by Joan Dawson, RH Reality Check, USA - When do reproductive rights end? Do they end at birth? Do they continue throughout a child’s life? Do reproductive rights extend to parental rights?

by Julie Packard, Huffington Post, USA - Can we muster the will to save endangered species that aren't cute and cuddly?

by Sanitsuda Ekachai, Bangkok Post, Thailand - The first Makha Bucha occurred on the full-moon day of the third lunar month, nine months after the Buddha's enlightenment. This year, it falls on Feb 28, the day when the government ends its reprieve for those who desperately need help - the migrant workers who fled harsh poverty and violent persecution in Burma.

by Stacy Smith, Huffington Post, USA - Studies show that the ways characters talk, look, and relate to other characters are different when one or more females are directing, writing, or producing properties for TV/film.

by Layla Anwar, An Arab Woman Blues, Middle East - While quite a bit of a fuss was raised regarding the kidnapping, smuggling and trafficking of Haitian children and rightly so, the same can't be said about the fate of Iraqi children.

by Audrey Bilger, Huffington Post, USA - The marriage equality debate is not just about gays and lesbians; it's about the freedom of everyone to set the terms of their own life.

by Ruxandra Guidi, Americas Quarterly, USA - The Coca-Cola Company must not be happy about this: a new soft drink is hoping to someday make its way into the American market, and what's worse, it basically has the same name, except for an extra “l.”

by Sarah Glazer, She Writes, USA - If you’ve read that feminist classic, “The Second Sex,” in English, you’ve been reading a faulty translation that distorted Simone de Beauvoir’s message.

by Nomi Prins, Huffington Post, USA - The question is, would the massive bailout of the financial sector have occurred, had women been at its helm?

by Paula Crossfield, Civil Eats, USA - What would you say if I told you that one company is making decisions about what you eat?

by Kate Harding, Broadsheet, USA - A blogger finds success after pulling a Bronte and publishing under a male pseudonym.

by Michelle Chen, Race Wire, USA - Across the artificially imposed borders of this hemisphere, indigenous communities came together in April to demand that the Obama administration take on an American Declaration of indigenous people's rights.

by Emilie Johnson, Emilie Johnson, France - "I promised my family I would come back for them, that I would take them with me. I have no contact with them. Imagine that, if you lost your family."

by Jess Worth, New Internationalist Blog, UK - Last year, the NI got involved with the campaign to save the Yasuní rainforest - a remarkably biodiverse area of the pristine Ecuadorian Amazon that is perilously perched atop 850 million barrels of oil. One year on, the Ecuadorian Government's plan has taken a more tangible form. In October I met Yolanda Kakabadse, a warm and friendly woman who is a member of the Presidential Commission on Yasuní, to try to get some answers.

by Zoe Cormier, New Internationalist Blog, UK - In an unfortunate coincidence of fate, at the precise time when we most crucially need media outlets to responsibly and accurately report on the science of climate change, they are far less likely to do so. As mainstream media outlets across the US have made cutbacks, dedicated and experienced science reporters - the very people who could capably report on climate change - are among the first in the firing line.

by Juliette Terzieff, World Politics Review Blog, USA - Press freedom advocates are condemning a decision by an Azerbaijani court on Wednesday to convict two bloggers on charges of hooliganism and causing bodily harm, in a case widely viewed as political retribution.

by Belen Fernandez, Pulse, USA - A Time magazine article of 24 October entitled "Honduran Tourism: Selling Against a Coup" explains that the post-coup decrease

by Juhie Bhatia, Global Voices, USA - Golden-yellow Kami made her debut on the South African Sesame Street co-production, called Takalani Sesame, in 2002 in response to the country's HIV/AIDS problem. The world's first HIV-positive Muppet, she helps educate kids about the disease and confronts issues related to being HIV-positive. The name Kami is derived from the Setswana word “Kamogelo,” meaning “acceptance.”

by Susan Richards, OpenDemocracy, UK - Why is Russia resisting international help with its spiralling drugs problem? While the Kremlin's rhetoric reveals a profound insecurity, its policies are failing to deal effectively with the situation.

by Sarah van Gelder, Yes!, USA - Some say it was Ronald Reagan's toughness that forced down the wall. But detente between East and West and grassroots people's movements deserve the credit.

by Sulakshana Gupta, New Internationalist Blog, UK - In Sierra Leone, financial inducements are helping to put a stop to female circumcision. Part II of a 2-part series.

by Nomi Prins, The Daily Beast, USA - President Obama would do well to heed the notion of being true to Main Street economic conditions, rather than risk losing the next election by overlooking them.

by Kari Lydersen, Working In These Times, USA - Native American lands in the west – from the Dakotas to Arizona – are sometimes referred to as the Saudi Arabia of solar and wind potential. Some Native American groups have been vocal proponents of developing wind and solar resources on tribal land, both for local use and export to the grid.

by Sudeshna Sarkar, Trak.in, India - Concerned at the spurt in the smuggling of rare animal organs and skins to China and India via Nepal, the coalition government of Nepal is pressing China to sign an agreement in a bid to jointly man the common border and curb the menace. China, which farms tigers for commercial use, is also the world’s biggest consumer of tiger organs, which are believed by the Chinese to have medicinal and aphrodisiac powers.

