by Erna Mackic and Merima Husejnovic, Balkan Insight, Bosnia-Herzegovina - Nineteen-year-old Milan Vilotic from Bratunac said he does not care what ethnic group his peers belong to. He and his friends, who are members of the Odisej NGO, promote the process of facing up to the past.

by Coeli Carr, Time, USA - Sharon Rowe knew her fledgling business had struck a chord when she sold 3,000 string bags at five bucks apiece in four hours flat during an Earth Day celebration.

by Yulia Latynina, The Moscow Times, Russia - In democracies, there are certain things that should never be bargained away or swept under the carpet. Murder is one of them.

by Marifeli Perez-Stable, Miami Herald, USA - Great powers have rarely tempered their actions out of respect for their weaker neighbors. U.S.-Mexican relations are a case in point. By 1850, Mexico had lost half of its territory to U.S. expansionism, a loss that suffused Mexican political culture with a mistrust of the United States that lingers still.

by Nancy Mburu, The Standard, Kenya - Ethnicity is a complex factor in our lives. We pass ourselves off as a single nation but are still trapped in the castles of our tribes.

by Bouthaina Shaaban, The Daily Star, Lebanon - As a point of principle no country in the world has the moral authority to classify people, movements or countries and impose on the international will a way of dealing with people, movements and countries.

by Beena Sarwar, The International News, Pakistan - When the Ghanshyams were hounded out of the country during the Zia regime in 1983, [Sheema] was away in India doing a second year-long dance apprenticeship. Vigilantes began attacking the rented residence which doubled as their dance institute, smashing windows and spray painting graffiti on the gate threatening 'Islamic punishment' to anyone coming there to sing and dance.

by Mercedes Sayagues, Reuters AlertNet, UK - Swaziland has "circumcision Saturdays", for the convenience of the working man who does not want to miss work. Last year, teams of Israeli surgeons toured the tiny kingdom showing doctors how to snip foreskins nice and easy, fast and clean. Kenya, Rwanda and Zambia are rolling out male circumcision programmes and men are queuing at the clinics.

by Judy Siegel-Itzkovich, Jerusalem Post, Israel - Could it be that after all of Israel's wars and the hundreds of thousands of citizens who have worn the Israel Defense Forces uniform, nobody has thought about the need to smooth the psychological transition from military service to civilian life?

by Lillian B. Rubin, Dissent, USA - Until recently, my husband and I had been seeing one of those “Oh-I’m-so-glad-he’s-my-doctor” physicians for two decades.

by Robyn Blumner, Courant, USA - The list of allegations against the Postville, Iowa, slaughterhouse, recently raided by federal officials for its use of illegal immigrant workers, reads like a story collectively written by Upton Sinclair, Charles Dickens and Harriet Beecher Stowe.

by Laura Miti, Daily Dispatch, South Africa - Everyone seems to want a Mandela to appear on their horizon and lead his people from the brink (or depth) of anarchy.

by Carol Jenkins, Christian Science Monitor, USA - It's up to women and editors to create a better gender balance.

by Sudha Ramachandran, Asia Times, China - Gripped by civil war for over two decades, Sri Lanka is fast becoming a battleground for the two Asian giants - India and China.

by Beena Sarwar, Inter Press Service, Italy - Some 7,000 death row inmates -- a quarter of the estimated condemned prisoners worldwide -- are expected to be spared and eventually freed following a call by Pakistan’s prime minister to honour the memory of the assassinated political leader Benazir Bhutto.

by Pilirani Semu-Banda, The Daily Times, Malawi - Agnes Boti struggles to bend down as she attempts to replant maize seeds in her garden. Her crop, which was supposed to be food for her family for this whole year, was washed away in February by floods that ravaged Malawi’s Southern Region.

by Sara Darehshori, Los Angeles Times, USA - An ICC indictment of Sudan's president serves peace and justice.

by Raenette Taljaard, The Times, South Africa - It will only be a matter of time before clear parallels are drawn between the inaction of the Organisation of African Unity years and the absence of clear, decisive, principled action by the new AU structures.

by Sunisa Nardone, Bangkok Post, Thailand - Opium is a crop often grown in areas where there are conflicts because it doesn't require much space to grow, and the dark, tar-like substance that is produced is small in bulk and easily transported by pack animals.

by Katrin Bennhold, International Herald Tribune, France - Some of the students at the elite French military academy Saint-Cyr were displeased when they learned that President Bashar al-Assad of Syria would be one of the guests of honor Monday at the Bastille Day parade: A Syrian ally, Hezbollah, was responsible for an attack in Lebanon in 1983 in which 58 French soldiers were killed.

by Nava Thakuria, Asia Sentinel, China - As devastating Cyclone Nargis was, which struck southern Burma two months ago, it may well be less disastrous than the country’s military regime, which continues to ignore the urgent needs of its own people.

by Soma Basu, Inter Press Service, Italy - Ponni, 27, lay quiet on a missionary hospital bed in this small town, groggy from the anaesthetic administered to her for a caesarean delivery a couple of hours earlier.

by Carole Vann, Human Rights Tribune,Switzerland - Iran authorizes the execution of delinquent minors in the name of Islam, contrary to international law. The President of the International Association of Youth and Family Judges and a judge at the Special Court for Sierra Leone, Renate Winter, shares her experience with Iran’s judicial system.

by Marcela Sanchez, Washington Post, USA - Now is the time for Colombia and its partner, the U.S., to reconsider the present anti-drug strategy.

by Coco McCabe, Reuters AlertNet, UK - Justine Masika had long been interested in the well-being of poor rural women in the eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo when, in 1996, they began to come to her with reports of a new kind of horror.

by Julie Creswell, The New York Times, USA - As the Bush administration scrambles to address the sudden decline of the country’s two largest mortgage finance companies, some of their longtime critics say the crisis has been building for years.