by Natasha Mozgovaya, Haaretz, Israel - A $4.2 billion lawsuit based on a testimony of a disgruntled employee reveals a scheme to obtain GSM license in exchange for for UN votes.

by Garima Jain, Tehelka, India - A domestic worker by day, and acclaimed author by night, Halder first claimed the spotlight in 2006, with the publication of her bestselling A Life Less Ordinary. But she steps away from its glare each day, to tend the flames of home and hearth for her employer.

by Scilla Elworthy, TEDxExeter, UK - "We can organize to overcome oppression by opening our hearts as well as strengthening this incredible resolve."

by Saeanna Chingamuka, Gender Links, South Africa - The implementation of the AU Gender Policy at this years' elections is crucial to the achievements of the Union's mission and objectives. Not only does it offer an opportunity for the advancement and achievement of gender equality between women and men. It can also facilitate the mainstreaming of gender issues in the African agenda especially during the African Women's Decade.

by Jagienka Wilczak, Polityka, Poland - With less than a month left to go before the kick-off of the Euro 2012, the fate of opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko has poisoned relations between the EU and Ukraine — the co-organiser of the championship along with Poland. However, the issue of human rights is only one aspect of a story in which business interests have also played an important role.

by Caroline Gluck, Oxfam Conflict & Emergencies, UK - According to a UN report last year, an estimated 51 million people, or three quarters of the population in Congo, have no access to safe drinking water.

by Sarah Mousa, Al Jazeera, Qatar - While the presidential election may not be held in perfect conditions, the poll was unthinkable just over a year ago.

by Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas, RH Reality Check, USA - We should not be relegated to a bathroom or closet because society has not deemed it critical to create private nursing or pumping spaces in public locations. We should not have to feel the burning judgmental stares because we decide to breastfeed on a plane, or anywhere in public.

by Katrine Kielos, Aftonbladet, Sweden - Triumphant a decade ago, today social democrats have been voted out office in most European countries — a change that is due to a lack of new proposals, but also and more importantly to the right’s appropriation of the language and ideas of social democracy.

by Patricka Dallas & Frieda Werden, WINGS, Canada - After the genocide in Rwanda, women were 70% of the country's population. They had to step out of traditional gender roles and network with each other to re-create the country.

by Sharon Weinberger, BBC, UK - Debris piling up around Earth that could seriously damage spacecraft and satellites has reached a tipping point. So how are we going to get rid of it?

by Azeen Ghorayshi, Mother Jones, USA- Early Monday morning, around 100 University of California police raided a five-acre patch of land owned by UC Berkeley and used occasionally for agricultural research. The raid came three weeks after roughly 200 activists, community members, and students took over a small patch of the land, known as the "Gill Tract," located in the small city of Albany, just north of Berkeley.

by Theda Skocpol, OpenDemocracy, UK- If Romney is elected he will probably be there with a Republican majority in both the Senate and the House and in the first three months he will sign bills that destroy healthcare reform, push privatisation of social security and Medicare, and cut taxes. In many ways he is the ideal Tea Party candidate – electable, but someone who will deliver their agenda.

by Tamara Pearson, Venezuela Analysis, Venezuela - Its contextualised tourism aimed at fomenting community organisation, encouraging environmental and ecological awareness and appreciation, rescuing local culture and collective history, and promoting solidarity and knowledge exchange between countries and regions.

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 Ariana Ferentinou, Hurriyet, Turkey - What we are witnessing unraveling before our eyes is not just a “Greek tragedy;” it is a systemic eurozone problem where the dramatic heroes are all the Europeans who have already started to share the fate of Greeks.

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

by Koketso Moeti, Safe World, UK - The consequences of poverty affect women and female children differently from their male counterparts. Their needs are often relinquished in the quest for survival, which in turn limits their chances of lifting themselves out of poverty even more.

by Beril Dedeoglu, Today's Zaman, Turkey - It is not always easy to face the facts of this particular period with honesty. Yet the lack of self-criticism about some aspects of this period and events that occurred is the basis of many of the problems we are trying to resolve nowadays, such as transforming our republic into a democratic republic.

by Jessica Mack, RH Reality Check, USA - Here in the US, where Americans spend an average of $110 million on fast food each year, some will spend $10,000 for breast implants, and still others will drop $90 on yoga pants, somehow covering the costs of an abortion is one of the most lavish and morally egregious things you can do.