By Emily Heist Moss, Role Reboot, USA - In 2004, pregnant and waddling across the expanses of Google’s parking lot, Sheryl Sandberg realized something obvious: There should be parking spaces reserved for expectant mothers. She made the case to the CEOs and they promptly agreed and accommodated. There had been no hostility, only obliviousness; no one at the top had ever been pregnant before. Until that moment, that point of view had never had the ear of the CEOs.

by Sarah Campbell, Open Democracy, UK - Alarming numbers of parents are being separated from their children indefinitely in the UK for the purposes of immigration control. It is difficult to imagine any other situation where children could have such scant attention paid to their welfare, says Sarah Campbell.

by Pinar Tremblay, Al-Monitor, Turkey - Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan, speaking at a Global Alcohol Policies Symposium on April 26, said beer was forced upon the masses as a means of “modernization’’ in the early years of the republic. Actually, the first beer factory in Turkey was state-owned and produced what was known as Tekel Birasi, (Monopoly Beer). “But beer is not our drink” he added. “Indeed, our national drink is ayran (yogurt drink).’’ This created uproar in social media, mostly among white Turks (traditional elite, well-educated and Kemalist upper class). Erdogan has mastered the game of touching the nerves of angry white Turks and alcohol presents a delightfully contested zone.

Is there anything to learn from this specific case?

by Mary Frances Schjonberg, Eurasia Review, USA - Argentinian Cardinal Jorge Maria Bergoglio, 76, was elected March 13 by the cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church to succeed Pope Benedict XVI. Bergoglio, the first Jesuit and the first cardinal from Latin America ever to be elected pope, chose the name Francis I. Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said in a statement that the Episcopal Church “will pray for the new Bishop of Rome, Pope Francis I, and for the possibility of constructive dialogue and cooperation between our churches.”

by Joan Walsh, Salon, USA - Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has derided the Voting Rights Act as a “racial entitlement,” prompting gasps from the crowd gathered to hear arguments in Shelby County, AL Wednesday, and he blamed Congress for pandering for votes by keeping that “racial entitlement” alive.

by Jo Chandler, The Global Mail, Australia - Belief in black magic persists in Papua New Guinea, where communities are warping under the pressure of the mining boom’s unfulfilled expectations. Women are blamed, accused of sorcery and branded as witches — with horrific consequences.

by Darby Minow Smith, Grist, USA - Amy Twigger Holroyd thinks collaborative fashion can empower people to make their own long-lasting, sharable clothing.

by Ruth Njeng’ere, Pambazuka, Kenya - A world without FGM is within sight. But more efforts are needed to ensure worldwide legislation against the practice and increased education to attain that goal.

by Nadine Bloch, Waging Nonviolence, USA - Both guerrilla theater and storytelling through documentation are dramatic ways of inserting the horrors of a war and atrocities fought overseas into the daily life and consciousness of blissfully ignorant constituents — and potentially moving them to action.

by Melissa Gomez, Environmental News Network, USA- Costa Rican researchers are pioneering 'aquatic agriculture' — the method of growing crops on freshwater lakes and reservoirs — to boost food security in the developing world.

by Annamarya Scaccia, Role Reboot, USA- While organizations like Men Stopping Violence works tirelessly to engage men in sexual violence prevention, there’s still a noticeable lack of male voices, particularly high profile ones, present.

by Sehlapi Dawu Sibanda, Gender Links, South Africa - During the "strike season", I couldn't help but notice the conspicuous absence of women in leadership positions in trade unions and their unequal representation in the workforce.

by Chika Ezeanya, Pambazuka, Kenya - The African Union is at the conclusive stages of fashioning an African cabotage regime that will ensure that only vessels owned by Africans will trade within the continent’s coastal waters.

by Rebecca Solnit, TomDispatch, USA - We have an abundance of rape and violence against women in this country and on this Earth, though it’s almost never treated as a civil rights or human rights issue, or a crisis, or even a pattern. Violence doesn’t have a race, a class, a religion, or a nationality, but it does have a gender.

by Robin Marty, RH Reality Check, USA- "The ordinary citizen of Jackson, if I called them up and said 'Let's talk about this issue,' would say, 'I am anti-abortion and I don't want to talk about it.' It's black and white," a woman told me in an interview.

