by Anna Badkhen, The National, UAE - In spite of the republic’s meteoric reconstruction, kidnappings and extra-judicial killings still ravage Chechnya.

by Linda Yablonsky, New York Times, USA - Hardly a Tweet had been sent after the Whitney Museum of American Art released the names of the 55 artists selected for its 75th biennial before it was already known as “the women’s biennial.”

by Neeta Lal, Asia Times, Hong Kong - Short-term political gains and scoring points have been higher in the minds of Indian parliamentarians than righting the skewed gender picture when it comes to laws to increase the participation of woman in politics.

by Elizabeth Tankeu, Business Daily, Kenya - As Africa embraces the wind of industrialisation, nations are determined to seize the emerging industrial development opportunities as an effective and sustainable means towards economic transformation of its raw materials.

by Julie Flint, Daily Star, Lebanon - 2002 is being rerun in 2010 – despite Save Darfur, despite UNAMID, and despite the ICC. SLA-controlled Jebel Marra is once again under attack, threatened, according to UNAMID sources, by an estimated 35,000 regular troops and 12,000 militiamen.

by Mariya Petkova, Daily News Egypt, Egypt - “An unmarried woman can’t find an apartment alone. She has to live with her family. They would be afraid for her.”

by Huma Yusuf, Dawn, Pakistan - In many ways, the story of Pakistan is one of a failure of family planning. Although the Family Planning Association of Pakistan was set up as early as 1952, we have seen a five-fold increase in our population between 1951 and 2009, from 34 million to 171 million.

by Susan Njanji, Mail & Guardian, South Africa - Cellphones may become a key weapon in the war against HIV/Aids in Africa, allowing counselors to reach greater numbers of people, says the chief of the United Nation's Aids agency.

by Amelia Hill, Guardian, UK - Today's teenagers are struggling to cope with the expectations imposed by media images and peer pressure, the reality of low-paid work and a sexist culture.

by Abigail Fielding-Smith, The National, UAE - Yemen today is invariably and alarmingly described as a “failed state” – or at least one on the brink. But on the brink of what?

by Nima Sanandaji, The Local, Sweden - The combination of high taxes, generous government benefits and a regulated labour market has led many Swedes to rely on handouts rather than work.

by Marjolein van de Water, NRC Handelsblad, Netherlands - The European Court of Justice has upended the minimum income requirement for foreign marriage partners. More aspects of Dutch immigration policy could be at odds with European law.

by Rafia Zakaria, Dawn, Pakistan - The death of every head of the household means the creation of nearly five times the number of victims who are left destitute — and these victims are inevitably women and their small children.

by Juliette Jowit, Guardian, UK - For the first time since the dinosaurs disappeared, humans are driving animals and plants to extinction faster than new species can evolve.

by Rachelle Kliger, Jerusalem Post, Israel - Palestinian inheritance law follows Islamic law, which stipulates that women are only entitled to half the inheritance amount given to men.

by Doreen Carvajal, New York Times, USA - Any conflict where you have an all-male army, it’s like a holiday from reality. If you inject women into that situation, they do have a civilizing effect.

by Nafha Maani Ebrahimi, Daily Monitor, Uganda - You have given me a day among international days, you want me to be happy neighbouring world water day and environment day, and you think half of humanity should be remembered in a day!

by Caroline Wafula, Daily Nation, Kenya - More than two years after the post-election chaos, many women who suffered sexual violence and abuse are still waiting for justice.

by Nandita Sengupta, The Times of India, India - Across India, from Hyderabad to Pune, Lucknow to Kolkata, educated Muslim women like Jameela — artists, activists, teachers and doctors — are conducting awareness drives among poor women in Muslim slums in cities fashioning change in the subtlest of ways.

by Navi Pillay, Daily Star, Lebanon - Honor attacks are steeped in the same attitude and stem from the same mind-set that also produces domestic violence. These attacks are rooted in the desire to control women and suppress their aspirations and voice.

by Graciana del Castillo, Daily Star, Lebanon - The current Afghan situation reflects a failure until now to make national reconciliation – rather than optimal development policies – the bedrock priority of the Kabul government and the international community.

by Fatma Disli Zibak, Today's Zaman, Turkey - The safety record of Turkey’s coal mining industry lags behind that of most industrial nations and the inspection of mines, particularly those run by the private sector, is insufficient.

by Lisa Macdonald, Green Left, Australia - In January, Bolivia’s left-wing President Evo Morales began his second term by appointing a new cabinet in which women are equally represented for the first time.

by Heidi Schramm, Al Ahram, Egypt - Israeli house demolitions are the flipside of the coin to illegal settlement building. For peace to have a chance, both must stop.

by Juliana Taiwo, This Day, Nigeria - In Ethiopia, every investor must be ready to employ over 90 per cent Ethiopians (they call it affordable labour) in that business, train and retrain them at intervals and fix a time frame when the company would be wholly run by Ethiopians.

