by Mridu Khullar, The Caravan, India - In the race to modernise before the Commonwealth Games, Delhi’s trashpickers are being left behind.

by Kristin Engh Førde, Kilden, Norway - Studies suggest that sexual harassment can cause female athletes to leave the field of sport. “This means that harassment may lead to big losses for sport,” says Professor Kari Fasting, Norway’s foremost expert on the subject.

by Sue Sturgis, Facing South, USA - It was one year ago today that a 60-foot-tall dam broke at holding pond at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston power plant in Roane County, Tenn., dumping more than a billion gallons of toxic coal ash onto a nearby community and into the Clinch and Emory rivers.

by Heidi Elisabeth Sandnes, Kilden, Norway - Scandinavian parents have no doubt that the state is responsible for providing day care centres for children from the age of one.

by Agnes Heller, Hungarian Quarterly, Hungary - The story of the last twenty years, of the period since the "change of regime" introducing a genuinely democratic system of government, is a novel one for Hungary. Yet, it is a very old story.

by Jayshree Bajoria, Council on Foreign Relations, USA - CFR International Affairs Fellow Kara C. McDonald says she is skeptical that this tactical shift in U.S. policy will help achieve its goal of a democratic Myanmar that respects human rights, releases all its political prisoners, and ends conflict with its ethnic minorities.

by Laura Wides-Munoz, Latinamerican Post, USA - Wise Latina. The catchphrase of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor's Senate confirmation hearings has taken on a life of its own, spawning T-shirts, note cards, dog jerseys and even thongs.

by Rasa Balockaite, Eurozine, Austria - "Go West", a 1970s song by the Village People, was popularized again in 1993 by the Pet Shop Boys, which bestowed the phrase with new connotations. Before the 1990s, in the United States at least, "Go West" would refer to the victorious conquest of the West in the nineteenth century or, even more likely, to the appeal of the youth movements in San Francisco and other West Coast cities in the 1960s.

by Danielle Chubb, On Line Opinion, Australia - People smuggling is not a security dilemma. It is a humanitarian challenge.

by Ruth Oniang'o, AJFAND, Kenya - The food systems in Africa are in dire need of serious attention. Facilities and personnel to monitor and maintain a safe food supply are in short supply.

Lygia Navarro, Virginia Quarterly Review, USA - August in Havana is a mounting wave of heat—so consuming, the sun so piercing, it can warp your sense of reason. Tempt you to surrender. Make you flirt with insanity. The pained faces around you are covered in grimy sweat, a haze of resignation in the eyes. Here or there a woman fans herself, perhaps with some ladylike, store-bought thing, but more often with a stray scrap of cardboard. Inside, heat radiates from every surface, the temperature rising as the torridity soaks deeper into the concrete walls. Outside is worse. Few dare venture into the scorching light.

by Chipo Sithole, IWPR, Zimbabwe - Shamiso Mushonga, eight months pregnant with her third child, feels like a prisoner in the two-room shack she shares with her other two children in densely populated Budiriro. She said she is so afraid of the cholera that since August has already killed hundreds in this Harare slum – including her husband in September – that she cannot allow her children to go out to play. She has not left her cramped quarters for the past four days, only going to the market with her children firmly in tow.

by Sabina Vaqifqızı, Institute for War & Peace Reporting, Azerbaijan - “Victims of human trafficking are subjected to two traumas. First is the humiliation they feel; second is their rejection by society. People close to victims should try and understand them, and must not blame them for what has happened.”

by Linda Burnham, Black Agenda Report, USA - The Obama candidacy has provoked a torrent of observations and speculations about race in America - some grounded in reality, some approaching the realm of sheer fantasy. In the latter category are the commentaries heralding the advent of a "post-racial America" and "the end of Black politics."

by Fatma Yilmaz, Journal of Turkish Weekly Opinion, Turkey - What Europe is experiencing today, is once more the legitimization of its anger against the social, political and economic transformation with the presence of the other.

by Hind al-Safar and Zaineb Naji, IWPR, Iraq - Firdaw al-Baghdadi has not seen her husband in three years. He was abducted in the Iraqi capital Baghdad, and although his family paid a ransom for his release, they never heard from the captors again. Baghdadi, 38, from Baghdad’s Shia suburb Sadr City, cannot find work and her own relatives are too poor to help out, so she lives with her husband's family in cramped conditions. “I don't know what to do,” she said. “Tradition prevents women from working, especially women like me.”

by Katy Glassborow and Taylor Toeka Kakala, IWPR, The Netherlands and DR Congo - International Criminal Court, ICC, prosecutors have dropped all sexual violence charges in relation to conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC, because of an internal dispute over witness protection. Prosecutors removed counts of sexual slavery from the indictments against militia leaders Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo following disagreements with the court’s registry over how to protect two witnesses whose testimonies could have backed up the charges.

