(Times of India) COLOMBO: Riding high on the victory in the just-concluded Presidential polls, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa on Tuesday dissolved the country's parliament, paving the way for conduct of general elections two months ahead of schedule.

Rachel Meyer is a writer and licensed social worker who works within the California Juvenile Justice System. Rachel has been involved with the peace movement and has worked on various social justice issues throughout her career. She writes with this pen name to protect her job and avoid retaliation, for herself and her clients.

Wazhmah Osman is a Social Science Research Council Fellow, currently completing her dissertation fieldwork in Afghanistan. She is a PhD candidate at New York University’s Media, Culture, and Communication program. Wazhmah earned a Masters degree in Near Eastern Studies from New York University and completed the innovative Graduate Program in Culture and Media through NYU Anthropology.

Wazhmah's critically acclaimed documentary Postcards from Tora Bora, co-directed with Kelly Dolak, has screened in film festivals internationally. For more information please visit www.postcardsfromtorabora.com. She travels frequently between Kabul and NYC.

Shuriah Niazi is a journalist based in Central India. In 2006, she received an award for her reporting at the 6th Sarojini Naidu journalism awards hosted by The Hunger Project – India. Shuriah focuses on human rights, women’s rights and development issues.

by Iman Kurdi, Khaleej Times, United Arab Emirates - Can Muslim and Western values stand side by side, or more to the point, can Islam — or Muslims — live peacefully within Western cultures?

by Naomi Chazan, Jerusalem Post, Israel - The status of Israeli-Palestinian relations depends more on the fate of health reform in the United States than on any other factor - or so conventional wisdom here has it. This approach suits the present Netanyahu government's strategy well: It allows for ongoing diversions in the hope of delaying - and perhaps ultimately obviating - any serious movement on a viable political settlement. But it completely disregards the changing international climate in general and the new currents emanating from Europe in particular.

by Sarah McGowan
Features & Photo Editor, The WIP

I was called a prostitute, I was called a thief…I was called all sorts of names, but none of the newspapers came to call me defender of children’s rights. Very ironic in a country when 10 girls are being raped per day. – Betty Makoni

For this final post of 2009, The WIP editors would like to share a podcast from our December 3rd event, co-hosted with Amnesty International’s Ginetta Sagan Fund. This very special screening of the powerful new film Tapestries of Hope was followed by a conversation with Zimbabwean human rights activist Betty Makoni and Tapestries filmmaker Michealene Cristini Risley.

CAIRO (WNN) - In September 2005, at the age of 27, Joya was one of the youngest MPs voted into the Afghan Assembly (Parliament), also known as the Constitutional Loya Jirga.

Aicha Lahlou is a native of Morocco who has resided in the United States for nearly 13 years. She attended the University of Houston and Rice University and completed her Ph.D in International Relations. She is a consultant for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Region, and a former adjunct professor in the Political Science Department at the University of Houston. Her research areas of interest include international relations, women’s studies, and the politics of developing countries.

In 2005, Aicha founded Global Liaison Consultants, Inc., which specializes in risk assessment, project management and cross-cultural consulting. She is also the developer and manager of Eye on MENA, an online resource to track key developments in the 24 nations of the MENA region, including security incidents.

Miaad A. Hassan arrived in the United States in 2005 as a recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship. A native of Iraq, Miaad studied English Literature and Linguistics at the University of Tikrit where she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree.

 Having completed her scholarship in Iowa, Miaad moved to California and continues her education, focusing on Conflict Resolution and International Negotiations in the Masters program at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. 
 
 


This past spring Miaad participated in the IPSS program at the United Nations in New York, where she interned at the Department of Political Affairs. Miaad focused her research paper on counter-terrorism issues related to the soft power application of certain communications strategies in the Intergovernmental Authority on Development countries of East Africa.

Deborah K. Cruze is a bioethicist currently serving as a Program Associate in Health Sciences and Ethics at the Center for Ethics, Emory University in Atlanta. Originally from Nebraska, she began her career as an assistant attorney general in Arizona before being appointed as a City Judge in Glendale, where she served for eight years.

