.

The predators’ list also singled out members and supporters of the dominant Muslim Brotherhood for harassing and physically attacking independent media and journalists critical of the party.

Germany’s Deutsche Welle, in an article marking the 20th World Press Freedom Day, said the fall of dictatorial regimes after the Arab Spring apparently had not brought about any durable guarantees for freedom of expression.

It said that among those targeted were Bassem Youssef, the Egyptian TV satirist, who had to face Egyptian prosecutors over charges of insulting Islam and President Mohamed Morsi.

It also cited the case of Weld El, 15, a Tunisian rapper recently sentenced in absentia to two years in prison for insulting the police.

Freedom House in the United States, while noting a worrying decline in world press freedom, said Libya and Tunisia had retained gains in press freedom won during the Arab Spring revolts.

But in Egypt the media environment declined and was now described as unfree, it said.

Freedom Still Eludes the Press, Despite the Arab Spring

ERBIL, Iraq â€" Despite the upheavals of what was optimistically termed the Arab Spring, much of the Middle East still suffers a deficit of press freedom as turmoil continues to unsettle the region.

As the United Nations marked World Press Freedom Day on Friday, a survey of the past year ranked the Middle East at the bottom of an international score card of media freedom.

Reporters Without Borders, which published the index, said 2012 was the deadliest year globally for reporters and citizen journalists in a decade in which 600 have been killed in the course of their work.

Syria, where at least 23 reporters and 58 citizen journalists have been killed since March 15, 2011, was the most perilous place for journalists.

Those killed included Marie Colvin, an American, and Mika Yamamoto of Japan, who were both named World Press Freedom Heroes by the International Press Institute.

Reporters Without Borders said they were victims of an information war waged by both the regime of President Bashar Al Assad, which it said stopped at nothing to impose a news blackout, but also by opposition factions that were increasingly intolerant of dissent.

For the first time, the media-rights watchdog added Syrian rebel groups to its list of so-called predators. It cited the Al Nusra Front and other Islamist rebel groups as among those that were proving to be increasingly intolerant and suspicious toward the media.

There was also a gloomy assessment about developments in countries such as Egypt, where bloggers and other Internet activists were credited for a role in overturning autocratic regimes.

The predators’ list also singled out members and supporters of the dominant Muslim Brotherhood for harassing and physically attacking independent media and journalists critical of the party.

Germany’s Deutsche Welle, in an article marking the 20th World Press Freedom Day, said the fall of dictatorial regimes after the Arab Spring apparently had not brought about any durable guarantees for freedom of expression.

It said that among those targeted were Bassem Youssef, the Egyptian TV satirist, who had to face Egyptian prosecutors over charges of insulting Islam and President Mohamed Morsi.

It also cited the case of Weld El, 15, a Tunisian rapper recently sentenced in absentia to two years in prison for insulting the police.

Freedom House in the United States, while noting a worrying decline in world press freedom, said Libya and Tunisia had retained gains in press freedom won during the Arab Spring revolts.

But in Egypt the media environment declined and was now described as unfree, it said.

Freedom Still Eludes the Press, Despite the Arab Spring

ERBIL, Iraq â€" Despite the upheavals of what was optimistically termed the Arab Spring, much of the Middle East still suffers a deficit of press freedom as turmoil continues to unsettle the region.

As the United Nations marked World Press Freedom Day on Friday, a survey of the past year ranked the Middle East at the bottom of an international score card of media freedom.

Reporters Without Borders, which published the index, said 2012 was the deadliest year globally for reporters and citizen journalists in a decade in which 600 have been killed in the course of their work.

Syria, where at least 23 reporters and 58 citizen journalists have been killed since March 15, 2011, was the most perilous place for journalists.

Those killed included Marie Colvin, an American, and Mika Yamamoto of Japan, who were both named World Press Freedom Heroes by the International Press Institute.

Reporters Without Borders said they were victims of an information war waged by both the regime of President Bashar Al Assad, which it said stopped at nothing to impose a news blackout, but also by opposition factions that were increasingly intolerant of dissent.

For the first time, the media-rights watchdog added Syrian rebel groups to its list of so-called predators. It cited the Al Nusra Front and other Islamist rebel groups as among those that were proving to be increasingly intolerant and suspicious toward the media.

There was also a gloomy assessment about developments in countries such as Egypt, where bloggers and other Internet activists were credited for a role in overturning autocratic regimes.

