
How the UN is combatting COVID-19's "devastating" blow to women
CBSN
Women's gains in society have been dealt a serious blow by the coronavirus pandemic. The World Economic Forum estimates that the fallout from the virus could add another generation to the fight for gender equality, a goal it now predicts to be more than 100 years off.
In the face of this crisis, the branch of the United Nations that deals specifically with women's rights, U.N. Women, has launched a campaign to accelerate the implementation of commitments made by countries during the historic Fourth World Conference on Women. It was at that 1995 gathering in Beijing that then-first lady Hillary Clinton said, "women's rights are human rights." Having just wrapped up the launch of the campaign with a three day conference called "Generation Equality" in Mexico City, U.N. Women's Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka spoke to CBS News' Haley Ott about the obstacles facing women today.
Felix Baumgartner, the daredevil who made a record-breaking parachute jump from the stratosphere in 2012, died Thursday in a paragliding accident in Italy, a local mayor confirmed. Firefighters who responded to the scene said they found a paraglider that had crashed into the side of a swimming pool in the city of Porto Sant Elpidio, on central Italy's eastern coast.

Baghdad — A fire at a newly opened mall in eastern Iraq's Wasit province killed more than 60 people, including women and children, Iraqi officials said Thursday. The nation's Interior Ministry said in a statement that 61 people died, most of them from suffocation, in the blaze that broke out late Wednesday in the city of al-Kut.

Moscow — An American who spied on Ukrainian troops to help Moscow's military offensive in the country has been granted Russian citizenship, Moscow-installed authorities said Tuesday. Daniel Martindale spent two years in Ukraine after Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, transmitting coordinates of military facilities to Russia's secret services, according to reports in Russian state media.