Pakistan's Senate has called for government action against men who shot and buried alive five tribal women in July because three of them wanted to choose their husbands. Through a resolution passed Monday, the senate also condemned and sought justice for two women who were executed in similar fashion alongside the victims in the Nasirabad district of Balochistan province for pleading for the girls' lives.

A lesbian couple will make gay history by becoming the first legal Indian same-sex marriage accepted by the Coquille Tribe. The soon-to-be wed couple, Kitzen Doyle and Jeni Branting, had been in a committed lesbian relationship since high school.

Newly elected Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo named a former slave as his Minister for Indigenous Affair. Margarita Mbywangi, 46, an Ache tribal chief, was captured in the jungle when she was four and sold several times as a slave to owners of large lands. Fortunately, her masters send her to school which enabled her to learn to read and write.

Six elephants including three calves died in India's north-eastern state of Meghalaya after getting drunk on rice beer and running through a paddy field where they were electrocuted, officials and residents said Tuesday. The incident happened in the village of Chandan Nukat, about 250 kilometres west of Shillong, the state capital, on Sunday night.

early 100 wild elephants rampaged on a river island in India's northeast Assam province on Saturday, demolishing homes, feasting on sugarcane and panicking residents, officials said. "The herd is wandering just about anywhere in Majuli. A forest guard was injured and about 50 houses have been pulled down, forcing residents to take shelter in a makeshift relief camp that we have set up," LS Changsan, Jorhat district magistrate told the media.