by Lauren Wolfe, Women Under Siege, USA - The rape of a teenager in Steubenville, Ohio, is being dissected to pieces in terms of the “who, what, where,” but very few people are taking a look at the “why.”

by Amanda Kolson Hurley, Parlour, Australia - What “work-life balance” obscures is what people never like to associate with women, and that is the open pursuit of money.

by Adrienne Smith, Pambazuka, Kenya - The effort to abolish racial discrimination within the World Bank largely depends on the whims of its president and his perception of what is good enough for blacks.

by Sitinga Kachipande, Pambazuka, Kenya - The debate about decriminalising homosexuality must be strategically taken to Malawian people. One cannot simply change the law on such a sensitive issue without first addressing attendant social and religious concerns.

by Donna Mulhearn, Mamamia, USA - Four new studies on the health crisis in Fallujah have been released in the last three months. The studies suggest the baby of the woman in the pink dress is dying of wounds from a war she never saw. That this epidemic is the legacy of toxic weapons dispersed in this community in the ferocious attacks by US forces in 2004.

by Louisa Reynolds, Latin America Press, Peru - The fight to save the environment from predatory multinationals is currently one of the greatest causes of social unrest in Latin America.

by Mary Anne Hitt, Grist, USA - This Moapa Solar project is one of two long-term solar purchasing agreements that, along with the CLEAN LA Feed-in-Tariff solar program, are designed to replace power from Arizona’s Navajo Generating Station coal plant and put Los Angeles on a firm path to replace its use of coal with clean energy alternatives – energy efficiency, solar, wind, and geothermal.

by Mia MacDonald, Civil Eats, USA - Climate change poses significant threats to ecosystems and biodiversity as well as human health, especially in low-income nations. Practically every stage of meat, egg, and dairy production exacerbates these problems, and holistic solutions are essential.

by Janis Hernandez, Havana Times, Cuba - People’s questions, prejudices and speculation are all growing. Officially, any report on the situation is still being kept in locked draws, but it’s undeniable that Santiago is suffering from an epidemiological crisis. Some people are saying the city should be declared in quarantine.

by Yvonne Zonderop, openDemocracy, UK - As politics and elite behaviour move away from consensus and inclusion, Geert Wilders has been able to capitalise on the social compartmentalisation that characterises the modern Netherlands.

by Shivana Jorawar, RH Reality Check, USA - What does it say about a society when it leaves a woman to die in the name of “life?”

by Makepeace Sitlhou, The Alternative, India - Earlier this year, India was declared the worst country to be a woman and in 2011, among the 5 most dangerous countries for women in two successive polls by Trust Law, of the Thompson Reuters Foundation.

by Michele Lent Hirsch, Women Under Siege, USA - If our goal is to create stable, inclusive sovereignty for all countries—particularly those looking to regain their footing in the immediate aftermath of a conflict—it’s in our national interest to protect women during conflicts, reconcile violent confrontations, and help women rebuild their lives after attacks.

by Dominique Roberts, Safeworld, UK - Within South Africa, a woman has a greater chance of being raped than of learning how to read.

by Marianne Møllmann, RH Reality Check, USA - While abortion, generally, is criminalized in Ireland, women whose lives are threatened by their pregnancy are constitutionally entitled to have an abortion in Ireland.

by T.V. Padma, SciDev, UK - A pledge to increase support for biodiversity targets in developing countries is welcome, but care for indigenous people is vital too.

by Amber Murrey, Pambazuka, Kenya - Paul Biya’s three decades in power have been marked by political repression, official corruption, poverty and many other ills. But the people have not looked on passively. The country has a rich history of popular resistance.

by Aja Romano, Daily Dot, USA - In an interview with Gamespot, two of the most prominent women in the industry revealed that next week’s long-awaited release of Halo 4 would not be for everyone: sexists will not be welcome on Microsoft’s servers.

by Esther Vivas, Pambazuka, Kenya - The current global food system, based on an agro-industrial model, has failed to ensure food security and resulted in profound negative environmental effects.

