by Madeline Ostrander, Yes!, USA - Heather Purser set out to win gay marriage rights within the Suquamish Tribe and found herself on a personal journey toward self-acceptance.

by Emma Teitel, Maclean's, Canada - From a new genderless pronoun to a toy store ad of a boy pushing a pink pram.

by Fiona Ehlers, Der Spiegel, Germany - All across crisis-hit Europe, voters are disillusioned with mainstream politicians and are turning to populist and radical parties. In Italy, the new rising force is comedian Beppe Grillo's grassroots Five Star Movement. But can the charismatic agitator supply real solutions to the country's problems?

by Sandra Steingraber, Orion, USA - Last January, my hometown newspaper brought word that the LaSalle County board has approved strip mining for frack sand along the boundary of Starved Rock State Park, which is a marvel of sandstone outcroppings and gorges. The county board was swayed by the promise of thirty-nine jobs, which start at eighteen dollars an hour. So, absent further intervention, the beloved landscape of my childhood may be carted off and shoved into the fractured landscape of my children’s childhood.

by Barbara Hans and Julia Jüttner, Der Spiegel, Germany - Last weekend, Salafist Muslims and anti-Islam right-wingers faced off in Bonn, and 29 police officers were injured as a result. The two groups appear to be diametrically opposed, but a deeper look reveals they have a great deal in common. The totalitarian worldview has many manifestations.

by Samantha Oltman, Mother Jones, USA - Where in the United States do gay people have the right to get hitched?

by Hudda Ibrahim, World Pulse, USA - As a young child who lost her mother and as a young woman who sees the systems and circumstances that endanger women’s lives, I believe improving women’s social condition is a high priority. The Ethiopian government needs to establish clinics, train medical professionals, and provide access to education, clean water, and sanitary living conditions.

by Julia Amalia Heyer, Der Spiegel, Germany - Frustrated Greek voters on Sunday punished the country's two biggest parties. The vote represents a protest against draconian austerity and the massive influence the EU and IMF are having on the country. Even if fringe parties profited from this anger, though, no one in Greece really wants to abandon the euro.

by Xenia Kounalaki, Der Spiegel, Germany - Greek far-right parties could end up with as much as 20 percent of the vote in Sunday's elections. The neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party has intensified the xenophobic atmosphere in the country. Those who confront them are threatened with violence.

by Marina Sitrin, Yes!, USA - We are now again a part of the rest of the globe, where May Day is a day to celebrate our power—people's power, that of workers, precarious and unionized, immigrants and migrants, radicals of all sorts, from the anarchist to the democratic socialist.

by Cassady Walters, JO, Jordan - The Sharhabil Bin Hassneh eco-park was an ecological mess when Friends of the Earth Middle East began work on it in 2004. Now it’s a template for proper restoration of the Kingdom’s misused land.

by Andie Fox, Daily Life, Australia - It is possible for a mother to disguise her family priorities sufficiently to climb the ladder to that height? And importantly, it is possible to run a company worth $100 billion while still leaving in time for dinner?

by Smita Mitra, Outlook India, India - Couples from countries across the world—chiefly Islamic countries and Africa—are seeking babies in Indian clinics.

by Michelle Tarnopolsky, Maclean's, Canada - “The problem is the Vatican addresses not only the faithful but all citizens, and especially politicians. They want what they consider sinful to be illegal. So, unlike other nations, there is no law that recognizes gay couples, lesbian couples, no law against homophobia.”

by Lola Okolosie, The F-Word, UK - Both documentaries prompt us to continue the difficult work of interrogating how racism, class, gender and sexuality interweave with one another to oppress many.

by Kavita Krishnan, Tehelka, India - A number of campaigns against sexual harassment endorse the stereotypes they set out to debunk.

by Katha Pollitt, The Nation, USA - The difference between a stay-home mother and a welfare mother is money and a wedding ring. Unlike any other kind of labor I can think of, domestic labor is productive or not, depending on who performs it. For a college-educated married woman, it is the most valuable thing she could possibly do, totally off the scale of human endeavor.

