(CNN) -- As the New Year approached, millions anxiously followed the news from two very different parts of the world about two very different women -- women whose lives somehow touched us, whose fate seemed, somehow, linked to all of us. The world held its breath when word came that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was hospitalized in New York. The news arrived at a time when we were trying to absorb, with profound sadness, a seemingly unrelated drama unfolding thousands of miles away. In New Delhi, a 23-year-old woman, a university student on her way home after watching a movie with her boyfriend, was brutally raped and beaten by a group of men. She later died from her injuries.
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Frida Ghitis: Hillary Clinton illness and New Delhi rape tell different stories about state of women
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She says women's equality faces sharp divide; some ascend, most kept powerless
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She says Egypt's new constitution presents time-bomb for new oppression of women
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Ghitis: Progress for women needs strong legislation, education, sometimes protests
Of the more than 600 cases filed with the @placeholder police last year, only one resulted in conviction.