by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, American Enterprise Institute, USA - There is little consensus on what is moral, let alone on what corrodes morality. A man of faith measures moral character by one's ability to abide by the demands of his God. A socialist might measure moral strength by one's dedication to the redistribution of wealth. A liberal--by which I mean a classical, Adam Smith or Milton Friedman liberal, not a liberal in its American meaning of "pro-big government"--might be religious, and he might see the merits of income equality, but he will always put freedom first. This is the moral framework to which I subscribe.

by Caroline Arnold, Common Dreams, USA - The costs of the Global War on Terrorism and most wars are borne by the poor, ignorant and powerless -- by poor people living in "enemy" territory who pay with their lives, by non-rich Americans, whose children serve in the Armed Forces and who pay with inadequate medical care, underfunded education, crumbling infrastructure and deregulation and privatization of basic community services.

by Heidi Elisabeth Sandnes, Kilden, Norway - The medical profession is increasingly able to help infertile couples become happy parents. But when it is possible to buy an egg cell from a Russian woman, implant the embryo in an Indian womb and take the finished baby home to Norway, the ethics of medical technology gets mixed with discussions of class and race.

by Karyn Strickler, Common Dreams, USA - The Bush Administration finds socialism despicable, when it comes to an issue like health care, but not when it benefits private corporations through corporate welfare - like the $3,000,000,000 annually given to the fossil fuel industry, that takes our tax money, then gouges us at the gas pump, while making record profits.

by April Howard, Upside Down World, Canada - Since 1998, the government of President Hugo Chavez has embarked on wide ranging projects to redistribute Venezuelan resources and services. He has promised radical change to the eighty-three percent of Venezuelans who live below the poverty line in a country that is one of the world’s largest exporters of oil.

by Sheila Oviedo, Policy Innovations, USA - East Timor's youth gangs have been more than a headache for the nation's new government, flaunting names like Devoted Heart Lotus Brotherhood, Sagrada Familia, Seven-Seven, and El Diablo. Notorious gangsters such as Lito Rambo, Ameu Van Damme, and Kung Fu Master were behind the country's first post-independence outbreak of mass violence in 2006.

by Sharon Smith, Socialist Worker, USA - The antiwar movement in the U.S. can no longer afford to ignore the war in Afghanistan without fading into irrelevance. The war on terror has been resuscitated, and as Obama has repeatedly emphasized in recent months, its "central front" is shifting back to Afghanistan.

by Amie Newman, RH Reality Check, USA - To discuss the rape kit story without addressing what kinds of policies, as a nation, we must put forward in order to address violence against women - the causes of violence, the symptoms and how it can be curbed - does nothing to further the dialogue, find solutions and heal some of our most gaping wounds.

by Nomi Prins
Alternet, USA

As the Dow hemorrhages, Wall Street firms are betting on which one will bite the dust next, and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke probably wishes he could leave as the next administration sets up shop, no one is proposing the long-term solution to the banking crisis: regulating the industry.

by Ann Pettifor, Open Democracy, USA - The balloon of irresponsible debt on which globalisation floated started to burst in August 2007. A year on from "debtonation day", Ann Pettifor surveys the wreckage, pinpoints the culprits, and outlines the solutions.

by Noriko Hama, Open Democracy, USA - Another year, another prime minister in Tokyo. To understand the latest resignation it helps to find the right Japanese parable.

by Bonnie Docherty, Jurist, USA - "Russia has not only caused civilian casualties with its use of cluster munitions in Georgia, but it has also blatantly disregarded the international decision to ban the weapons. In the process, Russia has demonstrated that states around the world cannot become complacent about the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which 107 of them adopted in May. They must sign and ratify the treaty as soon as possible so that its obligations enter into force and its stigmatization power grows.

by Beena Sarwar, Chowk, Pakistan - Time to stop hiding behind custom, tradition or religion. Given the multiple issues facing Pakistanis, the last thing we surely need is for a legislator to defend a heinous crime in the name of tradition or custom. We don’t need the heinous crime either, in this case the murder of women who were apparently defying their families by trying to marry of their own choice.

by Stephanie Hanson, Council on Foreign Relations, USA - Nearly half of Ghana's educated citizens live abroad, while one in three skilled Angolans resides outside that country. "Brain drain"—the exodus of skilled workers from their home countries—is nothing new. India, China, Ireland, and Russia, too, complain about it.

