by Linda Pressly, Crossing Continents/BBC - Trafficking around Central America is endemic and often women and children are forced into prostitution.

by Anabel Lee, The American Prospect, USA -
In the run-up to the Olympics in Beijing, activists have joined together in a series of relay races to push China, which has a lot of influence in Sudan, to take action on Darfur.

by Nomi Prins, Newsday, USA - It ranged from progressive cries of "too little, too late" to conservative platitudes of "why should those idiots be saved when the rest of us pay our mortgages?"

Nomi Prins, a former investment banker, is the author of "Other People's Money: The Corporate Mugging of America."

by Jessica Aldred, The Guardian, UK - Christmas doesn't have to be a time of excess if you follow a few simple steps.

by Christine Senteno, New America Media, USA - Blacks, Hispanics and Asian Americans are both optimistic and concerned over race relations.

by Stephanie Hancock, Mail & Guardian, N’Djamena - The UN and other charities that work with almost half a million displaced along Chad’s border with Darfur are afraid violence could spill over into refugee camps, or that aid workers could be caught up in events.

by Paulin Kola, BBC News - Carla del Ponte walks out of the office she has occupied for the last eight years in The Hague satisfied - if a little frustrated.

by Louisa Schaefer, Deutsche Welle, Germany - The recent birth of a baby by a 64-year-old woman in Germany has sparked debate about the Embryo Protection Law, which prohibits egg donation. But with rising infertility rates, Germany may need to rethink its policies.

The Times of India, India - Tibet's spiritual leader the Dalai Lama on Thursday suggested that his successor could be a woman.

by Anastasia Moloney, World Politics Review, Colombia - The diplomatic row sparked by President Hugo Chávez's mediation in Colombia's hostage crisis continues and shows little sign of abating, sparking fears and dashing hopes of a humanitarian exchange of hostages held by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

by Helene Zuber & Christian Neef, Spiegel International, Germany - Portuguese Prime Minister and current European Council President José Sócrates talks about the Lisbon Treaty, Europe's trouble with Russia and Brussels' engagement with Africa.

by Laura Kyrke-Smith, openDemocracy, UK - The architects of democratic intervention are failing to build healthy post-conflict media environments.

by Julie Flint, The Independent, UK - Unamid was designed for a peace agreement which was stillborn 18 months ago. There is no ceasefire to police today and no separation of forces to monitor.

by Roxana Saberi, IPS News, Northern Iraq - "Next to the people of Iraq, the Iranian people were the main beneficiaries of the removal of Saddam Hussein regime".

by Yulia Latynina, The Moscow Times, Russia - Putin had two strategies to preserve his authority. One was to change the Constitution to permit a third term. The other was to name a successor who would be completely subservient to his control.

by Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!/Alternet.org, USA - We need to stand up for the future, stand up for justice and our climate.

by Amy Argetsinger, Washington Post, USA - As professors of dance, they've got a theory about Huckabee's ascent in the polls: It's something in the way he moves.

by Vanessa Thorpe and Nicholas Watt, The Observer, UK - Schools are told to make artistic experience 'a key part of childhood'

by Lale Sariibrahimoglu, Today's Zaman, Turkey - The best recipe for minimizing PKK terrorism will be through the improvement of democratic rights in general in Turkey and in the terror-stricken Southeast in particular.

by Celestine Bohlen, Bloomberg.com, Chisinau, Moldova - "This is not a frozen conflict so much as a conflict whose solution has been frosted".

by Anne-Marie Slaughter, The Australian, Australia - There is a wide gulf between the US view of the world and the rest of the world's view of itself.

by Amy Knight, Context, Russia - Soviet and U.S. leaders missed chance after chance to end the Cold War, historian Melvyn P. Leffler writes.

by Anika Rahman, RH Reality Check - Stop genital mutilation of women and they are likely to stay in school, delay their marriage and space children, thereby increasing the family's economic stability.

by Lourdes Heredia, BBC News, Washington - Leaders of several South American nations have signed a founding document to create a new body, the Banco del Sur, as an alternative to multilateral credit organisations such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

by Nathasha Walter, The Guardian, UK - Liberty and the state: Plans to extend pre-trial detention have sparked opposition, yet many are already locked up for months without charge.

by Liz Fuller and Aslan Doukaev, RFE, Russia -
Since his appointment as pro-Moscow Chechen Republic head in early March, Ramzan Kadyrov has energetically promulgated a revival of Chechen popular or "folk" Islam.

by Oksana Zabuzhko, SignandSight, Germany - Stalin's genocide in Ukraine is estimated to the murder of six million Ukrainians.

by Sarah Marcus, The Telegraph, UK - Lessing, winner of the Nobel Prize for literature, also condemned the effect of Robert Mugabe’s regime.

by Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, The Nation, USA - The students were concerned with whether the Chávez government was becoming authoritarian, not just in its attitude toward free speech and the right of assembly but in its intolerance of an independent judiciary and its penchant for legislation that eroded the Constitution.

by Elizabeth Dickinson Calabar, All Africa, Port Harcourt - Nigeria is Africa's largest producer of oil and the third largest supplier of crude to the United States. Since the country's independence in 1960, its oil industry has operated in close proximity to communities in the Delta—sometimes within meters of their homes and farms. But despite the wealth flowing under the soil, the 1,500 communities that host oil facilities remain infamously poor.