by Paromita Pain
-USA-

Susan Mai did not want to die. When she was diagnosed with breast cancer and her doctor prescribed a course of chemotherapy, she knew it was the most that could be done. The very words “cancer” and “chemotherapy” evoke images of sufferers with empty eyes staring out of hollowed faces marked by the havoc of the illness haunt. Yet the experience caused Susan to become a stronger individual. “Of course it’s scary,” Mai says, “but there’s more to it than hair loss or the fact that you can emerge looking very different from the way you went in.”

by Charukesi Ramadurai
-India-

First they promised to lighten and then they promised to tighten. Corporate India has suddenly discovered the vagina and cannot seem to stop talking about it. It all started about ten months ago with a cleanser that promised whitening of the vagina. This should not have been surprising in a land with a fascination for fair skin that borders on the absurd. In India there are whitening products available for the face, the body, and even specific body parts, like the elbow.

by Amy B. Scher
-USA-

I am on a 21-hour flight, I am disabled, uncomfortable, and in pain. I hate crowds, I get anxious when I cannot escape from a small space, and I am not fond of germs. I am on this flight to New Delhi, India to save my 28-year-old life. I will be there for two months while I receive an embryonic stem cell transplant, treatment that is not available in the U.S. This journey is my leap of faith, my last resort.

by Paromita Pain
-USA-

Birthdays mark milestones. For Terry Arnold, one birthday changed the course of her life. “I had just turned 49 when one morning I woke up with one breast significantly swollen,” she says. “Soon I went from a cup C to a D and my bra wouldn’t fit.” Today, Arnold is an Inflammatory Breast Cancer (IBC) survivor. She is a passionate advocate speaking out for greater awareness and education about this rare, but extremely aggressive form of breast cancer. It is efforts like hers and other survivors’ that have made IBC part of the dialogue on cancers that affect women.

by Caroline Achieng Otieno
-Netherlands-

Within my community as in many African communities, death is seen as a great and irredeemable tragedy even when it occurs in old age. The reverence with which the Luo people view their ancestors is observed in the performance of a series of rituals and many feasts for the dead. They perform more than ten kinds of different rituals for the deceased, largely held in their rural homeland. In this regard, the Luos are generally known in Kenya as a people seriously concerned with their burial place, far more than any other ethnic group. The Luo believe that the dead can see what the living are doing and show their veneration for deceased ancestors by calling on them to bless their homes. The community holds the strong belief that if these rituals are not performed and if burial does not occur in a designated place, which is normally on the ancestral land, then chira (curse or bad luck) will follow the family left behind.

by Victoria Aitken
-UK-

Ever heard of a hospital which is an international tourist attraction recommended by guidebooks and airlines? Where state of the art medical technology is virtually limitless? And whose patients are all VIPs yet never complain? Welcome to Abu Dhabi Falcon Hospital in the United Arab Emirates. A guided tour tells you all about these beloved birds and the dedication and achievements of award winning veterinarian Dr. Margit Gabriele Muller.

by Joyce J. Wangui
-Kenya-

Biopsy, mammogram, and chemotherapy are words all too familiar with cancer patients. Death is another word often at the tip of many tongues as patients describe the disease. Kenyans are coming to terms with cancer, hitherto perceived as a disease of the West and the rich.

Grim statistics show that over 60 Kenyans die of cancer and its related complications every day. In fact, cancer is Kenya’s third leading cause of death, killing more people than HIV and Malaria combined.

by Dr. Carmen Barroso
-USA-

Diseases such as diabetes and cancer cause tens of millions of deaths each year, many of which are premature. Once the burden of rich countries, these non-communicable diseases are increasingly affecting individuals in low- and middle-income countries where they impose heavy burdens on already fragile health systems. Among the most deadly—and preventable—of these diseases is cervical cancer.

by Paromita Pain
-USA-

“We cried the first time I told my family I had Sjögren's syndrome,” says Susan Ross. “Dealing with the pain and fatigue seemed so overwhelming at times, but I was glad to finally know what it was.”