The predators’ list also singled out members and supporters of the dominant Muslim Brotherhood for harassing and physically attacking independent media and journalists critical of the party.

Germany’s Deutsche Welle, in an article marking the 20th World Press Freedom Day, said the fall of dictatorial regimes after the Arab Spring apparently had not brought about any durable guarantees for freedom of expression.

It said that among those targeted were Bassem Youssef, the Egyptian TV satirist, who had to face Egyptian prosecutors over charges of insulting Islam and President Mohamed Morsi.

It also cited the case of Weld El, 15, a Tunisian rapper recently sentenced in absentia to two years in prison for insulting the police.

Freedom House in the United States, while noting a worrying decline in world press freedom, said Libya and Tunisia had retained gains in press freedom won during the Arab Spring revolts.

But in Egypt the media environment declined and was now described as unfree, it said.

Freedom Still Eludes the Press, Despite the Arab Spring

ERBIL, Iraq â€" Despite the upheavals of what was optimistically termed the Arab Spring, much of the Middle East still suffers a deficit of press freedom as turmoil continues to unsettle the region.

As the United Nations marked World Press Freedom Day on Friday, a survey of the past year ranked the Middle East at the bottom of an international score card of media freedom.

Reporters Without Borders, which published the index, said 2012 was the deadliest year globally for reporters and citizen journalists in a decade in which 600 have been killed in the course of their work.

Syria, where at least 23 reporters and 58 citizen journalists have been killed since March 15, 2011, was the most perilous place for journalists.

Those killed included Marie Colvin, an American, and Mika Yamamoto of Japan, who were both named World Press Freedom Heroes by the International Press Institute.

Reporters Without Borders said they were victims of an information war waged by both the regime of President Bashar Al Assad, which it said stopped at nothing to impose a news blackout, but also by opposition factions that were increasingly intolerant of dissent.

For the first time, the media-rights watchdog added Syrian rebel groups to its list of so-called predators. It cited the Al Nusra Front and other Islamist rebel groups as among those that were proving to be increasingly intolerant and suspicious toward the media.

There was also a gloomy assessment about developments in countries such as Egypt, where bloggers and other Internet activists were credited for a role in overturning autocratic regimes.

The predators’ list also singled out members and supporters of the dominant Muslim Brotherhood for harassing and physically attacking independent media and journalists critical of the party.

Germany’s Deutsche Welle, in an article marking the 20th World Press Freedom Day, said the fall of dictatorial regimes after the Arab Spring apparently had not brought about any durable guarantees for freedom of expression.

It said that among those targeted were Bassem Youssef, the Egyptian TV satirist, who had to face Egyptian prosecutors over charges of insulting Islam and President Mohamed Morsi.

It also cited the case of Weld El, 15, a Tunisian rapper recently sentenced in absentia to two years in prison for insulting the police.

Freedom House in the United States, while noting a worrying decline in world press freedom, said Libya and Tunisia had retained gains in press freedom won during the Arab Spring revolts.

But in Egypt the media environment declined and was now described as unfree, it said.

Furs, Putin and Music and Ballet, Too

Natasha Razina Plácido Domingo at the Mariinsky Theater Gala opening night.

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia â€" At the gala concert on Thursday evening that formally opened Mariinsky II, the $700 million companion to the opulent 19th-century Mariinsky Theater here, the theme was the union of old and new. The point was to show off the technical capabilities of the limestone-and-glass house while assuring the well-heeled, well-furred audience, which included President Vladimir V. Putin, that the Mariinsky’s traditions would be upheld.

During the two-and-a-half-hour performance led by Valery Gergiev, the Mariinsky’s tireless artistic director, the present and future were arranged so they faced â€" and followed â€" the past. The virtuosic stage moved up, down, left and right, but the set was dominated by a replica of part of the old Mariinsky’s glamorous horseshoe auditorium. An enormous video screen offered a shifting display of lush backdrops from the theater’s glorious history.

There was a smooth passage from Millicent Hodson’s reconstruction of Nijinsky’s still-startling “Rite of Spring,” about to celebrate its centenary, to a coolly ferocious excerpt from “Sacre,” Sasha Waltz’s new take on the “Rite.” (Why were fresh and recent ballets represented, but not contemporary operas?) Both were danced beautifully by the Mariinsky’s storied ballet company, which may end up dominating the old theater while opera takes primary residence in the new, the same division that exists between the Paris Opera’s halls.