by Dominique Soguel, WeNews, USA - Suburbs of Damascus offer a place to explore how Iraqi female refugees in Syria are managing to feed their children. Women whose husbands are dead, missing or disabled describe turning to low-income jobs, international aid and sex work.

by Huwaida Arraf, Detroit Free Press, USA - On Saturday, after 32 hours on the high seas, I sailed into the port of Gaza City with 45 other citizens from around the world in defiance of Israel's blockade. We traveled from Cyprus with humanitarian provisions for Palestinians living under siege. My family in Michigan was worried sick.

by Malika Saada Saar, Center for American Progress, USA - Teen pregnancy isn’t simply about girls and boys being promiscuous, or lacking access to sex education or contraception. Too often teen pregnancy is about girls losing agency over their bodies because of the unbearable injuries of being sexually violated.

by Sarah Hamburger, Venezuela Analysis, Venezuela - Yesterday morning, following a massive protest in Washington, D.C., George Bush resigned from his post as President of the United States of America.

by Reihana Mohideen, Isis International, Philippines - Women’s bodies and sexuality are an ideological and political battleground, fiercely contested to promote a range of vested interests.

by Sujata Madhok, InfoChange, India - The fallout of Bt cotton cultivation in Gujarat has been a rapid increase in acreage under cotton, a spurt in cotton exports and consequently, a huge demand for child labourers from neighbouring states.

by Aida Alic, Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, Bosnia & Herzegovina - Survivors of the notorious Serb-run detention centres in north-west Bosnia and their families are continuing their campaign for a memorial centre to record their suffering.

by Rupa Chinai, Americas Policy Program, USA - Haiti today is a tragic case study of how developing nations can lose the sovereign right to ensure access to healthcare when they lose their right to local food self-sufficiency under globalization.

by Stacy Sullivan, Human Rights Watch, USA - Osama bin Laden's driver has been tried and convicted. But what's the verdict for the Bush administration's tactics in the war on terror?

by Dawn Paley, Upside Down World, Canada - July 23 marked the end of a two and a half year process carried out by the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal (TPP) in Bogotá, Colombia.

by Frida Berrigan, Press Connects, USA - Sixty-three years ago this week, the United States was the first (and so far, the only) nation to use nuclear weapons in war, detonating two warheads in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan.

by Anne Applebaum, Slate, USA - Although more than three decades have now passed since the winter of 1974, when unbound, hand-typed, samizdat manuscripts of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago first began circulating around what used to be the Soviet Union, the emotions they stirred remain today.

by Mary Finley-Brook, North American Congress on Latin America, USA - Daniel Ortega’s successful bid for Nicaragua’s presidency last year received enthusiastic support from one of his party’s long-time foes: indigenous groups from the Atlantic coast.

by Marjorie Cohn, Media With Conscience News, USA - Conspicuously absent from the national discourse is a political analysis of why the tragedy of 9/11 occurred and a comprehensive strategy to overhaul U.S. foreign policy to inoculate us from the wrath of those who despise American imperialism.

by Lyndall Stein, openDemocracy, UK - A hard corner of southern Ethiopia is a place where the multiple causes of the global food crisis converge. Here, in Wolayita, people are on the edge of life for want of food and the resources to access it.

by Frida Ghitis, World Politics Review, USA - To put it bluntly, Obama's behavior in Israel and during the rest of his trip could determine whether or not Israel decides to attack Iran before the next American president takes office.

by Priya Shetty, SciDev Net, UK - The developing world is facing a deadly new health threat: chronic diseases. Illnesses such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease are quickly overtaking infections as the biggest killers of the world's poor.

by Heba Aly, Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, USA - Many people in Khartoum refuse to believe the numbers - according to the United Nations, as many as 300,000 dead and 2.5 million displaced. They cannot comprehend that their government could be responsible for such actions, perhaps because accepting that reality would open doors many prefer to leave untouched.

by Sunrita Sen, Monsters and Critics, USA - Strange things happen in Indian politics. On Sunday, two days after the airport in Uttar Pradesh capital Lucknow was named after late Charan Singh, a former prime minister, his son Ajit Singh said the three lawmakers with his Rashtriya Lok Dal would vote against the government.

by Carole Vann, Human Rights Tribune,Switzerland - Iran authorizes the execution of delinquent minors in the name of Islam, contrary to international law. The President of the International Association of Youth and Family Judges and a judge at the Special Court for Sierra Leone, Renate Winter, shares her experience with Iran’s judicial system.

by Lisa Murray, Asia Sentinel, China - Traces of the murder of a human rights activist climb higher into Jakarta’s power structure.