Always fascinated by medicine, Deborah changed career paths and completed an M.A. in Bioethics from Midwestern University. After completing a post-doctoral fellowship in clinical ethics at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, she became the first clinical ethicist at Grady Health System in Atlanta. She also served as the Regional Ethicist for Providence Health and Services Southern California in Los Angeles.
Deborah has served on the ethics committees at eight hospitals and the institutional review boards of two institutions. She has published on topics related to bioethics and presented at multiple regional, national and international conferences.

She is married and the mother of three grown children.

by Jewelles Smith, Women's Media Center, USA - Seeking new employment, always a challenge for someone in my situation, is almost impossible during a recession.

Dr. Emel Baştürk Akca was born in Ankara, Turkey and graduated from Ankara University with a Master’s in Faculty of Communication. She earned her doctorate degree in Journalism from the Institute of Social Sciences at the University of Ege (Aegean). During her Ph.D. program, Emel studied at the Old Dominion University in West Virginia, USA. She has published several articles and one book on media discourse, discourse analysis, identity, representation and political communication. Currently Dr. Akca teaches journalism in Turkey.

Priyanka Bhardwaj is an independent journalist and risk analyst based in Gurgaon/New Delhi, India who has covered diverse issues related to the Indian subcontinent for seven years. Her work has been published in Asia Sentinel, Opinion Asia, Siliconeer Magazine, Asia Times, and Business Times (Singapore) among others. Her area of interest spans marginalized social strata, women, children and climate change. Fluent in more than 8 Indian languages, Priyanka is writing a book about her travels and experiences on the Indian subcontinent.

Patricia T. Morris, Ph.D. is the Executive Director of Peace X Peace and an internationally known leader in women’s rights and development. She has also designed and directed programs for women survivors of conflict and war in the Middle East, Africa, and Eastern Europe at Women for Women International. Earlier, she served as Deputy Director of the Commission on the Advancement of Women at InterAction - a coalition of over 170 US-based relief and development organizations - where she developed and refined the InterAction Gender Audit that is now used worldwide. She is the author of several gender mainstreaming publications including Gender in Disaster and Refugee Assistance and The Gender Audit Handbook. She is the editor of Stories of Equitable Development: Innovative Practices from Africa and Gender Mainstreaming in Action: Successful Innovations from Asia and the Pacific. Dr. Morris holds a Ph.D. in International Politics from Florida State University, an MA in Comparative Politics with an emphasis on Economic Development from Bowling Green State University, and a BA in International Affairs from Jacksonville University.

Dr. Morris is also a calypso singer and songwriter. She is a native of St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands.

Tammy Law is an Australian based photographer whose photo documentaries have focused on post-earthquake China, aging day-laborer homes in Japan, gender equality in Ethiopia and Inner Mongolia's domestic living situations. She graduated with a degree in Photojournalism at the end of 2007. Her work has been described as, "innovative and evocative across a broad spectrum that includes social justice issues and the ostensibly mundane urban spaces in which we live." Tammy's work has appeared The Big Issue, Frankie Magazine and Blueprint UK.

Ashey Starr Kinseth is currently pursuing a Master of Arts in International Human Rights and Development Policy at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California. She recently completed her Bachelor of Arts at New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study, where she studied a combination of international affairs, political economics, human rights, and world languages. Ashley is an intern at The WIP.

Moira Birss works in Colombia as a Human Rights Accompanier with the Fellowship of Reconciliation, though she considers San Francisco, California home and plans to return there some day. Since graduating from the University of Michigan, she has worked on researching community-based models of alternative economies, advocating for affordable housing, and promoting environmental protection. Moira's articles have appeared on Alternet, In These Times, and CommonDreams. She blogs at www.1peaceatatime.blogspot.com.

Mahi Ramakrishnan is a journalist who has worked in both print and television journalism for TIME, Al Jazeera International and PRESS TV, Iran among others. While she has long given up on the idea that she can single-handedly change the world, Mahi hopes that through the dissemination of accurate information she can help people make informed decisions. When not working she sits idling in Starbucks thinking of ideas for her documentaries. Mahi lives in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Stine Eckert was born in a small town in East Germany. After studying Journalism and American Studies at the University of Leipzig, she came to Ohio where she reported and anchored for WOUB radio and television. She will graduate this fall with a Master’s in Journalism from Ohio University. In Leipzig, Stine co-published Twin Peaks – A Newsletter for American Studies and worked as a radio journalist for the local station.

