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.

by Paula J. Caplan, Boston Globe, USA - As Americans struggle to keep New Year’s weight-loss resolutions, experts’ alarms about obesity ring in our heads.

by Ruth Gledhill, Times Online, UK - Ambreen Sadiq, a 15-year-old schoolgirl from Bradford, has overcome opposition in her community to win her latest fight and aim for the 2016 Olympics.

by Nawal Fenwick, The Independent, UK - After 20 years away, Nawal Fenwick returned to find a nation full of questions that she doubts any inquiry will ever answer.

by Mona Eltahawy, Metro, Canada - Imagine if every year three million boys had their penises cut off. Sound outrageous?

by Shada Islam, Khaleej Times, Pakistan - Switzerland’s vote to ban the building of new minarets exposes a damaging fissure in Europe. It has provoked outrage among Muslims and applause from Europe’s increasingly popular anti-Muslim politicians.

by Judit Neurink, The Kurdish Globe, Iraq - It's past time to banish Kurdistan's discriminatory HIV/AIDS policy.

by Juliette Jowit, Guardian, UK - Latest figures show the world's glaciers are continuing to melt so fast that many will disappear by the middle of this century.

by Esther Dyson, Daily Star, Lebanon - China probably looks less appealing to investors now than it did a few years ago, not so much because of the Chinese economy as a whole, but because of constraints on the ability of any foreign entity to make serious long-term profits.

by Louise Mushikiwabo, Guardian, UK - In this age of media budget cuts, there are too few knowledgeable foreign journalists based in Africa to accurately report news across the region while safeguarding reporting standards.

by Jasvinder Sanghera, Times Online, UK - Over the past 20 years attitudes towards domestic violence among the white population have changed immeasurably. Sadly, different standards still apply to violence among Asians.

by Beth Dalbey, Iowa Independent, USA - Community-by-community response to climate change offers Iowa its best chance to become a national leader in sustainability.

by Moha Ennaji, Daily Star, Lebanon - In recent years, Morocco, Egypt, and Turkey have trained and appointed a new group to the ranks of religious guides: women.

by Sudha Ramachandran, Asia Times, Hong Kong - With Sri Lankans going to the polls on January 26 to elect their next president, there is considerable apprehension that polling will be neither free nor fair.

by Anna Maria Bernitz, The Local, Sweden - Recognised as a country of nature lovers and cutting-edge design, it is not surprising that Sweden has fostered a strong new generation of fashion designers who combine fashion and sustainability.

by Abby Ellin, New York Times, USA - Today, I would probably qualify for a diagnosis of “eating disorder not otherwise specified,” usually known by its acronym, Ednos.

by Ann Florini, Daily Star, Lebanon - Energy lies at the heart of the world’s most pressing global challenges.

by Rafia Zakaria, Dawn, Pakistan - Individual acts of self-destruction represent a sense of helplessness before a national path of self-destruction willingly adopted.

by Sharon Parks, Detroit Free Press, USA - The recession will, for years to come, widen the economic divide between the economically secure and those families, particularly families of color, who were already struggling.

by Arlene Martin-Wilkins, Jamaica Observer, Jamaica - Jamaica, already struggling to fend off a debt crisis and cope with the global economic slump, is girding for a flood of Haitian asylum seekers displaced by Tuesday's powerful, magnitude-7 quake.

by Nesrine Malik, Guardian, UK - The Egyptian government can no longer turn a blind eye to tensions between Muslims and Coptic Christians.

by Sara Schonhardt, Asia Times, Hong Kong - Nasir Abas' easy smile grows when asked to explain the aims of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), the radical Southeast Asian terror group he once led and which stands accused of plotting some of Indonesia's most deadly terrorist attacks.

by Bronwen Maddox, Independent, Ireland - The solution to Europe's tension over immigration does not lie in the violence of southern Italy in the past week, or in the government's sharp and inflammatory response.

by Ayse Karabat, Today's Zaman, Turkey - Roman Catholics have joined an array of sects seeking recognition in Turkey in order to have access to rights and protections afforded to minorities, particularly in the fields of education, charitable organizations and property ownership.