by Sokari Ekine, New Internationalist Blog, UK - The story of the shack dwellers' struggle dates back to the pre-apartheid period, when there was a policy to remove the urban informal settlements from city centres to allow for gentrification of the areas.

by Sokari Ekine, The New Internationalist Blog, UK - Workers in the DRC are being exploited in the mining of cassiterite, a vital component in laptops and mobile phones.

by Abby McDonald, Abby McDonald, USA - Rape, the myth goes, is something Other. It is separate, and dramatic, and above all, perpetuated by men we don’t know.

by Angela Castellanos, RH Reality Check, USA - Over the last 15 months, 16 Mexican states have approved constitutional reforms defining personhood as beginning at the moment of conception, which means that all civil rights have to be protected, including the right to life, and that, consequently, the legal termination of pregnancies will not be allowed.

by Marcia Yerman, Empowher, USA - With First Lady Michelle Obama leading the charge to put the struggle for work/life balance front and center, the issue is finally getting top-level attention.

by Yifat Susskind, RH Reality Check, USA - There's no need to airdrop women's rights programs into poor and embattled communities. It makes a lot more sense to team up with the women who are already doing that work and provide the resources and training that they say is useful to effect the change they need.

by Shawna Vercher, Huffington Post, USA - I am sad for my fellow Democrats today as they lose an icon and a leader. But I have been mourning them from the sidelines for weeks as I see so many of them apparently lose their spines.

by Diane Francis, Huffington Post, USA - The Three Amigos Summit which just ended -- U.S., Canada and Mexico -- is the private gathering of North America's dysfunctional family. The level of good will and cooperation has been incredible, but border problems are growing, not abating.

by Frida Berrigan, Tom Dispatch, USA - Sixty-four years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we need more than symbols of peace.

by Yvonne Liu, RaceWire, USA - The green jobs act establishes a Navajo Green Economy Commission and Fund, which can apply for federal and local funds to create green jobs for Navajo youth, as well as sponsor small-scale, green developments that will help to provide needed services to the community.

by Mariana Llamas-Cendon, Latina Lista, USA - The city of Manzanillo, the main tourist destination of the Mexican state of Colima, houses a very unusual attraction. Something a visitor or a resident would never expect to see in a beach resort -- The Museum of Perversity: A Historic Look at Human Rights.

by Waltraud Schwab, signandsight.com, Germany - Alham Abrahimnejad is a women's rights activist who fled Iran two years ago and now lives in Berlin. She talks about being unable to work or live fully, similar to the limitations she faced in Iran.

by Mona Eltahawy, Pak Tea House, Egypt - I am a Muslim, I am a feminist and I detest the full-body veil.

by Mercedes Sayagues, Gender Masala, Italy - Worldwide, women earn less than men. The gender pay gap ranges from three per cent in Malta to 51 percent in Georgia, with a world average of 17 percent, and the gap is higher in the private sector, says Unifem.

by Marcia G. Yerman, Empowher, USA - In 2007, the dollars spent on breast augmentation surgery in the United States was $1.5 billion. By 2012, the numbers are projected to top 2 billion per year.

by Rinku Sen, Huffington Post, USA - There's been lots of discussion about why hate crimes are rising and how to prevent future tragedies, yet we've largely missed the relationship between extremist racism and the less obvious version that plays out in our political debates.

by Mona Eltahawy, Huffington Post, USA - When President Barack Obama said he wanted to address women's rights during his speech to Muslims last week, I said a prayer to the God of the Torah, the Bible and the Quran: please don't let him fall into the trap of headscarves and hymens.

by Anastasia Moloney, Reuters, UK - Hundreds of Colombia's displaced families are camped out in a makeshift settlement in downtown Bogotá, demanding jobs, subsidies and a permanent place to live.

by Amanda Marcotte, RH Reality Check, USA - The American media has no qualms about turning non-stories into huge controversies, if they can stoke religious and cultural tensions in doing so.

by Marjorie Cohn, Marjorie Cohn, USA - Obama’s capitulation to the intelligence gurus and the right-wing attack dogs will not only imperil the rule of law; it will actually make us more vulnerable to future acts of terrorism.

by Marcia G. Yerman, Huffington Post, USA - Enmeshed in the stories of women who have served in the military, are the accounts of sexual harassment and abuse that are starting to see the light of day.

by Jennifer Wheary, The Huffington Post, USA - African American and Latino families are the most endangered members of the Middle Class. This is according to a new study by Demos and the Institute on Assets and Social Policy at Brandeis University.

by Jelena Kopanja, F12W, USA - When Mary Sherhart first sang the traditional Bosnian songs known as sevdalinkas at a concert in 2004, a woman stood up and started weeping.

by Rebecca Traister, Broadsheet, USA - When good questions about qualifications or politics are mashed together with low-budget aspersions about how brash, bossy and talkative a powerful woman is, it's hard to take them seriously.

by Michelle Chen, Race Wire, USA - The Indigenous People’s Global Summit on Climate Change called for holistic solutions to global warming, democratic grassroots participation in environmental policy-making, and protection of social and cultural rights.

by Laura Carlsen, Americas Mexico Blog, Mexico - Mexico’s grand experiment in sink or swim neoliberalism included privatization and erosion of health systems and basic services. “The notorious delay in the response of the federal government can be attributed in part to the decentralization of healthcare promoted by international finance institutions such as the World Bank."