Ross is among the lucky ones. It only took 10 years for doctors to diagnose her with Sjögren’s syndrome. An autoimmune disorder, Sjögren’s is finally making headlines thanks to tennis superstar Venus Williams, who pulled out of the U.S. Open, citing Sjögren's as a cause.

by Rose-Anne Clermont
-Germany-

A version of the following article was originally published April 8, 2011. Last month, German parliament approved plans to shut down the nation’s nuclear plants by 2022, becoming the first industrialized nation to abandon atomic energy. The following article has been updated accordingly. – Ed.

When I moved here for the first time in 1998, I found environmental issues impossible to ignore. Public trash cans already had four separate compartments. I watched people in business suits ride their bikes to work. Plastic shopping bags at the grocery store were not free. Trash collection was a significant bill, and filling up my car cost three times as much as back home.

by Rachel Muthoni
-Kenya-

Since they were evicted from the Mau Forest complex two years ago, more than 10,000 families have known no better life than that of suffering, sleeping in the cold, hunger, and lack of access to basic amenities.

by Katharine Daniels
Executive Editor

June 8 is World Oceans Day – a growing global celebration of the big blue body of life that covers 71 percent of the earth’s surface.

“The ocean makes life on Earth possible,” reads the 2006 United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) publication "Ecosystems and Biodiversity in Deep Waters and High Seas." Generating nearly half of the oxygen in the atmosphere, the ocean “absorbs huge quantities of carbon dioxide, governs our climate and weather, regulates temperature, drives planetary chemistry, harbors most of the water and contains the greatest abundance and diversity of life on Earth.”

by Victoria Stirling
-Canada-

What legacy are we going to leave our descendants? Will human beings worldwide re-evaluate our actions, our politics, and our economics according to their effects on the whole network of life? Today the ethics of ecology are demanding to be recognized.

by Rose-Anne Clermont
-Germany-

“Offshore drilling and nuclear power plants,” I wrote on my Facebook status. “Too much faith in technology or disregard for future generations?” This was the day after the first hydrogen explosion at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant where the back-up cooling systems were crippled by the 9.0 earthquake and tsunami in Japan last month. As more explosions followed, news trickled in, and confirmed that the world was facing another serious nuclear crisis - twenty-five years after Chernobyl.

by Moira Birss
-USA/Colombia-

In the middle of one of the most fertile regions in Colombia, amidst a five-decade armed conflict, a small peasant community manages to serve as a model of civilian resistance against violence and displacement. But as I saw when I returned in February to the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó, located in the northwestern province of Antioquia, their sustainable agriculture projects not only defend against violence but also create life.

by Danielle Johnson
-USA-

Danielle Johnson, The WIP’s Community Outreach & Development Coordinator, is currently working in Alabama as a Bird Rehabilitation Technician for the International Bird Rescue Research Center. –Ed.

During my time with wildlife rehabilitation in Louisiana and Alabama, I have come in contact with many species of birds - pelicans, herons, loons, and gulls. Some birds came in oiled, some had been caught in the booms, some exposed to dispersants, and others captured for unknown health issues. I have had the opportunity to assist in every step of bird rehabilitation - intake evaluations, washing with Dawn detergent, feeding, siphoning dirty pools, administering medication, drawing blood, releasing into the wild, and euthanasia.

It was explained on my first day that it is better to euthanize a bird not healthy enough to tolerate treatment than to release it, knowing it could suffer and die in the wild. The process of capture and rehabilitation is stressful on the already weakened birds. This “mercy” was a comforting way to cope with euthanasia. It worked for a while. I was aware of the various birds that were put down for open lesions on their carpals, hawk pox, gunshot wounds, and the intestinal deterioration caused when birds ingest oil.

By Nora Maccoby
-USA-

Energy equals civilization. Our modern society is managed by computers and an electrical grid system that are extremely vulnerable to outside forces, both natural and man-made. Several causal factors are now in play that could bring life as we know it to a stand-still.

I am a civilian. For the last six years I have worked off and on with the United States military, most recently as a Senior Communications Specialist for The Energy Conversation. The U.S Armed Services are leading the fight to get our nation off of oil and into renewables - mostly because of common sense, but also because they make us more independent and therefore more secure.

by Barbara Callahan
-USA-

On April 20, 2010 the drilling rig the Deepwater Horizon - owned by Transocean, the world’s largest offshore oil drilling contractor, and leased by the multinational oil company BP - exploded approximately fifty miles off the Louisiana coast in 5,000 ft of water. The resulting ocean floor rupture has been continuously gushing crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico for the past four weeks. In a closed-door briefing with members of the US Congress, BP officials conceded the rupture could be spewing as much as 60,000 barrels a day. Many officials worry the leak could go on for months.

