While many societal barriers against women have been broken, we were struck by the results of a global survey by Reuters/Ipsos. It found that one in four people around the world still believes that a woman’s place is in the home.

In India, Turkey and Japan, almost half said women should stay at home, with little difference in attitude between men and women.

For more, Daljit Dhaliwal interviews Anne Marie Goetz, chief adviser for governance, peace and security at the U.N. Development Fund for Women.

And Jason Overdorf reports for our partner GlobalPost on how class differences influence attitudes about gender in Delhi.

Scientists are examining the impact of the 150,000 tourists who visit the penguins yearly. So far, the effects appear to be largely benign.

Still, the birds face threats from warming ocean currents that disrupt the food chain — so preserving the population is important to the local economy.

Jon Jensen and Theodore May of Worldfocus partner GlobalPost report from Egypt.

Finbar O’Reilly of Worldfocus partner GlobalPost reports on Congolese women living under the most adverse conditions who are struggling to preserve something precious to them — their beauty.

But unlike networks and newspapers that have cut foreign coverage from their budget, the new Web site GlobalPost aims to expand the reach of media to all corners of the globe.

Martin Savidge speaks with GlobalPost executive editor Charles Sennott, who spent 15 years in the Middle East as a correspondent, about the need for Middle East coverage that is more conscious of history and ways for the U.S. to engage with the Middle East.

AUDIO: Elizabeth Shelburne of GlobalPost discusses South Africa’s efforts to deal with tuberculosis.

A tuberculosis patient at the Botsabelo Hospital in Lesotho.

South Africa has one of the highest rates of tuberculosis (TB) infection worldwide and has declared a national emergency in response to the disease.

TB is a source of stigma in the country, which forcibly quarantines patients.

Countries must weigh the civil liberties of patients infected with the airborne disease against the greater public’s health interests.

Blogger “Peter” writes about the new home care for patients with Extreme Drug Resistant Tuberculosis (XDR-TB).

The “Encyclopedia of Earth” blog argues that environmental risk factors must be addressed to solve the TB problem, saying that one group has helped families pay for an additional room to house the infected patient — thus lessening the chance of spreading infection.

Blogger “Rick Stark” criticizes South Africa’s practice of dumping infected migrant workers across the border, arguing that the “cruel” tactic only augments the spread of the disease.

For more on migrant labor’s role in South Africa’s tuberculosis problem, read a recent report: The mining sector, tuberculosis and migrant labor in Southern Africa [PDF].

Blogger “Ethan Zuckerman” posts the work of photographer James Nachtwey, who chronicled the lives of XDR-TB patients in Southern Africa in an effort to raise awareness and put a human face on the disease.

South African blogger “Ridwan” despairs at the average life span in his country, made worse by TB prevalence and poor medical care.

Drug-resistant TB dominated U.S. headlines over a year ago, when one infected man flew to and from Europe and another was imprisoned for failing to wear a protective mask in public.

In the 1950s, New York confined uncooperative TB patients to Rikers Island to prevent the spread of the disease.

In 2006, about 9.2 million new cases of TB were reported — a 40 percent increase from 1990. The United Nations fears that the global financial crisis will limit medical research and the rate of infection will worsen still.

For more on the global health challenge that tuberculosis presents, see the World Health Organization’s 2008 report on tuberculosis control.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Open Society Institute under a Creative Commons license.

AUDIO: Patrick Winn, a correspondent for GlobalPost, speaks to Martin Savidge from Bangkok.

Tuesday saw more violence in Thailand, where supporters and opponents of Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat’s government battled in the streets of Bangkok. The anti-government protesters also took the dispute to Bangkok’s international airport, where they succeeded in halting departing flights.

The fighting began when government supporters threw rocks at a truck carrying members of the opposition group, the People’s Alliance for Democracy. Opposition members, who consider the pro-Western government corrupt, then fired back with slingshots and guns.