by Tara Lohan, AlterNet, USA - Whether we avert catastrophe with climate change may actually be decided by Citibank and Bank of America.

by Victoria Burnett, International Herald Tribune, France - The Spanish authorities have intensified their crackdown on militant Basque nationalists, arresting 23 leaders of Batasuna, the political wing of the armed separatist group ETA.

by Kathryn Westcott, BBC News - Her ability to stand out among all the men in the country's power struggles is one that she and her team have honed to perfection.

by Frida Ghitis, Miami Herald, USA - News coverage from Israel in the European press is often little more than a parody of honest journalism. Israelis have complained about this for decades, but more evidence of what you might call atrocities against journalism surface every day in European court rooms and in the work of scholars.

by Karen Greenberg, The Guardian, UK - Newly revealed memos show that the Bush administration willingly misled the American people about its torture policy.

by Marianna Grigoryan, ArmeniaNow, Armenia - Studies show that the level of corruption in Armenia in 2007 has not reduced. Armenia is among the 82 countries that are considered to be most corrupt.

by Sara Miller Llana, CS Monitor, USA - Costa Ricans vote Sunday whether to approve a free-trade pact with the US. It is the only nation in the region not to have ratified DR-CAFTA. Even in Nicaragua, whose president Daniel Ortega was once a virulent US foe, the pact has been ratified.

by Carlotta Gall, New York Times, USA/Pakistan - The government of Gen. Pervez Musharraf announced Thursday an accord that includes amnesty for the opposition leader and former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, clearing the way for the general to run for re-election as president on Saturday and for Ms. Bhutto to return to Pakistan for parliamentary elections at the end of the year.

by Juliana Liu, BBC News, Yanqing, China - China has about 5.7 million acres of certified organic farmland, behind only Australia and Argentina worldwide.

by Janet L. Sawin, World Watch Magazine - Experience has demonstrated that “aspirational” goals do not work; mandatory and binding commitments will be required to reduce emissions in time to avoid warming of more than 2 degrees Celsius and catastrophic climate change.

by Anne-Kathrin Keller, IPS News, United Nations - Last week, while more than 140 world leaders were arriving in New York to wine, dine and address the General Assembly, a group of activists was demonstrating outside the U.N. compound for a hunger-free world.

by Spiwe Ncube, Zim Daily, Zimbabwe - President Wade: "Each time we talk about Zimbabwe, we say we are going to entrust this to Thabo Mbeki. Thabo Mbeki himself cannot do much for Zimbabwe. This is an issue for the African Union".

by Ibiba DonPedro, Mail & Guardian, South Africa - Will attacks resume on oil infrastructure and kidnapping of expatriates in the area of 25 million inhabitants?

by Rebecca Traister, Salon.com, USA - Terror swept women back into the kitchen, argues Susan Faludi, and tore open the worst scar in American history. But it's Bruce Springsteen who makes the fear so real.

by Ruth Frankova, Radio Prague, Czech Republic - Leading Czech football referee, Dagmar Damkova, reached a career milestone last week when she officiated at the women's World Cup semi-final in China.

by Hyejin Kim, Global Voices, South Korea - The senior pastor at the Saemmul church, which sent 23 Korean volunteers to Afghanistan where they were kidnapped, was re-appointed on the 30th of September. The event provided bloggers with another chance to look back at the incident.

by Maureen Dowd, Spiegel International, Germany - The compromises W. makes to slog on in Iraq, be it with warlords, dictators or out-of-control contractors, are spreading a dark stain on America's image.

by Kristina Mani, Foreign Policy, USA - What few people have discussed is just how many of contractors come not from the United States, but, increasingly, from Latin America.

by Lyse Doucet, BBC News, Damascus - The secret is out. But the speculation has not ended. What was hit? Was it a suspected nuclear site established with North Korean help?

by Gila Benmayor, Turkish Daily News, Turkey - My next-door neighbors are concerned that they will be forced to wear chadors and businesswomen are worried about losing rights gained.

by Amanda Griscom Little, Grist, USA - Interview with John McCain about his presidential platform on energy and the environment

by Neela Banerjee, International Herald Tribune, France - Indian-Americans have reached out to American Jews, in part, because of the growing friendship between India and Israel, whose chilly cold war relations began to thaw in the 1990s.

by Anna Smolchenko, The Moscow Times, Russia - Only foreign reporters seem to dare to challenge Putin.

by Sarah Laitner, FT.com, Amsterdam - Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a highly controversial critic of Islam, was reported to have returned to the country after a spell in the US.

by Deborah Haynes, The Times, UK - Mr al-Maliki believes that Iraqi forces are ready to take over responsibility for the province “as soon as possible".

by Diane Chido, ISN Security Watch, Switzerland - Accusations against Bulgaria are highly likely to reveal more about current internal Macedonian political climate than interstate relations.

by Rosemary Righter, The Times, UK - These protests heve exposed Beijing’s own fear and failure.

by Claire Spencer, The Daily Star, Lebanon - Sarkozy challenges other Europeans to sit up and take note of what needs fixing in the EU's current laissez-faire approach.

by Melissa Hahn, PINR - In recent months, the government has been racked by scandals, public embarrassments, foreign policy blunders, allegations of ties to criminal syndicates, debilitating personality clashes, and legislative gridlock - resulting in a loss of its majority status and capacity to govern.