• Image of an oiled Pelican. Photo courtesy of the author. •

by Nora Maccoby
- USA -

"The question for me has always been: How can I help the world?" Mara Haseltine smiles - her large aquatic blue eyes bright and passionate. "Because it's a race against time. We have to engage people into a scientific narrative so that everyone can be part of the solutions."

In her thirties, Haseltine is both a professor of Environmental Studies at The New School in New York City and a ground breaking artist - merging science, functionality and art. She was one of the first people in the world to be exposed to bio-informatics, the 3D representation of molecular and submolecular data that went along with the Human Genome Project, run by her father, Dr. William Haseltine.

"With the discovery of how proteins function, we saw how we could advance medicine from the dark ages to a new renaissance. What I saw with proteins was that function follows form," Haseltine explains. "So I began making sculptures with molecular and submolecular armature/shape. Taking things you couldn't even see and making them giant."

by Lesley D. Biswas
- India -

The annual Bidhannagar Fair at Kolkata’s Central Park is a swarm of enthusiastic children and their parents. Amidst the tangle of toy vendors and the squeaking and jarring sounds of their toys, seven-year-old Khushi picks out a plastic doll. Brightly colored, the doll is Barbie’s clone, the only difference is that it costs a mere INR 30 (0.64 USD). It’s a cheap substitute for the popular brand and it’s dangerously toxic.

by Kimberly N. Chase
- USA -

In an unmarked meadow by the side of the road at The Geysers, the 30-square-mile steam field about 70 miles north of San Francisco, California, the air smells like sulfur. Clouds of steam drift up from fumaroles, or open holes of rapidly boiling brown water, and waft across the landscape carrying the smell of rotten eggs.

by Kimberly N. Chase
- USA -

Once one of the world’s most notorious prisons, Alcatraz is now home to a new type of visitor – nesting seabirds.

On a bright May morning this year, the sun cast bold shadows on the run-down beige buildings that tower over the dock area and make up the prison complex. A cement path leads up above the shoreline, where small waves lap softly against a steep incline covered with vegetation.

by Brittany Shoot
- Denmark -

Copenhagen has been buzzing with activity the last two months. After the Olympics committee met here in October with a slough of American cameos from Oprah and the Obamas, the city quickly switched gears to prepare for the upcoming climate conference. Despite its importance, for much of the rest of the world, the upcoming meeting of world leaders is barely a blip on the radar. Only when major media outlets like CNN and The Guardian pull in does the rest of the world realize what the UNFCCC Copenhagen meetings in December could mean.

by Mandy Van Deven
- India -

Taking the lives of 75,000 women each year, cervical cancer is the leading cause of death for women in India. This number accounts for a third of all cancers that affect women in India and a fifth of the total cervical cancer related deaths worldwide. With 132,000 new reported cases in India annually, this disease is having catastrophic effects on the developing world.

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 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 Nora W. Coffey
- USA -

What do you call it when someone deceptively lures another into danger?

And if the deception involves telling a woman she’ll be “better than ever” to lure her into being drugged and strapped down before cutting out her sex organs, what would you call that?

Maybe female genital mutilation comes to mind, but the impact of the sanctioned violence against women I’m talking about is much more pervasive and far-reaching. And this crime is not only not criminal, some of the largest, most revered medical associations in the country support it, train others to do it, and their members profit from it. The crime I refer to is hysterectomy (surgical removal of the uterus) performed without providing the information required for informed consent.

by Rupa Chinai
- India -

During the course of the past decade, women diagnosed as HIV/AIDS patients in Mumbai have been trying to say something important that deserves close attention. These widows, whose husbands died from AIDS, claim their experience is quite contrary to Western science, which insists that HIV is a “death sentence.”

by Rupa Chinai
- India -

Monday, December 1st marked World AIDS Day. As experts continue to search for a cure, we are honored to present Rupa's informative 3-part series on AIDS in India, a compelling look at the gaps in the system and possible solutions for the future. - Ed.

