by Amy Goodman, truthdig, USA - Military psychologists insisted that they help make interrogations safe, ethical and legal, and cited instances where psychologists allegedly intervened to stop abuse. “If we remove psychologists from these facilities, people are going to die!” boomed Col. Larry James of the U.S. Army, chief psychologist at Guantanamo Bay and a member of the APA governing body. Dr. Laurie Wagner, a Dallas psychologist, shot back, “If psychologists have to be there in order to keep detainees from being killed, then those conditions are so horrendous that the only moral and ethical thing to do is to protest by leaving.”

by Elizabeth O’Donnell, Le Monde diplomatique, France - Every morning Salma runs her hand across her empty belly. It has been the same fruitless swipe for three years now and Salma’s heartache has filled the space inside with misery.

by Elizabeth Farrelly, Orion Magazine, USA - We all do it. It is impossible to imagine, as you wander the halls of the latest gargantuan Westfield or Wal-Mart, that all this stuff—endless supplies of wine thermometers and shower radios, in-car phone sets and TV screens wider than your bed—is necessary, or even genuinely desired. Who could possibly buy it all?

by Seema Sirohi, Outlook India, India - Colonised and brutalised for centuries by western powers, crushed by the uniquely inhuman system of apartheid, Africa now wants to make its own decisions. It wants to find partners, not masters, and develop with dignity. Ardently wooed, the continent's 54 countries are being pulled in all directions by suitors, big and bigger, hungry for oil, ravenous for copper and greedy for gold.

by Jenny Pearce, openDemocracy, UK - The Farc is indisputably an enemy of peace and democracy in Colombia. This does not mean that (as the Economist leading article maintains) it is a criminal organisation. Indeed, even the familiar, reductive epithet of "terrorist" - a term which President Uribe has systematically promulgated in order to insert Colombia into the global "war on terror" in order to win the military aid and economic support he needs to crush the Farc - is not straightforward.

by Laura Shapiro, Slate, USA - She's obsessed with the other Shakespeare—Ann (or Anne, or maybe Agnes) Hathaway (or Hathwey, possibly Gardner), who married William sometime around the end of November 1582. She was 26, he was 18. She was three months pregnant with the first of their three children. And that's pretty much all we know.

by Maya Schenwar, truthout, USA - Fifteen percent of US military personnel are women. According to a 2003 Department of Defense (DOD) study, almost one-third of female veterans seeking Department of Veterans' Affairs care reported rape or attempted rape during their period of service. Fourteen percent reported being gang raped. Thirty-seven percent of those reporting rape cited more than one incident. Those numbers may not come as a surprise: They have flashed across network TV broadcasts and the pages of major newspapers over the past few months. Yet, they don't tell the whole truth.

by Kathleen Moore, Radio Free Europe, Czech Republic - Skyrocketing food prices have sparked protests around the world, as well as riots in places like Egypt. The World Bank says wheat prices have doubled since 2000. Since January this year alone, rice prices have shot up 20 percent.

by Ulrike Putz, Spiegel International, Germany - Local elections in Egypt saw a poor turnout Tuesday after the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood called for a boycott. The vote is taking place against a background of anger and demonstrations over rising food prices.

by Lei Feng and Catherine Jiang, Asia Sentinel, China - At least for China’s readers and viewers, the torch’s journey across the west is singularly placid. China’s promise of unfettered media coverage for the Olympics is a shaky work in progress

by Susan Njanji, Mail &Guardian Online, South Africa - Zimbabwe's opposition slammed the "deafening silence" on Tuesday of Africa in the aftermath of the country's elections, warning of blood on the streets unless pressure is brought to bear on Robert Mugabe.

by Chloe Arnold, Radio Free Europe, Czech Republic - Five years ago, she was the talk of the Russian publishing world: a sassy young reporter unafraid of spilling the beans about what really goes on behind the walls of the Kremlin. Today, Yelena Tregubova lives in a secret location in the United Kingdom, where she fled after her writing made her many new enemies.

by Kim Gamel and Bushra Juhi, AP, Iraq - It was another deadly explosion quickly forgotten by the outside world. But Aug. 1, 2007, changed the life of 28-year-old Maysa Sharif. It was the day she became one of nearly a million Iraqi women who have lost husbands as the country has suffered through three wars and Saddam Hussein's murderous regime.

by Diana Saenger, Review Express, USA - Her new movie, Stop-Loss, written by Peirce and Mark Richard, is a drama about soldiers expecting to get out of the service only to find their contracts have been extended. Originally thought of as a drama, it turned into more of a war picture after Peirce's 18-year-old brother enlisted in the Army in response to 9/11.

by Emily Bell, The Guardian, UK - In the past week Labour once again touched on the idea of redistributing the BBC's considerable wealth, and the Tories suggested that if they were to win the next election they would scrap the impartiality requirements for some commercial news services.

by Patricia Grogg, IPS News Agency, Italy - The wall of prohibitions that has marked Cuban life for years has begun to crumble, with the lifting of the bans on Cubans staying in upscale tourist hotels and buying mobile phones and computers. The obstacle now is the same one faced by a majority of people in any developing country: money, or lack thereof.

by Queen Rania Al Abdullah, The Daily News, Egypt - Ayman is a soft-spoken 14-year-old boy in Jabalia City, Gaza. His family is poor, and his parents have already sold almost all their furniture to pay for food and schooling for their children. Recently, after collecting a government food handout, Ayman’s father, who has been unemployed since March 2006, had to sell the milk to pay for the journey back home.