by Amanda Schaffer, Slate, USA - In talking about sex differences, it's easy to assume that what you see is what you get—on average, women are better listeners, men are better navigators, and those patterns of thinking and motivation are relatively fixed.

by Danielle Toppin, RH Reality Check, USA - For many people, prostitution still maintains that almost-mythical status, a practice that many see as the ultimate representation of the under-bellies of our societies.

by Frida Ghitis, World Politics Review, USA - In a land that never lacks for intense emotions, a moment will come in just a few days when the two extremes of joy and sadness will overflow at precisely the same time.

by Tanya Lokshina, openDemocracy, UK - The border of Chechnya and Ingushetia used to mark the line between war and peace. Now the shootings, torture and disappearances have begun.

by MADRE, USA - The root cause of the food crisis is not scarcity, but the failed economic policies long championed by the G8, namely, trade liberalization and industrial agriculture.

by Sarah Touahri, Magharebia, Morocco - The creation of an Arab coalition of municipalities against racism has paved the way for the launch of a global structure promoting tolerance at this week's Third World Forum on Human Rights.

by Sophia Ann Torres, Institute for War & Peace Reporting, Philippines - They are called the country's "new heroes”, but Filipino migrant workers – who sent home record remittances of 14.4 billion US dollars in 2007 – can pay a heavy price for supporting their relatives back home, often facing discrimination and exploitation.

by Melissa Silverstein, Women's Media Center, USA - The news regarding women directors of fictional films in Hollywood continues to be bleak: in 2007, only 6 percent of these films were directed by women. But the non-fiction film world is a whole different story.

by Frida Ghitis, World Politics Review, USA - After months of arduous diplomatic efforts by Egyptian officials, and years of rocket attacks, armed incursions and escalating threats, an agreement has been reached between the Islamist rulers of Gaza, Hamas, and the Israeli government.

by Sue Branford, openDemocracy, UK - The timing of the United Nations' Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO) summit in Rome on 3-5 June 2008 was fortuitous. It had already been scheduled as the latest of the body's regular six-yearly gatherings, but the prominence of food issues on the current global agenda meant that the summit also took on the appearance of an emergency meeting.

by Regina Cornwell, The Women's Media Center, USA - In the midst of a global food crisis, advocates are trying to convince the world that women farmers are an essential part of the solution. Women are responsible for over half of the world’s food production. Yet, says Jeanette Gurung, a key organizer of a new network of agricultural women leaders, the international sector concerned with climate change and food policy is so “heavily male dominated in its very core” that women, often isolated on small holdings in the developing world, are ignored.

by Azera Rahman, Boloji.com, India - The numbers tell the sorry story - an estimated 60 million child laborers in India but only 670,000 violations of the law detected in eight years and just 22,588 convictions! Behind the bland government numbers are the millions of young children working in roadside eateries, slaving away in glass factories, hunched up over carpet looms or sweeping and cooking in homes in blatant violation of the Child Labor (Prohibition and Regulation) Act.

by Elayne Clift, Boloji.com, India - In Kenya, reluctant women find strength to tell their stories of female genital cutting. Israeli and Palestinian women share tales of terror and trauma - and acts of resistance. Indian sex workers talk among themselves of their experiences in Kolkata and elsewhere, gradually sharing their stories with wider audiences. In Europe and North America, women reveal their acts of courage in the face of discrimination, disability and domestic violence. The world over, women are taking to the stage to share stories of oppression and subsequent empowerment. And the impact is measurable and profound.

by Emily Lau, openDemocracy, UK - The Amnesty reports find that Chinese people who peacefully exercised rights such as freedom of expression and association remain at high risk of a number of repressive measures: enforced disappearance, illegal and incommunicado detention, house-arrest, surveillance, and beatings and harassment from both government officials and unidentified assailants. They estimate that about half a million people are subjected to punitive detention without charge or trial. Moreover, the targeting of human-rights defenders who raise politically sensitive issues is also increasing: the authorities seek to criminalise their activities by charging them with offences such as damaging public property, extortion and fraud.

by Bonnie Hulkower, treehugger, USA - One of the biggest challenges in transforming the world towards a low carbon economy is the vested interests of some corporate players. You only have to look at the humble light bulb. The old, massively energy inefficient bulb dates back almost two centuries. Suddenly, the compact fluorescent bulb is all the rage, and suddenly large corporations are switching production to the energy saving ones—it is about taking the lids off the eyes and catalyzing momentum.