In the course of my work as Special Health Correspondent for a leading English language newspaper based in Mumbai, HIV/AIDS patients from across the country often came to my office to share their story. Those were the years when the hysteria around this disease was reaching its most fevered pitch. Mass HIV testing within the general population was being encouraged or enforced. The patients however reported that their experiences did not conform to the tutoring of the AIDS lobby.

Mushtaq’s (name changed) experience is consistent with that of many who I met. While seeking a work permit for the Gulf, he tested HIV-positive during a mandatory test. Although subsequent tests conducted by a reputed private hospital laboratory showed a negative result, the Gulf Board rejected the “HIV-positive” candidate. Sadly, stigma from the flip-flop testing still sticks to him wherever he goes.

by Rupa Chinai
- India -

On August 5, 2008 a young “HIV-positive” couple in Mumbai - Babu Ishwar Thevar, 39, his wife Amothi, 33 - committed suicide after killing their three children, sons Venkatesh and Mani, ages 10 and 8, and daughter Mahalaxmi, 6. They had just discovered that their youngest child too “was infected by the deadly virus.”

The stigma of AIDS has taken many lives long before the disease itself claimed them, but the extent of such suicides, and the reasons behind them, have rarely come to public knowledge. AIDS has a critical link to the immune system and the factors that influence it. Society’s limited understanding of this disease is causing innocent people to pay a terrible price.

by Kimberly N. Chase
- USA -

It's not everyday that thousands of like-minded people from diverse fields come together to discuss ecological topics from biomimicry to eco-tourism, but the 2008 Bioneers conference, held October 17-19 in San Rafael, California (just north of San Francisco), provided such an opportunity. In its 19th year, Bioneers allows environmental organizers, journalists, indigenous leaders, and eco-entrepreneurs to meet and share ideas about how to create a more sustainable society.

by Mridu Khullar
- India -

According to the National Coalition of Health Care in America, in 2007, total national health expenditures were expected to rise 6.9 percent—twice the rate of inflation. Healthcare spending is 4.3 times the amount spent on national defense. And although 47 million Americans are uninsured, the United States spends more on healthcare than other industrialized nations.

It is no wonder then that scores of American citizens are heading off to foreign shores for their healthcare needs.

by Dr. Rita Thapa
- Nepal -

Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world, wedged between China and India. With a total surface area of 147 square kilometers, the country is home to some 27 million Nepalis from more than a hundred diverse caste and ethnic identities. 86% of the Nepali people live in rural areas, with poor transport and communication facilities, and few health services. Public-private partnerships, which have steadily gained ground in Nepal, have highlighted one of the most important but neglected public health needs: safe pregnancy and childbirth.

The country has come a long way since 1951, when it launched its first modernization drive. It has since transformed from a socially orthodox Hindu kingdom to a secular federal democratic republic, with women comprising 33% of its national assembly. The Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist, which waged a decade-long insurgency in 1996, recently won elections, and a mandate to govern the country.

Having been a girl in pre-1951 Nepal, and having not been allowed to obtain formal schooling till I was 10 years old, I find these changes a bit dizzying, but recognize the huge gains for a country held back by centuries of feudalism, poverty, illiteracy, and discrimination, as well as a decade-long guerrilla war.

by Alice Alech
- France -

Working as a breast screen radiographer or x-ray technologist can be rewarding and challenging at times but I know that detecting even a small breast cancer can make a difference in a woman’s life. That’s what makes it all worthwhile.

by Joyce J. Wangui
- Kenya -

Young Kamau carries a heavy bucket of water on his head. Clad in tattered clothes that barely conceal his ill-nourished body, the young boy is aware that the cameras are focused not on the water he is carrying, but at the sores on his feet. Kamau can barely walk as most of his toes have been eaten up by jiggers. What is left of the flesh is a mere fragile skin covered with pus and dead cells. The boy is conscious of our shock as we realize that the whole village of Kiangage is infested with the deadly bug.

by Halima Abdallah Kisule
- Uganda -

Scores of Ugandans continue to bleach their skin despite a government ban on the sale of several lotions, creams, gels and soaps which are largely used to whiten, even and tone the skin.