Time also traveled during the vocal performances in the cool, blond-wood theater, more than amply accented with Swarovski crystals. Plácido Domingo, who has lately ventured into the baritone repertory, returned (at 72) to one of his favorite tenor parts, Wagner’s Siegmund, singing the love ode “Winterstürme” with ardency and just a bit of strain.

Soon after, Anna Netrebko showed why she is the biggest of the stars Mr. Gergiev has nurtured at the Mariinsky, giving a thrilling preview of Verdi’s Lady Macbeth, which she will perform complete for the first time next year. She stalked her way through the snarling “Vieni, t’affretta” in a blazing, generous performance that bodes well for her gradual move into the great Verdi roles.

The violinist Leonidas Kavakos and the violist Yuri Bashmet each had honey-toned solos accompanying dance selections. Sections from ballets including Petipa’s “Bayadère” and Balanchine’s “Jewels” alternated with an array of opera arias, including the coronation scene, featuring the bass-baritone Evgeny Nikitin, from Mussorgsky’s “Boris Godunov,” and a selection from Gounod’s “Faust,” with René Pape a gruffly powerful Méphistophélès.

Ekaterina Semenchuk’s lively rendition of the “Chanson Bohémienne” from “Carmen” was followed by the eminent ballerina Diana Vishneva’s sparkling performance of Alberto Alonso’s choreography for Carmen’s “Habanera.” (Ms. Vishneva will perform Béjart’s classic “Boléro” at a performance in her honor on Saturday.)

The intermission-less evening sometimes lagged. A group of the company’s young artists gave a meandering performance of an ensemble from Rossini’s “Viaggio a Reims,” and the ballets included Roland Petit’s lame pas de deux “Leda and the Swan.”

But a tag-team take on “Là ci darem la mano” from “Don Giovanni,” with Ms. Netrebko’s Zerlina being squired by five different Dons, was charming. And the mezzo-soprano Olga Borodina gave a melting, genuinely seductive performance of “Mon coeur s’ouvre à ta voix” from Saint-Saëns’s “Samson et Dalila.” At the end the entire company joined onstage in the soaring finale of Tchaikovsky’s “Iolanta,” which Ms. Netrebko is to perform Friday afternoon.

It wasn’t Mr. Gergiev’s finest evening musically: the orchestra often felt staid and much of the conducting was sluggish, far from the galvanic effect he can have at his best. But the house’s acoustics are lucid and clean; the orchestra came together in a rich blend but individual voices â€" a harp, a piano â€" emerged clearly. And celebrating his 60th birthday on Thursday, Mr. Gergiev must have been simply relieved that the seemingly endless headache of building the gleaming new theater was finally over.

Star Power at a Global Women’s Conference

WASHINGTON â€" As the season peaked for international women’s conferences, with corporate sponsors, rich donors and celebrity supporters filling well-appointed halls, the Global Fund for Women celebrated its 25th anniversary at a gala dinner at Cipriani 42nd Street restaurant in New York.

After a calendar crammed with global women’s conferences in the United States and Europe, it could have been tricky to pack Cipriani, but the Global Fund affair sold out (a seat went for $500, a table for five $5,000 and up).

No wonder the high-profile lineup was topped by Hillary Rodham Clinton, a longtime ally of the Global Fund and this spring’s most sought-after speaker.

The fund, a multimillion-dollar nonprofit based in San Francisco, has given millions away in grants to women.

“It’s the largest fund for women around the world,” Musimbi Kanyoro, the fund’s president and chief executive, said on the phone from New York. “We have given $100 million in grants to 5,000 women’s organizations in 174 countries. That large amount of money is rarely targeted for women.”

Ms. Kanyoro, who was born in Kenya and is the daughter of a midwife, has a doctorate in linguistics from the University of Texas, Austin, and a degree in ministry and feminist theology from San Francisco Theological Seminary. She was a student when she joined the movement against apartheid, which led to her fight for women and girls.

“Our goal is the dignity of women, and that is achieved through human rights,’’ she said. “But we also believe that women need financial resources. We are especially effective reaching women who have no other donors, women in developing countries who are fighting for religious rights and fundamental sex and property rights.”

Shortly before the gala, I spoke with the activist and teacher Charlotte Bunch, founder of the Center for Women’s Global Leadership at Rutgers University in New Jersey, in whose name the fund started the Women’s Human Rights Defender Award.

Ms. Bunch, who has been on the front line of the fight against violence against women, said that sexual violence continues to be the biggest problem.

“Violence is horrific everywhere,” she said.

