by Estrella Torres, Business Mirror, Philippines - While the rich economies in Europe, the Middle East and Americas address illegal migration as part of border security, preventing terrorist activities and securing jobs for their nationals, countries of origin of millions of undocumented workers from Asia to Africa view the problem as a way of survival for their impoverished nationals.

by Nadia Abou el Magd, The National, Abu Dhabi - “A wife has the legitimate right to hit her husband in order to defend herself,” the independent daily Al Masry Al Youm quoted Sheikh Atrash as saying on Monday. “Everyone has the right to defend themselves, whether they are a man or a woman … because all human beings are equal before God.”

by Stephanie Nolen, Globe and Mail, Canada - Unregulated trade in Congolese mineral wealth keeps warlords in business fighting a civil war and has made the remnants of Rwanda's genocide squads richer than they've ever been

by Jeanne Carstensen, Salon, USA - The Church of Latter-day Saints has pumped millions into Proposition 8 to ban gay marriage. But for one devout family, the politics are personal.

by Nataliya Bugayova, Kyiv Post, Ukraine - “Stench, unsanitary conditions, lack of fresh air and daylight, concrete floors … Every second cell doesn’t have individual sleeping places — inmates (including women) are forced to take turns sleeping on a bed,” Karpacheva said. “Despite the established limit of 82 people, the facility hosts 112 people every day on average.” She also said 10 percent of inmates in a survey had been detained for more than 10 days, beyond the limits set by Ukrainian law for pre-detention confinement.

by Patricia Khashayar, MD., Press TV, Iran - Bretton Wood's thinking has totally failed the poor of the world and where the executing institutions need abolishing and replacing with ones that in the future have successful outcomes. This is where a new system should be created and totally focused on social relief and justice, not pandering to the calls of the profit driven private sector capitalist market that permeates the present world.

by Mable F. Yee, Women's Media Center, USA - How come no one ever hears about the Asian American women and other women of color who happen to number over 30 million citizens in the United States today? Perhaps it’s the startling revelation that in the 2004 elections 47 percent of Asian American , 40 percent of Latinas and 28 percent of African American women who were U.S. citizens did not register and failed to turn out to vote.

by Rime Allaf, The Daily Star, Lebanon - The empowerment of civil society is indeed an existential issue, but the pursuit of democracy as understood by George W. Bush is not - neither the democracy that is peddled by American (and European) governments nor the democracy that Arab dictators claim is not what their people want. Social equality is the existential issue of concern and it automatically demands a drastic application of justice with no exceptions.

by Chioma Oruh, Black Agenda Report, USA - Africom now casts a shadow over the last continent for which the U.S. had no designated "command" structure, and Northcom, with responsibilities over the domestic U.S., is a nightmare for those who fear repressive "martial law" in America.

by Megan Rowling, Reuters, UK - In Honduras - the worst-hit country, where at least 24 deaths have been reported and around 130,000 people affected - President Manuel Zelaya has declared a national state of emergency and requested international aid. He has warned of a major disaster as rivers burst their banks.

by Josette Sheeran, The Jordan Times, Jordan - Time is running out for Somalia. As many as three million people - one-third of the country - live under threat of starvation. Their lifeline is the sea, from which food, medical supplies, and other aid arrives. And there lies the problem.

by Rajeshree Sisodia, New Statesman, UK - Imperial green jade is unique to Burma - and jewellery made from it can sell for millions of dollars on the international market. But the country’s mining industry is built on suffering: forced and child labour, land confiscation, drug abuse, sexual exploitation and environmental damage - all of which, according to pro-democracy campaigners, have scarred the trade.

by Deborah Bonello, La Plaza, Mexico - Lilia Alejandra is one of the 370 women who have disappeared in Mexico's Chihuahua state since 1993. Her story is the main focus of Bajo Juárez, a documentary film that was five years in the making and that opened here in Mexico this weekend.

by Antoaneta Bezlova, Asia Times, China - Despite Beijing's history of sound relations with Republican presidents from the United States, recent polls shows popular opinion is bucking the trend, with "hip and unconventional" Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama an "overwhelming hit" with ordinary Chinese.

by Brigitte Weidlich, The Namibian, Namibia - African communities are gathering to take up the fight against international companies which are mining uranium on their land and their own governments, as they are driven off their land, suffer exposure to radiation and toxic waste at mining sites, a seminar on uranium mining was informed.

by Caroline Glick, Jerusalem Post, Israel - Ahmadinejad has many eager apologists who would spare no effort to find reasons and justifications for their claims that all the vile ranting and the genocidal threats against Israel don't mean a thing, or are just due to misunderstandings and mistranslations - but for some strange reason it is usually these very same people who insist that Ahmadinejad and the theocrats in Teheran must be believed when they say that their nuclear ambitions are purely peaceful.

by Brahima Ouédraogo, Inter Press Service, Italy - None of the 16 nations of West Africa will achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) of reducing child mortality or improving maternal health without serious efforts to improve their health care systems, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

by Sana Abdallah, Middle East Times, USA - In an unprecedented military assault since the American-led invasion of Iraq more than five years ago, U.S. forces have apparently launched a cross-border attack into Syrian territory that killed eight people, largely seen in the region as a parting shot by the outgoing U.S. George W. Bush administration against Damascus.

by Anahit Hayrapetyan, EurasiaNet, USA - The Moonies have done it; the United Arab Emirates have done it. And, now, in a bid to boost its population, so has the separatist territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, with the wedding of 700 couples on October 16.

by Neha Dixit, Tehelka, India - Geeta, Priyanka and Parul were 12, 9 and 7 respectively when they were sent to work at the house of Manish and Ritu Gupta in Faridabad, Haryana, in January 2006. Priyanka and Parul would wash the clothes and manage the household cleaning (which included scrubbing the washrooms barehanded with acid), and Geeta would do the kitchen work. By the girls’ account, punishment in the Gupta household for slip-ups at work was nothing if not sadistic. Being locked into a wet bathroom on winter nights was perhaps the mildest. Beatings with dumbbells and cricket bats were common; the children would be gagged so their screams would not be heard. “When we did not finish our work on time,” says Parul, “Madam (Ritu Gupta) would throw our food into the commode from where we picked it up to eat.” During the two years the children worked for the Guptas, they neither got any money nor were they allowed to visit their homes. Says Geeta, “I was desperate to call my parents, and I once became adamant about it. She (Ritu Gupta) snatched the paper on which I had the number, put chillies in my eyes and tied me naked to the kitchen door. She did not give me food for the next five or six days.”

by Charlene Sharpe-Pryce, Jamaica Gleaner, Jamaica - The 'Obamalisation' being witnessed in the world is unprecedented and could represent the political and social change that was anticipated, but never realised, crossing into the 21st century. Enthusiasm abroad about Obama could represent the new lens through which to view the world today in terms of race relations, economic models of development and foreign policy and diplomacy.

by Lucinda Marshall, AlterNet, USA - While the media sound alarms about breast cancer's links to lifestyle choices and genetics, a much more likely risk factor is going undiscussed.

by Peta Thornycroft, Telegraph, UK - Bensen Mambo, a 40-year-old accountant, roamed the corridors of Harare's biggest hospital, occasionally stopping, moaning quietly, and waving his hands in the air when his dilemma became too much to bear.

by Jennifer Robinson, Inside Indonesia, Indonesia - Papuans continue to be intimidated and arrested for expressing their political views and for taking part in peaceful protests.