by Joan Baxter, Pambazuka News, Kenya - The list doesn’t include men like Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, who controls a stash worth ‘tens of billions’ that he managed to launder over the years using Swiss banks. Nor does it include Egypt’s former ruler, Hosni Mubarak, whose fortune is being estimated – now that he is deposed and no longer being coddled (and financed) by his Western friends – in the tens of billions.

by Bassma Al Jandaly, Gulf News, UAE - A tiny, filthy, badly ventilated room with dirty mattresses on the floor is the last place those infected with contagious diseases will see before they are deported. Rubbish litters the small room, where two cell-like compartments hold men and women.

by Eden Yohannes, Ezega, Ethiopia - The African women's decade, as planned, should be the decade of opportunity for African women through the practical, moral and legal realization of a Grassroots Approach to Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment that ought to set the stage for enhanced peace, security and equality of opportunity for women everywhere in the decades ahead.

by Saya Kitasei, Revolt, USA - A hybrid system could look like an emissions trading system with a pre-determined number of emissions allowances, but with an ability to purchase additional allowances at a set price (an effective upper limit on the carbon price).

by Mya Guarnieri, Al Jazeera, Israel - It was Egypt that got me thinking about the Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) movement in a serious way. I was already conducting a quiet targeted boycott of settlement goods - silently reading labels at the grocery store to make sure I was not buying anything that came from over the Green Line.

I had been doing this for a long time. But, at some point, I realised that my private targeted boycott was a bit naïve. And I understood that it was not enough.

by Amy Goodman, Guardian, UK - On 28 March, the US supreme court refused to hear the death penalty case of Troy Anthony Davis. It was his last appeal. Davis has been on Georgia's death row for close to 20 years, after being convicted of shooting dead off-duty police officer Mark MacPhail in Savannah. Since his conviction, seven of the nine non-police witnesses have recanted their testimony, alleging police coercion and intimidation in obtaining the testimony. Despite the doubt surrounding his case, Troy Anthony Davis could be put to death within weeks.

by Olivia Ward, Toronto Star, Canada - As Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi vows to evacuate 6,200 refugees fleeing North African turmoil from the island of Lampedusa, hundreds more are headed for its shores in rickety boats. Meanwhile, refugee camps on the borders of Tunisia and Egypt house thousands of destitute migrants who fear violence in Libya. And millions of Iraqis and Afghans are still homeless after years in exile from continuing conflicts.

by Malalai Joya, Guardian, UK - These disgusting photos of murdered Afghans reveal the aggression and racism underpinning the occupation of my country.

by Fatma Disli Zibak, Today's Zaman, Turkey - Many circles say it is high time for Turkey to elect headscarf-wearing deputies as representatives for the 60 percent of Turkish women who wear such attire.

by Karen J. Greenberg, Tom Dispatch, USA - In the name of putting political correctness in its grave, a surprisingly sizeable contingent of politicians, judges, and other influential figures are now calling for transforming draconian behavior -- that once would have made Americans blanche -- into the order of the day.

by Rafia Zakaria, Dawn, Pakistan - If we can make cricket our own, and vindicate ourselves by excelling against teams representing places where it was invented, we can also perhaps adopt an attitude towards colonialism and the West that is drastically more productive and radically less self-sabotaging.

by Mufuliat Fijabi, Next, Nigeria - Indirectly, the government’s social welfare packages respond to cases that are aftermaths of domestic violence. In the process, a lot of human and material resources are committed.

by Monica Mark, Time, USA - "Ivory Coast isn't considered strategically important enough on the global stage — it is not a Libya, so to speak," one Western diplomat points out. "And that, quite simply, is why it hasn't got the attention it deserves from the international community."

by Olivia Chung, Asia Times, Hong Kong - The nation's demand for coal, which produces carbon a lot when burned, is expected to total 2.9 billion tons this year, 3.5 billion tons in 2015 and 3.8 billion tons in 2030, according to the China National Coal Association, though the IEA and US Energy Information Administration estimate China's 2025 coal consumption at 4.7 billion and 4.6 billion tons, respectively.

by Astrid Zweynert, Trustlaw Reuters, UK - What many sex workers want more than anything is to have their work decriminalised. In India, selling sex is not illegal but activities around sex work, such as soliciting or running a brothel, are punishable with fines and even imprisonment.

by Catherine Wilson, Asia Sentinel, Hong Kong - Cambodia remains littered with millions of unexploded devices left over from 30 years of civil war, the brutality of the Khmer Rouge and conflict with Vietnam.

by Christine Mungai, East African, Kenya - “Are there no human beings in Somalia similar to the ones in Benghazi? Or is it because Somalia does not have oil that is not fully controlled by western companies on account of Gaddafi’s nationalist posture?”

by Frida Ghitis, Miami Herald, USA - The nuclear disaster in Japan only makes what happens in the Middle East more critical, because it highlights how unprepared the world is to withstand shocks to the oil supply.

by Dialika Krahe, Spiegel, Germany - Like many Nepalese girls from poor families, Urmila Chaudhary was sold into bonded labor until she liberated herself. Now 20, she works with a team of former victims, traveling throughout Nepal to free other girls from the clutches of their unrepentant masters.

by Angelique Chrisafis, The Guardian, UK - France's bitterly divisive debate on Muslim women's clothing took a new turn when the legal details of the controversial "burqa ban" were published in a decree by the prime minister. From 11 April women will be banned from wearing the niqab – full-face Muslim veil – in any public place, including while walking down the street, taking a bus, at a bank, library or shop, or in a cinema or theatre.

by Sue Turton, Al Jazeera, Qatar - Doctors in city of Ajdabiya say pro-Gaddafi forces have used rape as a "weapon of war".

by Amanda Mcrae, EUobserver, Belgium - On 7 March, after vociferous domestic opposition and the intervention of European Union institutions, the Hungarian parliament amended a controversial and restrictive media law that would have severely curtailed free speech.

by Suzan Fraser, Arab News, Saudi Arabia - Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has welcomed the cries for change that have swept the Middle East, but protesters say he is ignoring similar calls from his country’s Kurdish minority.

by Marcela Valente, IPS, Italy - The nuclear disaster in Japan has revived the debate in Latin America on the pros and cons of expanding the use of nuclear energy. While both Argentina and Brazil, which had put the greatest emphasis on nuclear power, plan to continue down that road, other countries have put plans and unfinished projects on hold.