by Sarah Wolff, Yemen Times, Yemen - Yemen’s most prominent governmental figures want an international law against the defamation of the Prophet Mohammed (pbuh) and other religious figures, after the reprinting of an infamous cartoon in Denmark and a call to reprint it again throughout Europe by Germany’s Minister of the Interior.

by Violet Cho and Shah Paung, The Irrawady, Thailand - Nearly five months after the anti-regime demonstrations that shook Burma late last year, one central question is still waiting for a definitive answer: Couldn’t the ethnic groups have done more to support the protesters in Rangoon and other cities?

by Dina Ezzat, Al-Ahram Weekly, Egypt - The humanitarian catastrophe in Somalia is hard to exaggerate. This week international aid organisations, including the International Committee of the Red Cross, warned of huge suffering among civilians in the Somali capital Mogadishu as a result of the heavy fighting that erupted four months ago among warring Somali factions and Ethiopian forces stationed in Somalia to prop up the government. Hundreds have been killed or wounded. Thousands are reported to have fled on foot, donkey-cart or trucks.

by Rebecca Solnit, Orion Magazine, USA - The biggest wilderness I’ve ever been in—a roadless area roughly the size of Portugal with about fifty contiguous watersheds and the whole panoply of charismatic macrofauna doing their thing undisturbed—is another story.

by Becky Rynor, Canada.com, Canada - Immigrants, refugees and women seeking asylum in Canada are four to five times more likely to suffer from postpartum depression than women born here, according to a study published this month in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry.

by Julie Wernau, TheDay.com, USA - Connecticut is one of four states in the nation spending more money on its prison system than on higher education, according to a Pew Charitable Trusts study released Thursday.

by Fatma Disli, Today's Zaman, Turkey - The ground offensive into northern Iraq, launched a week ago, is being extensively discussed in the Turkish media, with its repercussions being felt both in Turkey and abroad. Topics under debate have included the possible consequences of this operation, including whether the international community will continue to support Turkey, whether it will change the voting tendencies of the public in the Southeast and whether it will ultimately lead to a non-military solution.

by Maya Schenwar, Truthout, USA - In March, the war will reach its five-year mark - and the count of US war dead will likely reach 4,000. Fifty-seven percent of Americans now think it was a mistake to invade Iraq, and 59 percent want a timetable for withdrawal. A fall 2007 poll indicated 85 percent of Iraqis have little or no confidence in the American military.

by Frida Ghitis, World Politics Review, USA - The Palestinians have a legitimate right to pursue the creation of an independent state. Nobody, however, has a legitimate right to seek the destruction of another country, and that is precisely what Hamas seeks. That is not a matter of opinion. Take them at their word.

by Marifeli Perez-Stable, The Miami Herald, USA - What happened in Havana on Sunday reminded me of Moscow in the early 1980s. After Leonid Brezhnev's passing, two old men -- first, the more open-minded Yuri Andropov, then the mummified Konstantin Chernenko -- ruled the Soviet Union. Not until 1985 did the youthful Mikhail Gorbachev take the Kremlin's reins. The rest is history.

Mona Eltahawy, Middle East Online, United Kingdom - By forcing Saudi Arabia to choose between what is meted out by its morality police and Wahhabi clerics or abiding by UN and other international conventions, the civilized world supports Saudis who refuse to be intimidated by the barbarity - and exposes the cruelty done to the kingdom's victims, many of whom are innocent women. If justice really was a woman she would not survive long in Saudi Arabia.

by Alexa Dvorson, BBC News, Germany - With their playful jostling, they seemed like teenagers in any Western backdrop, except for one thing: they swore they would kill their own sisters if any of them had sex before marriage.

by Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!, USA - In a major address, Noam Chomsky says there has been little change in the conventional debate over a US invasion abroad: from Vietnam to Iraq, the two main political parties and political pundits differ only on the tactics of US goals, which are assumed to be legitimate.

by Charles Mwanguhya Mpagi and Emma Mutaizibwa, IWPR, Uganda - Dramatic progress in peace talks between the Ugandan government and the Lord’s Resistance Army, LRA, has been overshadowed by reports that rebel leader, Joseph Kony, may be trying to escape to Darfur.

Although the negotiations have continued for more than 18 months in Juba, South Sudan, and portions of the peace deal were signed almost a year ago, a final agreement could be inked within days as the negotiators rush to conclude the talks by week’s end.

by Mona Alami, IPS News, Italy - It's another way of looking at a world of enormous piles of rubbish, where gunmen and fratricidal wars are common, and where a permanent state of lawlessness reigns. A group of Lebanese photojournalists now gives these children the opportunity to forget their surroundings through the world of photography.

by Ellen Bravo, Women's eNews, USA - What tipped the balance for me are two key factors: the damage caused by the war in Iraq and my belief in grassroots organizing, rather than great leaders, as the primary instrument of social change.

by Helena Smith, The Guardian, UK - Finally, after five bleak years of scaremongering, Turk-bashing and prevarication, the Greeks Cypriots have a new president. Demetris Christofias, the burly Soviet-educated "man of the people" has pulled off the double feat of becoming the war-divided island's first communist leader in history and the 27-nation EU bloc's first communist head of state.