by Caroline Ayugi, IWPR, The Netherlands - "Wake up! Wake up! Rebels!” For more than a dozen years, hearing these words in the middle of the night would send us scrambling from our thatched huts into the bush. Exhausted by the constant fear of attacks by rebels from the Lord’s Resistance Army, LRA, children often had water splashed on their faces before being dragged from their beds to what we saw as “safety” – usually just an area of brush or deep grass not far from our village, east of Gulu, a town in northern Uganda.

by an IWPR reporter in Baghdad and Tiare Rath, IWPR, Iraq - In Iraq, suicide bombings by women are increasing. This week, two women blew themselves up in Diyala province, bringing to nine the number of such suicide bombings in the first four months of 2008. There were six attacks in 2007, the worst at Mustansiriya University in Baghdad, in which 40 people were killed. Little is known about the lives or motivations of female suicide bombers in Iraq. But some analysts suggest that one reason for the rise is that women are using violence as a method of protest against perceived injustices and deteriorating living conditions.

by Katy Glassborow, Peter Eichstaedt and Emma Mutaizibwa, IWPR, The Netherlands - The feared Ugandan rebel group, the Lord’s Resistance Army, LRA, is building up its military capacity at a time when it is supposed to be preparing to disarm under a peace agreement, IWPR can reveal.

by Mary Ndlovu, Pambazuka News, Zimbabwe - Anyone trying to predict the outcome of the Zimbabwean election must be either bold or foolhardy or both. No sooner has a prophesy gone to press than a new factor slips into the equation and everything has to be re-calculated. Commentators are reduced to scenarios – and the number of scenarios required to cover all eventualities and twists of fate multiplies by the day.

by Marianna Grigoryan, Armenia Now, Armenia - His teeth had fallen out into his palm, he tried to put them back somehow one by one, but they wouldn’t stay. They would fall out again.

“Mum, I saw a dream,” 28-year-old Gor Kloyan was telling his dream to his mother in the morning.

“I said, Gor, you saw a bad dream. Falling out teeth foretells a death of a loved one. Don’t go out today,” Gor’s mother Azatuhi says. “We have elderly grandmothers and grandfathers in our family, all are in bad health, I thought some bad thing would happen to one of them.”

The “bad thing” happened to Gor himself.

by Wanda M. Woodward, Countercurrents, India - I confess at the onset of my letter my bias toward an egalitarian world, one in which there is a more transcendent collective consciousness; a world in which social and economic justice rest gently among the two genders, and amongst the many diverse cultures, ethnicities, and religions. Who would argue that we fall far short of this ideal in contemporary society? What concerns me is that economists, sociologists, public policy experts, and ecologists seem to have overlooked one of the most pressing issues of our time: the mutual exclusivity between capitalism and overpopulation.

by Megan Tady, Upside Down World, USA - The national diet of Belize – high fat, high starch and few vegetables – is largely attributed to the growing health epidemic.

“Vegetables in general are skipped out of the Belizean diet,” said Mark Miller, executive director of the development organization Plenty Belize. “Most of the cultures here used to have a much healthier way of eating than they do today. As time progresses, people are eating less and less healthy.”

by Natalya Napolskaya, IWPR, Kazakstan - A pro-government youth group insists the high rate of terminations encourages moral decay. But experts fear a ban would create a dangerous new back-street industry. More than 170,000 abortions take place each year in Kazakstan, a country bigger than Western Europe but with a population of only 15 million.

by Karine Ohanian in Stepanakert, Samira Ahmedbeyli in Baku and Seda Muradyan in Yerevan, IWPR, Armenia - As the dust begins to settle from a firefight between Azerbaijan and Armenian forces earlier this week, their respective politicians have reverted to verbal warfare as international mediators work to contain the damage to longer term prospects for peace. Accounts differ as to who fired first. But all agree it was the most serious breach of the ceasefire in a decade.

by Samaneh Maddah, Mianeh, Iran - Almost everyone here is an Afghan. There is no sign of women – all the inhabitants seem to be either young men, or fathers with male or female children old enough to work as scavengers.

by Frida Berrigan, Foreign Policy in Focus, USA - Washington hopes that by bulking up Indonesia’s military capacities it can help the nation counter terrorism and emerge as a regional leader able to thwart North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and deter China’s aggressive military build-up. That’s what Secretary Gates means when he talks about the “role that Indonesia may be able to play more broadly” and that’s why Washington is so threatened by the way Russian President Putin has reached out to Jakarta.

by Charles Mwanguhya Mpagi and Emma Mutaizibwa, IWPR, Uganda - Dramatic progress in peace talks between the Ugandan government and the Lord’s Resistance Army, LRA, has been overshadowed by reports that rebel leader, Joseph Kony, may be trying to escape to Darfur.