by Melanne Verveer, Foreign Policy in Focus, USA - The most pressing global problems simply won't be solved without the participation of women. Seriously, guys.

by Aleksandra Lipczak, Polityka, Poland - Thousands of young people, often educated, are leaving Portugal and Spain. Europe doesn’t need them while Africa and South America receive them with open arms.

by Anthea Butler, Religious Dispatches, USA - Put another way, conservative anti-Semites are more valued and welcomed in the Catholic Church than women religious who engage the world through their faith.

by Renuka Rayasam, Der Spiegel, Germany - Job seekers in Germany still list their birthday, gender and family status, even attaching a picture to their applications. But newly released results of a project to make German job applications anonymous show that with personal information left out, women and minorities are more likely to get a job interview.

by Antje Windmann, Der Spiegel, Germany - Hundreds of young female immigrants are hiding from their families in Germany after fleeing oppression, physical violence and even death threats. Charities and social workers help the women get new identities and build independent lives for themselves, but the risk of revenge from honor-obsessed relatives remains.

by Joanna Brooks, Religion Dispatches, USA - Please watch. Please share. And welcome to the Mormon twenty-first century.

by Barbara Hans, Der Spiegel, Germany - German newspapers are full of clever commentaries, artful rhetoric and ideas. But an evaluation of national papers shows that editorials are almost always written by men. As the business gender quota debate rages on in the country, the female half of the population is being denied an influential platform.

by Barbara Hans, Der Spiegel, Germany - A village in the Netherlands inhabited entirely by elderly people with dementia offers a new answer to how society can deal with its aging population. It's a world without yesterday or tomorrow where residents have far more freedom than they would be allowed in convalescent homes.

by Michelle Tarnopolsky, Macleans, Canada - Italian MP Licia Ronzulli, was heralded by mommy bloggers before, and after her ties to Berlusconi were revealed.

by Anthea Butler, Religion Dispatches, USA - Is a black person’s life worth anything in America? Not as long as America remains “Exceptional.”

by Nishita Jha, Tehelka, India - "I look at women who choose to testify against rapists with wonder all the time, simply because we all know that once they admit to having been raped, they will be violated repeatedly by the police, the lawyers and the media.”

by Candace Chellew-Hodge, Religion Dispatches, USA - The United States is currently in the throes of a spiritual awakening, says Diana Butler Bass. In her new book, Christianity After Religion, the author argues that we are at a crossroads in history—we can choose to move forward into new emerging spiritualities, or we can heed the siren sound of the traditionalists calling us back to a romanticized, rigid, past.

by Eszter Farkas, European Journalism Centre, Netherlands - It takes immense courage and drive to be a journalist in Somalia, a country in the Horn of Africa. Reporters Without Borders in 2011 listed its capital city Mogadishu among the ten most dangerous places for journalists in the world.

by Renuka Rayasam, Der Spiegel, Germany - The tiny village of Feldheim, some 60 kilometers southwest of Berlin, was catapulted by chance to the forefront of the renewable energy movement. Now visitors from around the world are flocking to this otherwise unremarkable rural community to see if they can replicate its success.

by Marie Amrhein, Cicero, Germany - What would the life of an average German official be like if the Federal Republic were forced to follow the same draconian austerity measures it is currently imposing on Greece?

by Maura Stephens, Yes!, USA - In New York, judges are standing up for communities' rights to say no to corporate drilling.

by Kerstin Kullmann, Der Spiegel, Germany - Many people with Asperger's syndrome have difficulties in the job market and workplace, but they also have special abilities that many employers crave. A Danish company has found a way to bring the two together and is exporting its successful job-placement concept to other countries.

by Mya Guarnieri, +972, Israel - In 2004, Israeli officials were up in arms about an impending Bedouin Intifada. But the Bedouin didn’t rebel and now, despite plans to expel tens of thousands of them from their homes in the West Bank and the Negev, things remain relatively quiet. Why?