• In extreme cases of skin bleaching, the skin can become multi-colored and marred with inflammation or scarring. Photograph courtesy of Halimah Abdallah Kisule. •

Medically, skin whitening (or bleaching) products are used for treating pigmentation disorders like freckles, pregnancy marks, blotchy uneven skin tone, patches of brown to gray skin and age spots. Skin pigmentation occurs because the body either produces too much or too little melanin, the pigment responsible for creating the color of our eyes, skin and hair. It also provides crucial protection against the sun’s rays by absorbing ultra-violet light. Doctors say that those with darker skin are less susceptible to sunburn and the overall effects of sun damage.

by Imelda V. Abaño
- The Philippines -

For decades, the Philippines, one of the poorest countries in Asia, has provided skilled medical professionals primarily to wealthy places such as the United States, Europe and the Middle East. But as more and more health workers leave the country for greener pastures abroad, public health experts say the country's health care system is on the brink of collapse.

Long hours, backbreaking schedules, poor conditions and little pay pushed 37-year-old Mary Ann Visaya to leave her job at a public hospital in an impoverished town in Cagayan Valley for higher salary abroad. For the past four years, Visaya has been working as a staff nurse, administering to roughly 30 or 40 patients a day. She has seen poor people lined up at the hospital and heard patients complain of the long wait to get treatment. But like many of her colleagues, she jumps at the opportunity to leave the country and work abroad.

"Most of the time your heart breaks seeing poor people lined up to seek treatment. But I have learned to persevere [through] more hours of work especially during critical staff shortage," Visaya explains. "But I also have to think of the welfare of my parents because with my present salary of $170, it is not enough to sustain our expenses.”

by Afsaana Rashid
- Indian-administered Kashmir -

Officials at the Kashmir Department of Agriculture are putting in serious effort to preserve a male Ginkgo biloba tree, a species that has almost vanished from South Asia.

The Ginkgo, South Asia’s oldest tree, is located in Lal Mandi’s Kitchen Garden of the Agriculture Department. The species is believed to be 270 million years old, as old as the dinosaurs, while the tree itself is more than 200 years old and is eight feet. The life span of Ginkgo biloba can be as long as 3000–4000 years or even more.

• Lal Mandi's Gingko struggles for survival; a section of its bark fell off after poor pruning. Photograph by Afsaana Rashid. •

As the park is located in a low lying area, rain and snow accumulate into a pool of water. Fida says that the Ginkgo grows best in acidic soil, while stagnant water changes the pH value of soil from acidic to alkaline, resulting in slower growth.

Since the stagnant water in the park has retarded the tree’s growth, a two-feet-high mound of earth was formed around the tree. Dense suckers have sprouted on the raised mound, and experts hope to plant them next year under suitable climate conditions.

An official pleading anonymity says that some of the branches have been chopped poorly, leaving the stump vulnerable to diseases and pests. "You can find holes in the tree; it is because the branches have been chopped wrongly. Branches must be axed completely."

by Afsaana Rashid
– Indian-administered Kashmir -

While the world has progressed by leaps and bounds in technological advancement, the Kashmir valley remains rooted in cultural tradition. The state of Kashmir abounds in ancient literature, language, religion, arts, crafts, dance, and music. Its culture is steeped in story telling, philosophy and folklore, even when it comes to medicine. In the Kashmir valley there are hundreds of families who turn to faith healers for solutions to their problems, especially those with psychiatric issues. Researchers Dr. Mushtaq Ahmad Margoob, a leading psychiatrist of the valley, and Huda Mushtaq, point to the decades long conflict in Kashmir for the phenomenal increase in the region’s psychological problems.

“My family, including my children, treated me like a lunatic a few years back when I could not cope up with certain problems. Consequently, I tried many doctors, including psychiatrists, but nothing worked,” says Hajra, a woman in her mid-forties.

by Melissa Hahn
- USA -

Just before Christmas, we locked up our apartment in Krakow and walked across the Rynek towards the train station. Crossing the main square in the early morning drizzle, overburdened by our luggage and breathless from our brisk pace, I was about to turn the corner onto ulica Floriańska when something pulled at my reins. For a moment, I looked back at Kościół Mariacki (St. Mary’s Cathedral), and found myself frozen in place, unable to continue. Sparkling in the silence, it captivated me as if I was seeing its red brick and uneven turrets for the last time.

