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 Sue Jaye Johnson, New York Times, USA - ‘‘I’m not a girl boxer. I’m just a boxer. I’m not doing this for women. I want to be treated the way the guys are treated. Not special because I’m a girl.’’
by Kira Cochrane, Homa Khaleeli, Jane Martinson, Helen Pidd and Katharine Viner, The Guardian, UK - Time magazine named The Protester as its person of the year, and women fighting injustice take pride of place among the Guardian's women of 2011. As well as lauding those who press for women's rights, we also celebrate great achievement – a trio of Nobel winners, political high-fliers and the stars of stage and sport who inspire us. See Slideshow on The Guardian
by Elizabeth Dickinson, Foreign Policy, USA - Images from the world's most failed states.
by Elizabeth Rush, Le Monde Diplomatique, France - Hanoi’s development, and in particular the changes to the built environment of the city, are nothing short of hallucinatory. Cau Gaiy is a district on the outskirts of Hanoi. Previously an agricultural resource, it will soon be home to traffic circles, megaplexes and pre-planned mini-cities.
by Cheryl Hanna-Truscott, Yes!, USA - There is a powerful ripple effect when sending formerly incarcerated mothers back into the world after participating in a prison nursery program: healthier moms raising securely attached babies, who have the foundation to grow into healthy adults.
by Julia Lipkins, The Local, Germany - 20 years after reunification, the German capital has become an increasingly attractive destination for foreigners hoping to start a new life.
by Patricia Parker, Guardian, UK - A new tragedy is unfolding in Darfur - drought is causing devastation following the virtual total loss of last year's harvest, says Kids for Kids, which helps children living in remote villages in the Sudanese region.
by Molly Corso, EurasiaNet, USA - The looming mayoral election campaign in Tbilisi is shaping up as an important test of Georgia’s political maturity.
by Penny De Los Santos, Mother Jones, USA - In Nuevo Laredo, children do time with the cartels.
by Caroline Bennett, Global Post, USA - Behind the ominous barbed wire and high concrete walls of the Santa Martha Acatitla prison in Mexico City, sits a cheerful nursery school with colorful walls, a maze of swings and slides and a playgroup of giggling toddlers.
by Jean Chung, International Herald Tribune, France - After decades as pariahs, some aging women have begun speaking out about their experience as prostitutes in camp towns constructed around American military bases in South Korea.
by Anahit Hayrapetyan, EurasiaNet, USA - The Moonies have done it; the United Arab Emirates have done it. And, now, in a bid to boost its population, so has the separatist territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, with the wedding of 700 couples on October 16.
by Kate Geraghty, Sydney Morning Herald, Australia - Photographer Kate Geraghty reports from a Médecins Sans Frontières clinic in the rural village of Allelu, where MSF are screening and treating acutely malnourished people, many of them children.
by Rita Leistner, BBC News, UK - Canadian photojournalist Rita Leistner travelled to Baghdad in 2003 as a freelance reporter determined to get behind the front lines of the war in Iraq. Over the next 18 months she returned to the country several times capturing images of life with the troops - as well as behind the scenes in a psychiatric hospital.
