by Camilla Toulmin, openDemocracy, UK - All eyes are on Bali, where the United Nations conference on 3-14 December 2007 faces a critical test: whether it will set a course towards genuine global action to tackle climate change, or founder on the rocks of rhetoric.
by Marcia Pally, Project Syndicate - A Pew study found most American Muslims say that “their communities are excellent or good places” to live; while Europe’s Muslims to be “markedly less well off than the general population, frustrated with economic opportunities and socially isolated”.
by Vivian Castillo, El Universal, Venezuela - Government line media praise the government's projects, like the constitutional reform proposal. Dissenting opinions are not heard there.
by Barbara McMahon, The Guardian, UK - Australia's new leader, Kevin Rudd, has said he will pull his country's troops out of Iraq by mid-2008, fulfilling a promise he made during the election campaign.
by Carmela Cruz, Foreign Policy in Focus, USA - My photography relies on emotion. A photograph of the anguish in the eyes of a starving child in Darfur that initiates the quest for a solution.
by Mona Alami, IPS News, Lebanon - Tensions are rising in Lebanon's many Palestinian camps, home to more than 400,000 refugees.
by Francesca Mereu, The Moscow Times, Russia - I won't vote for the party of the president," said Emilia Zarova, who lost her son. "Where was the party in September 2004, when our children were burning alive in the gym and the president said that he would not talk with the terrorists?".
by Roja Bandari, openDemocracy, UK - The courageous voices of the women of Iran's One Million Signatures campaign demand to be heard. Roja Bandari tells their story.
by Natalie Angier, The New York Times, USA - I felt free and exhilarated. I felt competent and loved. I felt like calling my mother. I felt, it seems, just as a dancing body should.
by Amira Al Hussaini, Global Voices, Egypt - A storm is brewing in the Egyptian blogosphere after video hosting site YouTube removed several videos featuring policemen torturing victims from their site.
by Alexandra Kondrasheva, Novaya Gazeta, Russia - Documentary journalist Natalia Petrova and her family were beaten roughly in Kazan in September 2007.
by Alana Herro, World Watch Institute, USA - Rudd’s landslide victory over conservative John Howard ended the 11-year reign of Australia’s second-longest serving leader. Former Prime Minister Howard and U.S. President George W. Bush had been allies in their refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol, which entered into force in 2005.
by Elizabeth MacDonald and Megha Bahree, The Daily Star, Lebanon - Despite the barriers, 10 women executives from the Middle East made our World's 100 Most Powerful Women ranking this year. How are they managing to break through the glass ceiling?
On World AIDS Day the International Women’s Media Foundation will conduct an online chat to help cultivate effective newsroom leaders worldwide. The live chat will be held from 13:00 to 15:00 GMT on Monday December 3.
by Katherine Ashenburg, Orion Magazine, USA - Children who had lots of siblings, who lived on farms, had cats, or went to daycare in their first year were discovered to do best at avoiding allergic diseases.
by Shabir Dar, Kashmir Watch, Kashmir - A daring and committed woman, Nighat Shafi Pandit, stepped out of her comfortable home to address the pain and trauma of people caught in the 19-year-long conflict.
by Jill Singer, Herald Sun, Australia - No more lies, cover-ups, stupid wars, trashing of our environment and brutalisation of refugees.
by Jane Perlez, International Herald Tribune, Islamabad - Sharif's return complicates the Bush administration's support for Benazir Bhutto, whom Washington has favored as a more certain partner against Islamic extremists.
by Marie Cocco, Thruthdig, Washington - Winter approaches and as many as 400,000 Afghans face starvation. The trouble is not an insufficient supply of food. There is no way to get food to those who need it.
by Tessa Lewin, 16 Days Against Gender Violence - South Africa has one of the highest levels of domestic violence and rape of any country in the world.
by Galina Stolyarova, The St. Petersburg Times, Russia - “I am seriously concerned by the information about the persecution and arrests of opposition politicians and participants in peaceful demonstrations in Russia,” stated Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission.
by Catherine Makino, IPS News, Japan - Ignoring the fact that Japan is an Asian country with a sizeable Buddhist population, the government of Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda cold-shouldered the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, during a ten-day visit that ended on Friday.
by Margalith Kleijwegt, Sign and Sight, Germany - Hüseyin P. was fourteen when he killed his sixteen-year-old classmate Youssef Mokhtari. The tragedy took place outside their school.
by Melanie Philips, The Spectator, UK - "Where are you for Sudan, Bishop Tutu? You are busy attacking the Jewish state. Why?"
by Marjorie Cohn, Jurist Legal News and Research, USA - New York Times reports most of the foreign fighters in Iraq come, not from Iran, but from two Bush allies: Saudi Arabia and Libya.
by Frida Ghitis, World Politics Review - On tomorrow's meeting: A poorly kept secret is that the Arabs who live in Jerusalem want to remain Israelis citizens. They don't want Jerusalem to become part of a new Palestinian state.
by Sara Miller Llana, CS Monitor, USA - ‘The Switzerland of Central America’? Panama City’s skyline has changed dramatically over the past few years as steady economic growth and foreign investment have sparked a real estate boom.
by Emma Jane Kirby, BBC News, Paris - President Sarkozy has something his predecessor never really had - the backing of the majority of the French people.