by Katie Thompson
- USA -

Elections invite a whirlwind of campaign promises: some that are feasible, some that are not, and some that will be forgotten on Inauguration Day. One of the most prominent issues for the Democratic candidates has been healthcare reform, a campaign promise the American people definitely won’t let the new president forget. In the United States, the National Coalition on Health Care says 47 million people are without health care coverage. In addition, according to Consumer Reports, 43% of Americans who have health insurance coverage say their coverage is inadequate to deal with an expensive medical emergency. Clearly, healthcare is an issue that requires a solution. The real question is whether a national healthcare plan is a feasible solution. I would argue that it is not.

by Eva Sohlman
- Sweden -

Former CIA director Jim Woolsey eagerly leans across the table in the swanky restaurant of the Carlton-Ritz Hotel in Washington, D.C. The seriousness of the matter he’s discussing is reflected in his sharp, almost transparent blue eyes.

”The United States’ dependence on oil makes us very vulnerable from a security and environmental perspective. Why buy oil from Islamic theocracies, which sponsor terrorism against us? We are fighting a war against terror, but are paying for both sides. How smart is that?” asks the sprightly 66-year-old Woolsey.

by Natasha Dokovska
- Macedonia -

“I have seven children, I don't work, neither does my wife. For many years I thought about selling my kidney so I could give my children a better life, but just recently I found someone to buy it,” says 40 year old Ekrem. He explains that it was not a difficult choice because the 1,000 Euro ($1,465 USD) he got as compensation for the lost kidney will enable him to mend some holes in his home, pay electricity bills, and get enough firewood to last for the rest of the winter.

“Fortunately this was not a cold winter so we managed to keep warm with what we've got, otherwise we would have frozen to death,” says Ekrem.

Ekrem is one of the many Macedonian citizens who see selling their organs as a chance to save themselves from poverty. He does not consider the consequences. According to a Macedonian organization that works with people with kidney diseases, for Ekrem and about a hundred other Roma citizens in the country, it is the only way to offer a modest life for their children.

by Imelda V. Abaño
- Philippines -

At the December UN conference in Bali, Indonesia, experts and concerned people alike discussed how poor women in developing countries bear the brunt of climate change in a wide range of ways. They have to walk to fetch water or wood for fuel and carry it back to the household. They have to work longer hours in the fields to till the soil, which has hardened due to severe drought, and yet they receive fewer benefits because of low wages and low crop production. And despite their efforts, they have little decision making power because in these areas, women are considered merely as housewives. In India, as one example, women have very little bargaining power when marketing their crops. When children or spouses fall ill from diseases, it is women who care for them. It is women who will do without or with less when food is scarce.

"Life has been hard, since heavy rains always wash away many of our crops and cause flooding in our village," said Mariana Dau from a farming village in Sumatra, Indonesia who talked about how climate change has affected their family’s life and also their financial security.

by Michelle Chen
- USA -

Angela Greene has a tough job: she and her workcrew scale the rooftops of Richmond, California to run wires, lay racks, and bend metal piping. Yet in the end, when she unfurls a gleaming solar panel over her community, it feels easy to save the planet.

After being laid off from her former job at a printing business, Greene went through a vocational training program and then joined Solar Richmond, an organization that is bringing sustainable energy along with new jobs to the heavily black and Latino port city.

by Nomi Prins
- USA -

The movie, Atonement, is a heart-breaking love-story, a historical WWII saga. Without giving away the ending, which must be seen to be adequately felt, it tells the tale of two lovers’ lives irrevocably changed by false testimony against one of them - for a crime he did not commit. Thus, it’s also a condemnation of unreliable witnesses, the willingness of people to believe the worst, particularly of those in a lower economic-class, and the havoc that a false accusation and conviction can wreak upon human life. It’s a film and message that every judge, jury member, and prosecutor should see and consider before convicting or sentencing anyone accused of a crime.

by Rose-Anne Clermont
- Germany -

When we think of children killed by their parents, we may recall a news documentary about a poor Indian family with an unwanted girl. Or, the media has helped us conjure the image of a Chinese family terrified of violating the government’s one-child policy. For those of us in wealthy, western countries, it is easier to believe that infanticide and child killings are tragedies unique to poor and quickly developing nations.

