Edit Schlaffer

Founder, Women Without Borders/SAVE

Security is one of the last bastions of male dominance with the main focus being intelligence, military operations and law enforcement. Yet mothers are strategically located at the core of their families and are therefore typically the first to deal with their children's fear, resignation, frustration and anger.

Kitty Pilgrim

Award winning international journalist

I see a service in bringing information about this subject to the thriller-reading public. We can learn about new discoveries and science in our thriller plots. But in this case of Dan Brown's scenario, why pin a global pandemic on a legitimate organization? Reality is scary enough.

Donald Gross

Author, 'The China Fallacy'; Senior associate, Pacific Forum, Center for Strategic and International Studies

The fallout between the Philippines and Taiwan has been considerable, and recent events demonstrate that the United States ignores the disputes over the small islands in the South China and East China Seas at its peril.

Mark R. Kennedy

Professor of political management and director of the Graduate School of Political Management, George Washington University

Lost in the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations' skewering of Apple CEO Tim Cook is the major point: the United States' decision to stand alone in taxing foreign earnings disadvantages American companies and American workers.

Shirin Sadeghi

Independent TV & Radio Host, ex-BBC & Al Jazeera

What the huge disqualifications do tells us is that the Supreme Leader and his hardline establishment are flexing their muscles for anyone who's looking for trouble at this year's presidential election.

Carlos Carnicero Urabayen

Adviser, European Parliament and political analyst

As the lack of trust and discontent continue growing, the citizens are turning their back on the traditional pro-European political parties and supporting others who are against the EU.

Peter Seligmann

Co-founder, Chairman, and CEO of Conservation International

The U.S. and China, although at different stages with their respective economic and environmental challenges, are each increasingly vulnerable to resource scarcity, from minerals to water to food to the biodiversity that fuels science, medicine, and innovation.

Peter Van Buren

Author, 'We Meant Well' and the upcoming 'The People on the Bus: A Story of the #99Percent'

Coyne's book is a careful, detailed, academic answer to the real-world question surrounding U.S. reconstruction efforts: How is it possible that well-funded, expertly staffed and, at least rhetorically, well-intentioned humanitarian actions fail, often serially, as in Afghanistan?

Lottie Ntim

Writer, digital marketer, entrepeneur

The Internet has done much to level the playing field for people looking to launch businesses and even more so those looking to grow them, but there is still some ways to go in terms of removing the blinds of a perceived Web-based utopia.

Jennifer D. Stephens

Captain, Ohio Army National Guard

This weekend my Battalion tossed the Army-provided training out the window and instead chose to play the documentary The Invisible War. What played out that Sunday morning was the single most amazing experience I have had in my 10 year military career.

Alice Farmer

Researcher with Human Rights Watch's Children's Rights Division

We all should know that for tens of thousands of migrant children, every day in Europe is a struggle to survive. And we should all want to do more - if these were our children, we'd want so much more.

John Sifton

Asia advocacy director, Human Rights Watch

The twist of the latest CIA cash scandal is not the CIA is handing over wads of U.S. bills to a corrupt president. It is that the CIA has continued to hand over cash for so long, which is not merely unethical but now antithetical to the U.S. government's stated policy goals.

Nehginpao Kipgen

General Secretary, Kuki International Forum

If softliners and hardliners within the Myanmar military see confidence in its democracy roadmap, provided that there is continued support from the international community, Thein Sein's visit to Washington can possibly pave the way for amending the 2008 constitution.

David L. Phillips

Director, Program on Peace-building and Rights, Columbia University Institute for the Study of Human Rights

President Barack Obama and Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had a daunting agenda when they met at the White House last week. The Syria crisis was top of the list. The peace process between Turkey and the PKK was also a priority.

Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and Dr. Mark Dybul

As a global community, our fates are often more intertwined than we like to imagine. Controlling malaria isn't only a prospect of preventing needless deaths, it is an economic imperative.

Paul Stoller

Professor of Anthropology, West Chester University; Author, 'The Power of the Between'

When Islamic militants took over large swaths of northern Mali they forced the local inhabitants, who tend to follow moderate Sufi approaches to Islam, to accept a reactionary Taliban version of The Prophet's religion.

Martin Penner

World Food Programme, Web Editor

Food vouchers are the main channel for WFP's food assistance operation in Lebanon. At the moment some 300,000 refugees are receiving them monthly. Vouchers are worth about 20 euros and enable refugees to buy a wide range of food items in local shops.