Lilian Budianto, The Jakarta Post, Indonesia - The Education Ministry said the use of indigenous languages during a pilot project in informal schools had included illiterate adults and had focused on reading and writing in Bahasa Indonesia. Dendy Sugono, the Ministry's language center director, said the project had shown students could more easily learn to read and write in Indonesian if classroom teachings were conducted in their "mother tongue". The illiteracy rate in Indonesia was sitting at 7.2 percent, or some 11 million people in 2007.

by Nermin Aydemir, Journal of Turkish Weekly, Turkey - Extremists, including racists, unfortunately take place all around the world. What carries importance at this point is to keep the mainstream society away from polarization and maintain the “peaceful coexistence” among various subcultures. German public opinion carries a significant responsibility on its shoulders. Much needs to be done for thwarting the xenophobic schema. Opinion leaders and politicians in Germany are hardly doing their job in this regard.

by Madeleine Bunting, The Guardian, UK - What makes the debate across Europe so complex is that every country's model of secularism has its own idiosyncrasies. The headscarf ban in Turkey or France seems an astonishing infringement of personal freedom to the British, while the interventionist measures both have taken to regulate Islamic teaching and mosques is regarded by British authorities with a degree of envy (it might make it easier to deal with Islamic extremism) and a historic distaste for getting involved in matters of religious doctrine.

by Geraldine A. Ferraro, New York Times, USA - AS the race for the Democratic presidential nomination nears its end and attention turns to the role of so-called superdelegates in choosing the nominee, it is instructive to look at why my party created this class of delegates.

by Juliette Terzieff, World Politics Review, USA - Despite international anger and pressure to reform in the wake of the regime's October 2007 violent crackdown on demonstrations led by Burma's monks, the ruling junta has largely continued with business as usual - denying basic human rights to Burmese citizens. Several countries, including China, Russia and India, continue to sell military equipment and arms to the regime.

by Sarah Hampson, The Globe and Mail, Canada - “I'm just trying to explore the world, to understand the world,” he says. “I love conveying surprises. … I am not political.”

by Inga Sikorskaya, IWPR, Kyrgyzstan - In the latest mass release of prisoners in Turkmenistan, no political prisoners of note were freed. Lawyers and human rights activists say this will not happen until the authorities change repressive legislation on treason, which automatically rules out the possibility of amnesty.

by Rüdiger Falksohn and Renate Flottau, Der Spiegel, Germany - Europe's youngest nation already has problems. Violent Serbs in Belgrade are protesting Kosovo's independence, and the Serbian government has demanded €220 billion in damages. Can the little state last?

by Francesca Mereu, The Moscow Times, Russia - The Kremlin didn't need to lift a finger this time. "What's the best way to show the next president that you love him? In this election the answer is to guarantee him a good turnout so that Medvedev becomes Russia's legitimate president in everyone's eyes," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of fear of reprisal.

by Bouthaina Shaaban, The Daily Star, Lebanon - First, I ask the US presidential candidate, Senator Barack Obama, to excuse me as I borrow the theme of his election campaign, "change," for my article. I did that because I believe that the change suggested by Obama is essential, not only for the US but for the entire human family. Definitely, however, the "change" I mean in this article is not the same "change" of Obama.

by Ellen Snortland, Pasadena Weekly, In "Lysistrata," the ancient Greek comedy by Aristophanes, women demand peace by withholding sex until their husbands agree to stop the Peloponnesian war. In the modern era, many of us - women and men alike - demand that women have an equal place in decisions to wage war or peace, historically moving from bedroom "girlcott" to calling the shots, literally. Alas, we are far away from achieving control over matters of war or peace in the halls of power.

by Abra Pollack, Inter Press Service News Agency, USA - According to the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, vitamin and mineral deficiencies each year cause one million children to die before the age of five and 100,000 infants to be born with preventable physical defects.

Other recent studies at several U.S. universities link poor nutrition and the stress of poverty among infants and toddlers with impairment in the brain's development, including deficiencies in memory and language abilities, reported the Financial Times this week.

by Jessica Yadegaran, Contra Costa Times, USA - The last time Jehan Sadat spoke in the East Bay, she shared a poem translated from her native Arabic. It was about love, and brought some audience members to tears. Next week, as the keynote speaker of the East Bay Women's Conference, Egypt's former first lady will speak about courage and vision as key principles to bring about world peace.