by Anjali Kamat, The Hindu, India - Vicious battles rage between thugs unleashed by the government and pro-democracy activists.

by Farangis Najibullah, Daisy Sindelar, Radio Free Europe, Czech Republic - In countries like Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan, people are now looking at their own autocratic leaders -- most already in power for decades -- and wondering if they might fall to the same fate as Egypt's Hosni Mubarak.

by Lara Stemple, Next, Nigeria - For many of the same reasons that combatants rape women and girls, they also rape men and boys.

by Zoe Wood and Julia Kollewe, Guardian, UK - UN food price index up 3.4% from December, the highest level since the organisation started measuring food prices in 1990.

by Meghan O'Rourke, Slate, USA - A new tally shows how few female writers appear in magazines.

by Marjorie Cohn, Media With Conscience, Canada - “The largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid after Israel,” Mayer writes, “Egypt was a key strategic ally, and its secret police force, the Mukhabarat, had a reputation for brutality.”

by Lydia Cacho, Eurozine, Austria - International recognition offers a degree of protection to investigative reporters. But being in the limelight presents a new set of dilemmas.

by Beyza Unal, Today’s Zaman, Turkey - Today, what we have seen in states like Tunisia, Yemen, Egypt, Morocco, and Jordan have at least one tenet in common: The people are asking for diminishing inequalities on the basis of the societal level, a decrease in corruption of the state and a wider distribution of income to society as a whole. Unlike in the traditional view, social media has become an influential trigger of these revolts. Moreover, these revolts should be analyzed from a societal level and not from a state level of understanding.

by Maddie Lakos, the angle.org, Australia - Queenslanders have already lost homes and livelihoods to floodwaters, now they could be faced with huge impacts to biodiversity in beautiful Moreton Bay.Huge amounts of debris and sediment are present at flood plumes across the Queensland coast, threatening species and industries alike.

by Nishika Patel, Guardian, United Kingdom - The global economic fallout and mounting concern with sustainable growth and climate change has spawned a new breed of ethical investors. They are urging companies to report on the environmental and social costs of their operations and improve corporate governance. "One of the root causes of the global economic crisis was a lack of transparency, investor greed and poor corporate governance … How companies report, how they tell us about the risk in their company both financial and non-financial is the solution," said Jane Diplock, chairwoman of the International Organisation of Securities Commissions, speaking at the Responsible Investment conference in Mumbai in January.

by Shahina KK, Tehelka, India - Permanent sterilisation is keenly promoted by health workers but not temporary birth control measures.

by Frances Robles, Miami Herald, USA - Why is desperately needed aid log-jammed at customs? Some say it's because you have to grease the right palms to get it through.

by Nina Larson, The Local, Sweden - Five years after a Danish newspaper first published controversial cartoons of the Muslim prophet, targets in Scandinavia are increasingly in the crosshairs of would-be terrorist attackers.

by Caroline B. Glick, Jerusalem Post, Israel - Does the US fail to understand what will happen to its strategic interests in the region if the Muslim Brotherhood is the power behind the throne of the next regime?

by Catherine Riungu, East African, Kenya - Rwanda has implemented an aggressive programme aimed at halting the effects of climate change, including preserving wetlands and forests as well as a countrywide tree-planting programme.

by Marcia Alesan Dawkins, Truthdig, USA - Apparently, in Ohio, public education is no longer a right—it is now a form of private property that can be stolen.

by Megan Williams, Deutsche Welle, Germany - Italian journalists have to face both official and private pressure as they try to do their job. Most Italians don't seem to care.

by Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!, USA - "We are calling for justice, freedom and equality, and real democracy and a new constitution, no discrimination between men and women, no discrimination between Muslims and Christians, to change the system... and to have a real democracy."

by Florence Villeminot, France 24, France - A lesbian couple’s ten-year legal battle looks set to continue after France's Constitutional Council upheld the country's ban on homosexual marriage Friday.

by Mariam Mokhtar, Asia Sentinel, Hong Kong - In a country where Malay/Muslim children can be married off by the state once they reach puberty, the greater evil is the undercurrent of little-known but ugly acts committed against children, and that sex offenders largely get off lightly, with the courts denying the children any form of justice.