The next big challenge, she said, is economic inequality between high-earning women and poor women who are left behind in large part because of unfair policies. And the third big problem is the continuing struggle for reproductive and sexual rights.

Few know those issues as closely as Monica Roa, a recipient of a Women’s Human Rights Defender Award for her fight for judicial reform in her native Colombia. The founder of Women’s Link Worldwide, the 37-year-old lawyer broke ground when she figured out a way to navigate the legal system to help women and bring about social change.

“I saw in the law a tool for the liberation of women,” she told me.

Her uphill battles in the courts in Bogotá nearly killed her. Shots were fired and shards of glass fell on her head when she and colleagues were attacked for their efforts in an abortion case. That was seven years ago. She has since lived with death threats and bodyguards.

But she continues to press the courts, digging up unenforced laws and bringing them to judicial light. Now her work is followed in places like Peru and the Dominican Republic.

Women’s issues in South America and the Caribbean are a bit off the beaten path of international women’s groups, which tend to focus on the situations in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and in the Middle East and Africa, places where women and girls are fighting for their most basic rights. Horrors like the rapes of young girls and other abuses and brutality in patriarchal fundamentalist countries overshadow the relatively more progressive situation in Latin America.

Yet, there’s plenty of sexual violence and slavery, human trafficking and other crimes against women and girls in Latin America, and reproductive rights are negligible. Abortion is illegal in most countries.

“People think that the struggle is over,” Ms. Roa said. “There’s a gap between what we have achieved on paper and the reality. Sexism is much more subtle. We need to develop strategies that work. In Latin America, there is a clear offensive against the rights of women.”

Fighting that war on women worldwide is what Mrs. Clinton calls “the great unfinished business of the 21st century: advancing the rights and the opportunities of girls and women.” It is the engine driving the multiplying star-studded women’s conclaves from Davos to London to São Paulo to New York. For these donor-supported and corporate-sponsored global organizations, there’s no turning back.

Star Power at a Global Women’s Conference

WASHINGTON â€" As the season peaked for international women’s conferences, with corporate sponsors, rich donors and celebrity supporters filling well-appointed halls, the Global Fund for Women celebrated its 25th anniversary at a gala dinner at Cipriani 42nd Street restaurant in New York.

After a calendar crammed with global women’s conferences in the United States and Europe, it could have been tricky to pack Cipriani, but the Global Fund affair sold out (a seat went for $500, a table for five $5,000 and up).

No wonder the high-profile lineup was topped by Hillary Rodham Clinton, a longtime ally of the Global Fund and this spring’s most sought-after speaker.

The fund, a multimillion-dollar nonprofit based in San Francisco, has given millions away in grants to women.

“It’s the largest fund for women around the world,” Musimbi Kanyoro, the fund’s president and chief executive, said on the phone from New York. “We have given $100 million in grants to 5,000 women’s organizations in 174 countries. That large amount of money is rarely targeted for women.”

Ms. Kanyoro, who was born in Kenya and is the daughter of a midwife, has a doctorate in linguistics from the University of Texas, Austin, and a degree in ministry and feminist theology from San Francisco Theological Seminary. She was a student when she joined the movement against apartheid, which led to her fight for women and girls.

“Our goal is the dignity of women, and that is achieved through human rights,’’ she said. “But we also believe that women need financial resources. We are especially effective reaching women who have no other donors, women in developing countries who are fighting for religious rights and fundamental sex and property rights.”

Shortly before the gala, I spoke with the activist and teacher Charlotte Bunch, founder of the Center for Women’s Global Leadership at Rutgers University in New Jersey, in whose name the fund started the Women’s Human Rights Defender Award.

Ms. Bunch, who has been on the front line of the fight against violence against women, said that sexual violence continues to be the biggest problem.

“Violence is horrific everywhere,” she said.

The next big challenge, she said, is economic inequality between high-earning women and poor women who are left behind in large part because of unfair policies. And the third big problem is the continuing struggle for reproductive and sexual rights.

Few know those issues as closely as Monica Roa, a recipient of a Women’s Human Rights Defender Award for her fight for judicial reform in her native Colombia. The founder of Women’s Link Worldwide, the 37-year-old lawyer broke ground when she figured out a way to navigate the legal system to help women and bring about social change.

“I saw in the law a tool for the liberation of women,” she told me.

Her uphill battles in the courts in Bogotá nearly killed her. Shots were fired and shards of glass fell on her head when she and colleagues were attacked for their efforts in an abortion case. That was seven years ago. She has since lived with death threats and bodyguards.