by Aura Bogado, Colorlines, USA - Voting rights still matter as much as the act of voting itself. Aside from the long history that guaranteed suffrage for all adult citizens, casting a ballot does make a difference to our future. This is especially true in a country where demographic shifts will inevitably have to be reflected in domestic policy.

by Bongiwe Zwane, Gender Links, South Africa - Many women go through the same torture when they disclose their HIV-positive status to their partner. This violence is so rife that some women have decided that disclosing their status is not worth the risk.

by Angela Priestley, Women's Agenda, Australia - The shortfalls in structured childcare become clear when so many parents are turning to their own parents for assistance -- whether it's the prohibiting costs, location, opening hours or sourcing a reasonable childcare placement that are standing in the way.

by Jessica Davies, Upside Down World, Canada - In early September a large number of political party members in paramilitary-style groups carrying high-calibre firearms invaded the Zapatista communities of Comandante Abel and Unión Hidalgo, firing shots.

by Sunita Narain, India Environment Portal, India - The 2012 presidential elections have been remarkable in its deafening silence over climate change. This time the 'C' word has not been uttered. Even now, with this extreme weather event throwing life out of gear, links with climate change are spoken in hushed voices.

by Julianne Hing, Colorlines, USA - Before she came out in the pages of Marie Claire last year, Janet Mock knew a thing or two about media and storytelling for mass consumption. The 29-year-old transgender woman and daughter of a Native-Hawaiian and African-American parents had been an editor for celebrity powerhouse People.com for years.

by Mounira Chaieb, Pambazuka, Kenya - The case of a young Tunisian woman allegedly raped by two policemen has created outrage and anger among ordinary Tunisians and human rights’ defenders.

by Leila Hessini, RH Reality Check, USA - The social construct of abortion stigma creates an “us-versus-them” mentality—in spite of the fact that in the United States one in three women have abortions and a much higher share of all women globally terminate a pregnancy sometime during their reproductive lives, abortion is still constructed as something that is wrong, inappropriate, or deviant.

by Dawn Paley, Upside Down World, Canada - “We don't fight over the gold – we fight for life, for our water, to keep sowing corn and beans, which is what we campesinos live from,” said Irma Esperanza, who was on shift at the blockade, preparing lunch in the kitchen. Behind her, three huge pots bubbled over small fires. “Here the mining is inside our community and there's many of us who will be impacted,” she said.

by Jan Piotrowski, SciDev, UK - Making access to science a human right is a worthy goal, but how can it be enshrined? And will it really deliver?

by Bianca Campbell, Strong Families, USA - The Assembly is an effort led by grassroots organizations with the Southern Movement Alliance to increase voter education and registration in underrepresented communities, train new organizers, and create a Southern People’s Plan to activate our communities beyond the elections in November.

by Akiba Solomon, Colorlines, USA - Two years into what NARAL Pro-Choice America has famously dubbed the War on Women, the wear is beginning to show in cities and towns around the country where poor, uninsured women live. In the right’s new abortion war strategy, taking apart the infrastructure for family planning services—providers like Planned Parenthood, Title X funding and, now, the Affordable Care Act—is as important as triggering a Supreme Court challenge that will overturn Roe v. Wade.

by Jane Duncan, Pambazuka, Kenya - The deeper causes of the miners’ tragedy are to be found in a pattern of clampdowns on workers’ struggles. Local authorities have a track record of frustrating and even prohibiting gatherings to protect powerful mining interests.

by Khadija Patel, Daily Maverick, USA - A 14-year old Pakistani girl is recovering from a gunshot to the head after Taliban militants attacked the minibus she was travelling in. But this was no random attack. The girl was targeted, and her assailants have sworn that if she survives, they will come after her again. Her crime? Wanting equal access to education for girls.

by Claudia Pompa, Americas Program, Mexico - In a controversial move seen by many as proof that Monsanto meddled in Paraguay’s domestic affairs, the Franco government has approved the cultivation of genetically modified corn and cotton.

by Mattea Kramer, Tomgram, USA - Five big things will decide what this country looks like next year and in the 20 years to follow, but here’s a guarantee for you: you’re not going to hear about them in the upcoming presidential debates.