by Claudia Vargas, Democrat and Chronicle, USA - Nationally, 14 percent, or one in every seven, Hispanic female high school students have attempted suicide.

by Reem Wasay, Daily Times, Pakistan - Symbolism has taken precedence over reason and a vehement streak of bellicosity towards anything and everything related to religious identification has become a common denominator for most Muslim people throughout the world.

by Marwa Daoudy, Syria Today, Syria - Since 1962, Syria, Iraq and Turkey have been meeting on a regular basis to discuss water developments in the Euphrates and Tigris basins.

by Ros Wynne-Jones, Guardian, UK - The peace deal that ended what was Africa's longest-running conflict is on the brink of collapse.

by Caroline Njung’e, Daily Nation, Kenya - More teenagers are growing up without sex education since schools, parents and religious organisation find the subject a taboo. Left on their own, the young adults rely on information gathered at such discotheques from friends.

by Vesela Todorova, The National, United Arab Emirates - Agriculture uses up 80 per cent of the UAE’s water. However, according to scientists, much of it is wasted on the production of crops that are no longer relevant. Now the experts are calling for change, not only in policy, but in the nation’s culture as well.

by Anne Applebaum, Washington Post, USA - Since the hurried and heavily politicized creation of the Department of Homeland Security and its junior partner, the Transportation Security Administration, neither their priorities nor their spending patterns has been subject to serious scrutiny.

by Chrystia Freeland, Financial Times, UK - The big challenge of this new decade will be coping with the emergence of a global plutocracy – the hyper-educated, internationally minded meritocrats who have been the chief beneficiaries of globalisation and the technological revolution.

by Shailaja Chandra, The Hindu, India - Several recent reports put India at the bottom when it comes to gender equality. It is time for a clearly-spelt new policy on women and development.

by Huma Yusuf, Dawn, Pakistan - Earlier this week, US President Barack Obama identified Pakistan, Yemen, Afghanistan and Somalia as the four places where terrorists were planning attacks against America. The inclusion of Yemen on that list should be of interest to Pakistanis, for the rise of Al Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula could have a direct bearing on our war against terror.

by Clancy Sigal, Guardian, UK - Worst among the president's broken promises is his refusal to ban landmines and cluster bombs.

by Iman Kurdi, Khaleej Times, United Arab Emirates - Can Muslim and Western values stand side by side, or more to the point, can Islam — or Muslims — live peacefully within Western cultures?

by Naomi Chazan, Jerusalem Post, Israel - The status of Israeli-Palestinian relations depends more on the fate of health reform in the United States than on any other factor - or so conventional wisdom here has it. This approach suits the present Netanyahu government's strategy well: It allows for ongoing diversions in the hope of delaying - and perhaps ultimately obviating - any serious movement on a viable political settlement. But it completely disregards the changing international climate in general and the new currents emanating from Europe in particular.

by Paula Akugizibwe, Maul & Guardian, South Africa - Over the past year, a wave of anti-HIV sentiment commonly referred to as the Aids backlash has arisen largely from Western academics, journalists and policymakers promoting the view that overfunding of HIV is the cause of underperformance in other areas of health.

by Cindy Sui, Taiwan Today, Taiwan - Many of Taiwan’s 14 recognized indigenous tribes, which had inhabited the island for thousands of years before the majority Han arrived from mainland China, have a tradition of shamans and mediums, who played important roles as their community’s spiritual guides in the past.

by Christina Lamb, Times Online, UK - In ground-breaking project, one of America’s poorest communities is turning to the Middle East to try to resolve its crisis.

by Fatma Disli, Today's Zaman, Turkey - Walking or driving in the streets of İstanbul, one is frequently approached by children selling paper tissues, bottled water or flowers and speaking teary-eyed to convince their possible customers to buy something from them.

by Nina Lakhani, The Independent, UK - Girls are still at risk this Christmas as 'cutters' are flown in from abroad to perform the illegal procedure here.