But she continues to press the courts, digging up unenforced laws and bringing them to judicial light. Now her work is followed in places like Peru and the Dominican Republic.

Women’s issues in South America and the Caribbean are a bit off the beaten path of international women’s groups, which tend to focus on the situations in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and in the Middle East and Africa, places where women and girls are fighting for their most basic rights. Horrors like the rapes of young girls and other abuses and brutality in patriarchal fundamentalist countries overshadow the relatively more progressive situation in Latin America.

Yet, there’s plenty of sexual violence and slavery, human trafficking and other crimes against women and girls in Latin America, and reproductive rights are negligible. Abortion is illegal in most countries.

“People think that the struggle is over,” Ms. Roa said. “There’s a gap between what we have achieved on paper and the reality. Sexism is much more subtle. We need to develop strategies that work. In Latin America, there is a clear offensive against the rights of women.”

Fighting that war on women worldwide is what Mrs. Clinton calls “the great unfinished business of the 21st century: advancing the rights and the opportunities of girls and women.” It is the engine driving the multiplying star-studded women’s conclaves from Davos to London to São Paulo to New York. For these donor-supported and corporate-sponsored global organizations, there’s no turning back.

Star Power at a Global Women’s Conference

WASHINGTON â€" As the season peaked for international women’s conferences, with corporate sponsors, rich donors and celebrity supporters filling well-appointed halls, the Global Fund for Women celebrated its 25th anniversary at a gala dinner at Cipriani 42nd Street restaurant in New York.

After a calendar crammed with global women’s conferences in the United States and Europe, it could have been tricky to pack Cipriani, but the Global Fund affair sold out (a seat went for $500, a table for five $5,000 and up).

No wonder the high-profile lineup was topped by Hillary Rodham Clinton, a longtime ally of the Global Fund and this spring’s most sought-after speaker.

The fund, a multimillion-dollar nonprofit based in San Francisco, has given millions away in grants to women.

“It’s the largest fund for women around the world,” Musimbi Kanyoro, the fund’s president and chief executive, said on the phone from New York. “We have given $100 million in grants to 5,000 women’s organizations in 174 countries. That large amount of money is rarely targeted for women.”

Ms. Kanyoro, who was born in Kenya and is the daughter of a midwife, has a doctorate in linguistics from the University of Texas, Austin, and a degree in ministry and feminist theology from San Francisco Theological Seminary. She was a student when she joined the movement against apartheid, which led to her fight for women and girls.

“Our goal is the dignity of women, and that is achieved through human rights,’’ she said. “But we also believe that women need financial resources. We are especially effective reaching women who have no other donors, women in developing countries who are fighting for religious rights and fundamental sex and property rights.”

Shortly before the gala, I spoke with the activist and teacher Charlotte Bunch, founder of the Center for Women’s Global Leadership at Rutgers University in New Jersey, in whose name the fund started the Women’s Human Rights Defender Award.

Ms. Bunch, who has been on the front line of the fight against violence against women, said that sexual violence continues to be the biggest problem.

“Violence is horrific everywhere,” she said.

The next big challenge, she said, is economic inequality between high-earning women and poor women who are left behind in large part because of unfair policies. And the third big problem is the continuing struggle for reproductive and sexual rights.

Few know those issues as closely as Monica Roa, a recipient of a Women’s Human Rights Defender Award for her fight for judicial reform in her native Colombia. The founder of Women’s Link Worldwide, the 37-year-old lawyer broke ground when she figured out a way to navigate the legal system to help women and bring about social change.

“I saw in the law a tool for the liberation of women,” she told me.

Her uphill battles in the courts in Bogotá nearly killed her. Shots were fired and shards of glass fell on her head when she and colleagues were attacked for their efforts in an abortion case. That was seven years ago. She has since lived with death threats and bodyguards.

But she continues to press the courts, digging up unenforced laws and bringing them to judicial light. Now her work is followed in places like Peru and the Dominican Republic.

Women’s issues in South America and the Caribbean are a bit off the beaten path of international women’s groups, which tend to focus on the situations in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and in the Middle East and Africa, places where women and girls are fighting for their most basic rights. Horrors like the rapes of young girls and other abuses and brutality in patriarchal fundamentalist countries overshadow the relatively more progressive situation in Latin America.