by Belle Boggs, Orion, USA - Yearning for conception in a world of fecundity.

by Julia Amalia Heyer, Der Spiegel, Germany - A radical austerity drive has triggered the biggest political upheaval in Athens since the end of the military dictatorship in 1974. So far, it is leftist parties who have benefitted the most from the debt crisis. The deeply divided left, however, would likely be unable to form a stable coalition.

by Julia Amalia Heyer, Der Spiegel, Germany - European Union officials have nothing but praise for the mayor of the Greek city of Thessaloniki. Yiannis Boutaris has been pushing ahead with far-reaching reforms to undo the abuses of his predecessors and has already slashed the city's spending by 30 percent. He's even asking the Germans for advice.

by Jessica Reeder, Yes!, USA - The United Nations has named 2012 as the International Year of Cooperatives, and indeed, co-ops seem poised to become a dominant business model around the world.

by Rebecca Burns, In These Times, USA - As President Obama hailed the “extraordinary achievement” of U.S. troops withdrawing from Iraq in December, continuing protests against government repression and abysmal basic services undermined the narrative of a successful democratic transition. Yanar Mohammed, president of the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), has for months helped many Iraqis express their anger.

by Kristen Allen, Der Spiegel, Germany - An award-winning new German film takes an unexpected look at the problem of far-right extremism, following the fictional story of a young woman lost in a world of violence and hatred. The film, which has parallels to a recent neo-Nazi case in Germany, also serves as a wake-up call for some -- women are more prevalent in the radical scene than many believe.

by Sabrina Rubin Erdely, Rolling Stone, USA - In Michele Bachmann's home district, evangelicals have created an extreme anti-gay climate. After a rash of suicides, the kids are fighting back.

by Rafaela von Bredow, Der Spiegel, Germany - A British biotech lab has released huge numbers of genetically modified mosquitoes in an effort to combat dengue fever. But locals, some say, were not adequately informed of the experiment -- and now a debate has erupted over the potential dangers to humans.

by Mariella Radaelli, European Journalism Centre, Netherlands - Why are spiritual programmes flourishing on local private television channels? The reason seems to be that small channels have established a large amount of contractual agreements with psychics, in order to secure a solid base of paid sponsorship to help them survive.

by Eleanor Cooney, Mother Jones, USA - Like some ugly old wall-to-wall carpeting they've been yearning to get rid of, they finally, finally loosened a little corner of Roe. Now they can start to rip the whole thing up, roll it back completely, and toss it in the Dumpster.

by Juliane von Mittelstaedt, Der Spiegel, Germany - The West's sanctions against Iran have made it harder for people there to get their hands on various luxury goods. But, for the inhabitants of a tiny Omani port just across the Strait of Hormuz, the sanctions have been a goldmine.

by Sara Ritchey, Religion Dispatches, USA - The growth in number of married Catholic priests in the U.S. stems from the increasing animosity of conservative Episcopalians who disagree primarily with the Anglican Communion’s ordination and promotion to the episcopacy of women and self-identifying, partnered gay people.

by Juliane von Mittelstaedt, Der Spiegel, Germany - Veiled women, radical rabbis and gender segregation: Israel is facing a rise in the influence of ultra-Orthodox Jews. Their efforts to impose a strictly conservative worldview have led to growing tensions with the country's secular society. A resolution to the conflict is vital for Israel's future.

by Mac McClelland, Mother Jones, USA - The ramifications of this ongoing battle have been huge: More than 500,000 internally displaced people living without villages, infrastructure, or any kind of security whatsoever. Hundreds of thousands of refugees have fled to neighboring countries or been resettled by the UN as far away as the United States. Countless civilians have been raped and murdered at the hands of the Burmese army.

by Mariana Baabar, Outlook, India - Pakistan in turmoil: discontent on the streets, political ferment, and ‘Memogate’.