by Dalila Mahdawi, Daily Star, Lebanon - A podcast can’t change the world, but it can help change perceptions. Stories of Our City is a new non-governmental organization in Beirut hoping to transform stereotypes about the Arab world, one podcast at a time.

by Amantha Perera, Asia Times, Hong Kong - Street protests that erupted in Colombo and other cities following the February 8 arrest of defeated presidential candidate Sarath Fonseka have yet to gain wider support from non-political groups.

by Caryle Murphy, The National, UAE - Most female shoppers would rather discuss their underwear preferences with another woman. But there is little chance of that in Saudi Arabia, where lingerie stores are overwhelmingly staffed by men.

by Fran Yeoman, Times Online, UK - Cluster bombs have killed 12,000 people in the 37 years since they were dropped on Laos. As nations ratify a ban on the explosives, a team of women is taking on the responsibility of clearing them.

by Sahar Saba, The International News, Pakistan - In a revealing report in 2008, Acbar said that $10 billion out of $25 billion the global community pledged to rebuild Afghanistan in 2001 had not even been delivered.

by Juliette Jowit, Guardian, UK - Report for the UN into the activities of the world's 3,000 biggest companies estimates one-third of profits would be lost if firms were forced to pay for use, loss and damage of environment.

By Mai Yamani, Daily Star, Lebanon - In his quest to stabilize his country, Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai, dressed in white robes, arrived last week in Mecca on what can only be called a diplomatic pilgrimage.

by Julie Bindel, Gardian, UK - Why do so many women still believe that rape victims bring it on themselves?

by Lale Kemal, Today's Zaman, Turkey - Authoritative Turkish sources believe that if neighboring Iran acquires nuclear arms, there will definitely be a strong demand from within Turkey for the country to acquire the same weapons capabilities.

by Afrah Nasser, Yemen Observer, Yemen - According to the World Health Organization’s 2006 report on global maternal mortality rates, Yemen women face frightening odds, as 570 of every 100,000 pregnancy is fatal.

by Dr. Maleeha Lodhi, Khaleej Times, Pakistan - Pakistan has in recent years witnessed the fast expanding electronic media act as a vigorous watchdog, scrutinising government and opposition conduct, exposing corruption and highlighting social ills and human rights violations.

by Judith S. Yaphe, Jerusalem Post, Israel - Let’s imagine for a moment that a regime change in Iran did occur. Would everything really be different?

by Habiba Balogun, Next, Nigeria - What steps need to be taken to reconcile people who hold those beliefs with citizenship in a nation where the form of government may be incompatible with them?

by Melissa del Bosque, Texas Observer, USA - Del Rio's controversial crackdown on border-crossing students.

by Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge & Loveday Penn-Kekana, Mail & Guardian, South Africa - The South African Law Reform Commission has begun a process to review the law on adult prostitution that will culminate in a Bill with one of several options, such as decriminalisation and legalisation.

by Bronwen Maddox, Irish Independent, Ireland - The attempt to talk Iran down from its nuclear ambitions is going badly. Yesterday, Tehran formally told the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN watchdog, that it would move further ahead with its uranium-enrichment programme. This will take it one big step closer to a nuclear-weapons capability.

by Ruth Gledhill, Times Online, UK - The Church of England is to go ahead with the plan to create women bishops without giving in to demands from traditionalists for a separate structure of bishops and archbishops untainted by the hands of a woman.

by Chrissie Long and Sara Miller Llana, Christian Science Monitor, USA - Laura Chinchilla won Costa Rica's presidential election in a landslide victory Sunday that is eliciting cheers from women across Central America.

by Olivia Ward, The Star, Canada - Women's rights would face challenges in a Western peace deal with the Taliban.

by Nurit Wurgaft, Haaretz, Israel - The government and the Bank of Israel have a plan to rid the country of illegal migrant workers and put Israelis back to work. Unfortunately, it's based on a number of misleading assumptions.

by Fredreka Schouten, USA Today, USA - The recession has battered the U.S. economy, but the lobbying industry is humming along in the nation's capital, even for companies that have shed thousands of jobs in the past year.

by Ayse Karabat, Today's Zaman, Turkey - Turkey's juvenile justice system considers legal cases regarding minors only as ‘files,' but this perception has to be replaced with a system that focuses on the rights of children.

by Mary Dejevsky, The Independent, UK - There is no evidence at all that Iran colluded with al-Qa'ida.

by Chrystia Freeland, Financial Times, UK - Canada is the only G7 country to survive the financial crisis without a state bail-out for its financial sector.

by Fatma Disli, Today's Zaman, Turkey - China, which introduced a controversial one-child-per-family policy in 1979 as a measure to alleviate social, economic and environmental problems in the country, has been forcing Uighur mothers in East Turkistan to have abortions despite the fact that ethnic minorities are among the exemptions to this law.