Although the negotiations have continued for more than 18 months in Juba, South Sudan, and portions of the peace deal were signed almost a year ago, a final agreement could be inked within days as the negotiators rush to conclude the talks by week’s end.

by Nermin Aydemir, Journal of Turkish Weekly, Turkey - Extremists, including racists, unfortunately take place all around the world. What carries importance at this point is to keep the mainstream society away from polarization and maintain the “peaceful coexistence” among various subcultures. German public opinion carries a significant responsibility on its shoulders. Much needs to be done for thwarting the xenophobic schema. Opinion leaders and politicians in Germany are hardly doing their job in this regard.

by Inga Sikorskaya, IWPR, Kyrgyzstan - In the latest mass release of prisoners in Turkmenistan, no political prisoners of note were freed. Lawyers and human rights activists say this will not happen until the authorities change repressive legislation on treason, which automatically rules out the possibility of amnesty.

by Marjorie Cohn, JURIST, USA - The rules of evidence governing the recently announced military commission trials of six alleged al Qaeda members, combined with the Bush administration's efforts to sanitize the legal mess made by the use of illegal interrogation methods, ensure that the trials will fall short of due process...

by Kay S. Hymowitz, City Journal, USA - Today’s single young men hang out in a hormonal limbo between adolescence and adulthood.

by Lisa Clifford, IWPR, The Hague - Detention of another militia leader from Ituri follows a sensitive period where Congo’s government was enticing rebel groups to lay down arms and make peace.

by Zoe Chafe, World Watch Institute - Worldwide, carbon trading reached a value of $59.2 billion in 2007. However, its effectiveness in addressing climate change is uncertain.

by Perla Wilson, TerraViva, Chile - "Social inequality doesn’t make the news". No one has ever said that the relationship between the social world and mass media outlets is easy, even less so in the case of initiatives to foster a new political approach such as the World Social Forum.

by Astri von Arbin Ahlander and Yelizavetta Kofman, LATTICE - "The female artists that I know don’t have kids. All of my mentors, all my colleagues, no one has children. It’s a really tough business if you’re going to have a family."

by Marianna Grigoryan, ArmeniaNow, Armenia - “According to law, all candidates will have 60 minutes of free airtime on public television and 120 minutes of paid airtime, and on public radio it will be 120 minutes and 180 minutes respectively,” Alexan Harutyunyan, Chairman of the Public TV and Radio Company’s Board, says.

by Marianna Gurtovnik, World Politics Review - Relations between Russia and Britain appear worse than at any time since the end of the Cold War.

by Amy Walter, NationalJournal.com, USA - Given just how off the polling was for the Democratic contest, it seems downright dangerous to make any predictions at this point.

by an IWPR contributor, writer’s name and her neighbourhood have not been revealed because of security concerns, Institute for War and Peace Reporting, UK,US, Africa - My neighbourhood in Baghdad was once known for its luxurious houses and large gardens. It was a quiet place when I moved here in 1990. One of the things that I enjoyed about the neighbourhood was its diversity. My closest friend, Thanaa, lived two blocks away. While she was pious and I am secular, such things were not an issue.

by Lisa Clifford & Charles Ntiricya, IWPR, DRC - Epidemic of brutal sexual violence plagues the region where women are being raped with impunity.

by Aishah Schwartz, The American Muslim, USA - Prophet Muhammad taught in his Sunnah that ‘Paradise lies at the feet of our mothers’. How, then, can Muslims tolerate the violent abuse of women in the eyes of any legal system?

by Anastasia Moloney, World Politics Review, Colombia - The diplomatic row sparked by President Hugo Chávez's mediation in Colombia's hostage crisis continues and shows little sign of abating, sparking fears and dashing hopes of a humanitarian exchange of hostages held by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

by Lisa Clifford, Katy Glassborow & Sonia Nezamzadeh, IWPR, The Hague - World powers’ apparent focus on peace over justice looks set to change following new outrages.

by Carmela Cruz, Foreign Policy in Focus, USA - My photography relies on emotion. A photograph of the anguish in the eyes of a starving child in Darfur that initiates the quest for a solution.

by Amy S. Nunn et all, PLoS Medicine - Little is known about the long-term drug costs associated with treating AIDS in developing countries. Brazil's AIDS treatment program has been cited widely as the developing world's largest and most successful AIDS treatment program. The program guarantees free access to highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) for all people living with HIV/AIDS in need of treatment.

by Kay S. Hymowitz, The City Journal, USA - In Spain, women constitute 54 percent of college students and the average age of first birth is nearly 30, which appears to be a world record.

by Marina Kozlova, Transitions Online, Uzbekistan - Friends mourning the killing of Alisher Saipov in Kyrgyzstan say his death may be linked to his reporting on the Uzbek regime.

by Katy Glassborow, IWPR, The Hague - The International Criminal Court, ICC, prosecutor has expressed concern that food aid supplied to the Lord’s Resistance Army, LRA, is being sold by them so that they can rearm if current peace talks fail.