Yet, there’s plenty of sexual violence and slavery, human trafficking and other crimes against women and girls in Latin America, and reproductive rights are negligible. Abortion is illegal in most countries.

“People think that the struggle is over,” Ms. Roa said. “There’s a gap between what we have achieved on paper and the reality. Sexism is much more subtle. We need to develop strategies that work. In Latin America, there is a clear offensive against the rights of women.”

Fighting that war on women worldwide is what Mrs. Clinton calls “the great unfinished business of the 21st century: advancing the rights and the opportunities of girls and women.” It is the engine driving the multiplying star-studded women’s conclaves from Davos to London to São Paulo to New York. For these donor-supported and corporate-sponsored global organizations, there’s no turning back.

Star Power at a Global Women’s Conference

WASHINGTON â€" As the season peaked for international women’s conferences, with corporate sponsors, rich donors and celebrity supporters filling well-appointed halls, the Global Fund for Women celebrated its 25th anniversary at a gala dinner at Cipriani 42nd Street restaurant in New York.

After a calendar crammed with global women’s conferences in the United States and Europe, it could have been tricky to pack Cipriani, but the Global Fund affair sold out (a seat went for $500, a table for five $5,000 and up).

No wonder the high-profile lineup was topped by Hillary Rodham Clinton, a longtime ally of the Global Fund and this spring’s most sought-after speaker.

The fund, a multimillion-dollar nonprofit based in San Francisco, has given millions away in grants to women.

“It’s the largest fund for women around the world,” Musimbi Kanyoro, the fund’s president and chief executive, said on the phone from New York. “We have given $100 million in grants to 5,000 women’s organizations in 174 countries. That large amount of money is rarely targeted for women.”

Ms. Kanyoro, who was born in Kenya and is the daughter of a midwife, has a doctorate in linguistics from the University of Texas, Austin, and a degree in ministry and feminist theology from San Francisco Theological Seminary. She was a student when she joined the movement against apartheid, which led to her fight for women and girls.

“Our goal is the dignity of women, and that is achieved through human rights,’’ she said. “But we also believe that women need financial resources. We are especially effective reaching women who have no other donors, women in developing countries who are fighting for religious rights and fundamental sex and property rights.”

Shortly before the gala, I spoke with the activist and teacher Charlotte Bunch, founder of the Center for Women’s Global Leadership at Rutgers University in New Jersey, in whose name the fund started the Women’s Human Rights Defender Award.

Ms. Bunch, who has been on the front line of the fight against violence against women, said that sexual violence continues to be the biggest problem.

“Violence is horrific everywhere,” she said.

The next big challenge, she said, is economic inequality between high-earning women and poor women who are left behind in large part because of unfair policies. And the third big problem is the continuing struggle for reproductive and sexual rights.

Few know those issues as closely as Monica Roa, a recipient of a Women’s Human Rights Defender Award for her fight for judicial reform in her native Colombia. The founder of Women’s Link Worldwide, the 37-year-old lawyer broke ground when she figured out a way to navigate the legal system to help women and bring about social change.

“I saw in the law a tool for the liberation of women,” she told me.

Her uphill battles in the courts in Bogotá nearly killed her. Shots were fired and shards of glass fell on her head when she and colleagues were attacked for their efforts in an abortion case. That was seven years ago. She has since lived with death threats and bodyguards.

But she continues to press the courts, digging up unenforced laws and bringing them to judicial light. Now her work is followed in places like Peru and the Dominican Republic.

Women’s issues in South America and the Caribbean are a bit off the beaten path of international women’s groups, which tend to focus on the situations in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and in the Middle East and Africa, places where women and girls are fighting for their most basic rights. Horrors like the rapes of young girls and other abuses and brutality in patriarchal fundamentalist countries overshadow the relatively more progressive situation in Latin America.

Yet, there’s plenty of sexual violence and slavery, human trafficking and other crimes against women and girls in Latin America, and reproductive rights are negligible. Abortion is illegal in most countries.

“People think that the struggle is over,” Ms. Roa said. “There’s a gap between what we have achieved on paper and the reality. Sexism is much more subtle. We need to develop strategies that work. In Latin America, there is a clear offensive against the rights of women.”

Fighting that war on women worldwide is what Mrs. Clinton calls “the great unfinished business of the 21st century: advancing the rights and the opportunities of girls and women.” It is the engine driving the multiplying star-studded women’s conclaves from Davos to London to São Paulo to New York. For these donor-supported and corporate-sponsored global organizations, there’s no turning back.