In her spare time, Stine blogs about her experience as a German living in the United States, goes running, and loves to watch Tatort, Germany's detective series. Stine is currently looking for a job in international reporting.

Dr. Chelsea Mooser, Ph.D. is scientist and a writer living in Los Angeles. She received her doctorate from the department of Biological Chemistry at UCLA in 2009 for her work on breast cancer. Prior to coming to Los Angeles she was a research assistant studying genetics at the Jackson Laboratory in Maine.

Before becoming a research scientist, Chelsea received her BA from College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine and spent a year working with AIDS orphans in Zimbabwe. She hopes to continue to bring science to non-scientists through teaching, writing and building science programs in developing countries. She fills her spare time with flea markets, brunches with friends and traveling.

Jada Marsden is an intern at The WIP. In December 2008, her passion for Sociology and Gender & Women’s Studies at Santa Clara University led her to apply for the Leavey School of Business Global Fellows Program. This program, taught by Linda Alepin, Founding Director of the Global Women’s Leadership Network (GWLN), connected her with a summer internship at The WIP where she is now starting to gain first-hand experience and insight into the issues that concern her both as a young woman and as an active member of our global society.

In her free time, Jada enjoys photographing landscapes, listening to folk rock, and rereading her Sociology textbooks to help her begin to understand “what we do, don’t do, why, and the consequences.”

Allison Padilla will be a sophomore this year at Santa Clara University and plans to pursue studies in marketing. She is very excited to be working as an intern for The WIP and is looking forward to learning more about current issues occurring around the world.

Allison graduated from Notre Dame High School, an all girls school in San Jose, California, where English was one of her favorite subjects. She enjoys writing and worked as a freelance writer for her school newspaper. She is a member of the Kappa Alpha Theta Sorority at Santa Clara University and serves as Vice President of Sigma Society. This newly instituted club will focus on building awareness about human trafficking, and will work to heal the wounds of its victims in the greater San Jose and Santa Clara communities.

Two years ago, Paula Marcel Villegas Morera left Costa Rica to come to California and pursue her dreams of studying outside of her country. After graduating from the Monterey Institute of International Studies with a Masters in International Conflict Resolution, she is currently working at The WIP.

Paula enjoys interacting with people from other cultures as a way to promote peace, respect and understanding across nations in these times of rapid global change. As an intern at The WIP, she has had the opportunity to learn about the underrepresentation of women journalists around the world, but more importantly, she is learning to take steps toward change. The WIP also allows her to familiarize her with journalism, the field in which hopes to work in the future. As a woman, she feels great knowing that she is bringing The WIP's unique articles to Latin America in Spanish.

by Janine di Giovanni, The Guardian, UK - Karzai's initial (ridiculous) defence was that he had not read the law before signing it the first time. Most women here are cynical of his about-turn. "It's an election year," Seema says.

by Valeria Vilardo, IPS, Italy - Shockingly high levels of political and gender violence in Haiti forced the U.N. to send peacekeepers to the Caribbean country in 2004. The country while not in a state of war is one of the world's most unstable.

Elizabeth Stannard Gromisch is a recent graduate of Trinity College in Hartford, CT with a Bachelor's of Science degree in Neuroscience, where her thesis was on learning, memory and attention deficits in female college-age sexual assault survivors with post-traumatic stress disorder. For the past three years, she was the senior co-editor of the Feminist Scholarship Review and Women Unite! at the Trinity College Women and Gender Resource Action Center.

Elizabeth is an advocate for women's health, lobbying on Congress for reproductive health rights. In addition, she is a Connecticut certified sexual assault crisis counselor. Her work has appeared in Campus Progress, EmpowHer, Feminist Review, Girlistic and Della Donna, and she regularly writes for Demand Studios and is the Hartford Women's Health Examiner. She plans to get her Masters of Social Work in order to work with refugees and victims of sexual abuse.