by Jessica Mosby
-USA-

On Tuesday you may think that you are going to the polls to choose your next elected official, but the upsetting reality of many congressional and state elections is that incumbent politicians have manipulated district boundaries to decide the outcome of elections before any votes are cast. During every election we experience the effects of gerrymandering, and yet outside of high school civics class, the term “gerrymander” is not commonly used or understood by most voters.

To Gerrymander: To divide (a territorial unit) into election districts to give one political party an electoral majority in a large number of districts while concentrating the voting strength of the opposition in as few districts as possible.

The new film Gerrymandering clearly explains its namesake while documenting how racial, partisan, and incumbency gerrymandering are responsible for the state of our democracy. Director Jeff Reichert approaches his subject matter with a sense of urgency, as the United States will once again redistrict in April 2011 based on the results of the 2010 census.

by Alexandra Marie Daniels
-USA-

While most of the news out of the Middle East is of violence, terrorism, security and protection at all costs, and when conversations rarely move beyond who is right and who is wrong, it is difficult to find hope in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Yet according to Director Julia Bacha, her new film Budrus “shows that there is a way to move beyond, ‘Is this pro-Israeli or pro-Palestinian?’”

This past Wednesday in Los Angeles, California, I had the opportunity to sit down with Bacha. Among her credits, Bacha previously wrote and co-directed Encounter Point in 2006 and co-wrote and edited the acclaimed Control Room in 2004. She is the senior producer and media director at Just Vision, an Israeli, Palestinian, and North American organization that emerged in response to the lack of media coverage of Palestinians and Israelis working together to end the conflict. I found the director positive, but not rosy, and dedicated to her work.

by Zubeida Mustafa
-Pakistan-

Floods in 2010. Earthquake in 2005. Pakistan has been severely battered by the elements. Thousands have died and millions have become internally displaced. But even without Nature’s unkind revenge, life in Pakistan is not easy for the teeming masses who toil hard to feed themselves and their families. Poverty is their biggest adversary, and according to one estimate over 40 percent of the country’s 180 million live below the poverty line.

Yet in this gloom there are beacons of hope - many of them women - showing the way to people who are on the verge of despair. Parveen Lateef, age 40, is one of them. Her story reads like fiction. But fortunately, it is a true account of a woman’s struggle to change her life and that of her children.

The eldest of nine siblings, Lateef was married at the age of 12. Her father arranged her marriage to a man older than him. Lateef had attended primary school in her village for only three years. Given the short duration of her schooling she should have lapsed into illiteracy by all standards set by educational specialists. But that did not happen even though Lateef’s preoccupation with child-bearing and child-rearing did not allow for any kind of literary activities.

by Suad Hamada
-Bahrain-

Polygamy is both legal and socially accepted in Bahrain and the rest of the Islamic world. Religious leaders defend the right of men to have up to four wives if they ensure equality among them. Yet, despite this, cases are reported of men deserting their first wives for a new one. Although polygamy is not widespread in Bahrain - according to official statistics only 4% of the male population here are polygamists - the open option for men is a major concern of Bahraini women who are mistreated by husbands who threaten to marry other women and have the power to do so by law.

Zakiya never thought her teen sweetheart would become a polygamist. “I married him before graduating from high school against my parents’ wishes,” the forty-plus wife recalls.

by Reem Abbas
-Sudan-

I remember going to the most amazing engagement party in 2000. The young lady in question was the niece of my mother’s best friend. Their lovely house, her dress, and the food were all impressive, but not as much as the musician they hired.

He was an up-and-coming male pop singer with a feminine spirit and he specialized in what we call in Sudan aghani al-banat or girl’s songs. Aghani al-banat are popular songs written and performed by women. Before he became popular, it was unacceptable for men to sing aghani al-banat, but he took a huge risk and became very famous as a result.

The musician, commonly referred to as Gadora, was a dark-skinned, overweight young man. Years later, in 2006 to be exact, my aunt delivered the bad news. It was at my cousin’s tenth birthday and I was eating marzipan-loaded cake when she told me about his death.

by Meghan Lewis
-Cambodia-

Two newspaper headlines caught my eye recently. The first, published in a British newspaper, brought stark news to fashion followers. Due to an increase in VAT (value added tax) and cotton prices, “cheap fashion could soon be a thing of the past.” The second article, published the same day in Cambodia, documented the enduring struggle of Cambodian women who manufacture clothes for foreign retailers. Much of the clothing available at High Street shops such as Gap, Levi Strauss, and Marks & Spencer is made in Cambodia.

In September, Cambodian garment workers took to the streets in protest, demanding a living wage of $93 per month. The current meager wage of $61 per month is scarcely enough to cover health and living expenses for themselves and their dependents. Cambodian garment workers are among the lowest paid in the world, second only to Bangladesh.

On Saturday, October 2, an estimated 175,000 people joined together at the Lincoln Memorial for the One Nation Working Together rally for jobs, justice, and public education. Marian Wright Edelman is a lifelong advocate for disadvantaged Americans and is the president of the Children's Defense Fund. Following is the transcript of her speech. - Ed.

Everything our nation and all of us need to know about life can be learned from Noah’s Ark, according to an anonymous writer. Lesson one, don’t miss the boat. The United States is going to miss the boat to lead and compete in our globalizing world, because we are not preparing a majority of our children for the future. The greatest threat to America’s national security comes from no enemy without, but from our failure to invest in and educate all of our children. Yet every eleven seconds of the school day, a child drops out. A majority of children of all racial and income groups and over 80 percent of black and Hispanic children cannot read or compute at grade level in fourth, eighth or twelfth grade, if they have not already dropped out. Any nation that is failing to prepare all of its children for productive work and life is jeopardizing everything and needs to correct course right now. And all of us—all of us, parents, educators, community and religious and political leaders—need to be a part of the solution and not a part of the problem. God did not make two classes of children. Every single one deserves a quality education.

by Lesley D. Biswas
-India-

Among the first things you notice when you come to India is the repelling sight of people defecating in the open. Be it a rural village or the teeming city slums, you see people lined up besides railway tracks, fields, and rivers answering nature’s call.

Out of the estimated 2.6 billion people globally who have no access to proper sanitation, 638 million belong to India. According to the UN, more than 55 percent of Indians practice open defecation. Even where local municipalities have constructed public toilets, the UN has questioned the utility of these services, terming them unhygienic and unusable and lacking in running water, drainage, and electricity.