by Dr. Chelsea Mooser
- USA -

As a breast cancer researcher, I tend to be the go-to gal on all topics science. A few weeks ago a woman asked me if, considering the risks and the benefits, I would go on hormone replacement therapy (HRT) during menopause. I hadn’t given the topic much thought. I knew from conversations with women who had gone through menopause that estrogen was remarkable in relieving the hot flashes, cognitive impairment, sagging skin, and mood swings associated with “The Change.” On the other hand, as a breast cancer researcher, I also knew about the health risks. But like any typical pre-menopausal woman I hadn’t really thought about it that much.

by Jessica Mosby
- USA -

Maripaz Vega, currently the world’s only professional female matador, emerges triumphant from yet another death-defying bullfight. Her jeweled matador jacket and pants are covered with as much blood as sparkle while the crowd’s enthusiastic roar echoes through the second-rate bullfighting ring in a small Spanish town. Bullfighting is undeniably gory, and yet the sport’s myriad dangers and even risk of death don’t stop the dedicated few like Vega from committing their lives to the dream of facing a bull in one of Spain’s most prestigious plazas.

by Vera von Kreutzbruck
- Germany -

One of life’s sweet pleasures is to travel. Thanks to the increasing number of low-cost flights, traveling abroad is no longer a luxury reserved for the privileged few. At the same time, however, there is an alarming increase in the demand of personal data from tourists and no clear transatlantic legal framework on personal data exchange. Though third parties such as airlines and airport operators have the right to read this data, we don’t know what happens with it afterwards.

by Shreyasi Singh
- India -

The weakening global economy is helping reverse India’s much-lamented “brain drain” as hundreds of techies, scientists and corporate managers, primarily from the US, are homeward bound. India’s booming economy has aided this influx. Its average 8% annual growth over the last decade has opened floodgates of opportunities, ambitions and ideas.

by Jessica Mosby
- USA -

Growing old in a nursing home is rarely an enviable fate. For the Palestinian Christian residents of the Catholic–run Our Lady of Sorrows nursing home, old age is particularly disheartening. Located in East Jerusalem, the nursing home is situated right next to the Israeli security wall that cuts through the West Bank. But most of the employees and residents’ families live in Palestine, and therefore need special authorization to cross the border legally.

by Aralena Malone-Leroy
News Editor, The WIP
- France -

In 2006, my husband and I decided to move from San Jose, California to Paris, France. The choice between Silicon Valley and the City of Light may seem like a no-brainer to some, but our decision was based on professional and family considerations rather than romantic notions.

When French people ask incredulously how I could leave the sunny beaches of California for grey Parisian city life, I inevitably answer: socialized healthcare. From the time I graduated from college in 2001 and moved to France, I was an employed, but uninsured, American. At the time approximately 16% of Americans were in the same boat – uninsured not necessarily due to unemployment, but to the national decline, particularly in the West, in employer-sponsored coverage.

by Mandy Van Deven
- India -

What do former U.S. Senator Larry Craig, women in Victorian England, and transgender activists have in common?

Toilets!

by Binalakshmi Nepram-Mentschel
- India -

In July I spoke before the United Nations General Assembly in honor of the tens of thousands of people who have lost their lives to gun violence in my part of the world. The very fact that I spoke before such an influential decision-making body is testimony to how I, and millions of others worldwide, have survived violence caused by unregulated arms trade and have chosen a life dedicated to the cause of peace.

by Zubeida Mustafa
- Pakistan -

A few years ago, Pakistan’s newspapers and magazines were awash with pictures of shirtless men displaying scars on their torsos indicating they were organ donors. There were villages where practically every male adult claimed to have sold a kidney to earn extra money to repay his debts.

by Brittany Shoot
- Denmark -

Danes are often dubbed “the happiest people in the world” by the U.S. media, and this may be due in part to Denmark’s advanced state-managed, single-provider healthcare system. Every citizen – as well as every refugee, immigrant of temporary or permanent residence, temporary worker, and international student – has full state healthcare coverage. Everyone carries a sygesikringsbevis – a plastic yellow card imprinted with a personal identification CPR (centralized persons register) number.

by Jessica Mosby
- USA -

During its midcentury glory days, Weequahic High School was a prestigious public school located in a predominantly Jewish enclave of Newark, New Jersey. Students were expected to excel post-graduation, as evidenced by noteworthy alumni, including author Philip Roth and NBA star and coach Al Attles. By the time Newark native Ronald Stone became principal in 2001, the high school’s demographic had changed and daily life was so riddled with gang violence that Stone wore a bulletproof vest when walking outside the campus’ main buildings.

by Lesley D. Biswas
- India -

Situated in the coastal regions of West Bengal and parts of Bangladesh, Sundarbans is the largest deltaic mangrove forest in the world and home to the endangered Royal Bengal Tiger. According to a study conducted by the United Nations, a mere 45cm rise in sea level will submerge over 10,000 square kilometers, or nearly all of the forest.

by Melissa Hahn
- USA -

“I just thought our life would be different.”

My mother Deborah Cruze is reflecting on the devastation this recession has wrought on her generation. In her view, the rules of the game changed when the baby boomers were half-way up the ladder – too invested in the old system and too inflexible to adjust, but still years away from retirement. Whereas her parents’ generation (born in the 1930s) was able to ride the wave of the American dream; and her children’s generation (born in the 1980s) still has time to adapt to haphazard careers of contract work and declining benefits; her generation is perilously trapped.