• Infanticide and child killings in Germany have cast a light on a phenomena that was previously considered a problem of developing nations. Photograph by Marian Steinbach. •

Every newspaper in Germany has run a headline similar to “How Could This Happen?” or “Who Will Protect the Children?” Politicians have given swift reactions to the recent tragedies. Chancellor Angela Merkel has urged Germany to develop “a culture of looking” at families in potential crisis and has scheduled a conference on December 19th to address child protection in Germany. Family Minister Ursula von der Leyen is pushing for mandatory medical check-ups so that children, especially those being abused and neglected, don’t fall through the cracks.

by Pilirani Semu-Banda
- Malawi -

Veronica Yakobe has been living a nightmare for more than two decades. Twenty-three years ago, during a prolonged labor when giving birth to her fifth child, the unborn baby was pressed so tightly in her birth canal that blood flow was cut off and the surrounding tissues died. Then a hole or fistula broke through the vaginal walls between the bladder and rectum. Obstetric fistula is serious medical condition which usually occurs during home births or in poorly equipped local clinics when access to emergency obstetric care is not available. Unfortunately, that was the case for Veronica. She has been unable to control her bodily functions since, and leaks urine and feces uncontrollably. In a bitter irony, after all that struggle, her baby was still-born.

by Sarah Wyatt
USA

“The Arctic is not a wilderness or a frontier. It is our home. It is our homeland…Our entire way of life as we know it may end in my grandson's lifetime."

• The unprecedented melting of the polar ice caps threatens the Inuit way of life. Photograph by Ville Miettinen. •

Sheila Watt-Cloutier has been warning the world about the degradation and shrinking of the polar ice for years. She should know: she and her people, the Inuit, live in the Arctic. For them, the situation is far from academic. As she has said more than once, “It is a matter of livelihood, food, individual and cultural survival.” Some 170,000 Aleuts, Indians, Eskimos, Métis and other indigenous people live north of the Arctic Circle in Russia, Alaska, and Canada.

by Halimah Abdallah Kisule
Uganda

• A roadside billboard in Zambia encourages the community to spray.
Photograph by Valentina Baj. •

In Uganda alone, 50 million man-hours are lost per year and 43% of school absenteeism can be attributed to malaria. The country’s Ministry of Health spends 10% of its annual budget on malaria efforts; 23-40% of all outpatient clinic visitors and 50% of all inpatient admissions are for malaria. And pregnant women are especially at risk: they are four times as likely to contract malaria than their non-pregnant counterparts; malaria can also lead to miscarriages. Over 100,000 people in Uganda die preventable deaths each year.

by Imelda V. Abaño
Philippines

• Opening session of the conference. Photograph courtesy of AIS 2007 •

by Imelda V. Abaño
Philippines

• A child living in poverty on the island of Boracay, Philippines.
Photograph by Jenny Webber •

by Janelle Weiner
USA

Women in the US make a lot of choices before their babies are born, from which foods to eat, to which birth preparation class to take, to how to decorate the nursery. For most, however, there’s no question where their babies will be born: a “bun in the oven” means feet in the stirrups for a delivery in the hospital - accepted as the safe, modern location for giving birth.

But studies show that giving birth at home can be just as safe and can even lead to more positive outcomes for both mother and child.

by Imelda V. Abano
Philippines

"I was working on our small vegetable farm in our backyard when I felt the earth tremble. I looked up and saw the landslide coming towards me.

• Typical home in the mountainous Mangyan village, an area in the Philippines prone to landslides. Photograph by Dylan Walters •

Ever since a massive landslide triggered by heavy rains buried an entire village in the Southern Philippines on February 17, 2006, 28 year-old Raquel cannot believe she and her two children survived the terror.

by Natasha Dokovska
Macedonia

In the past, if a woman wasn’t a virgin, she would surreptitiously pour animal blood on the bed after consummating her marriage. Today, this tradition has been replaced in Macedonia with a more sophisticated ruse – hymen repair surgery. This procedure is recognized medically as plastic surgery and is easily performed, taking only thirty minutes to one hour to repair a broken hymen.

by Viktorija Plavcak
Slovenia

Two weeks ago in Celje, the third largest city in Slovenia, a fifty-year old man, barely able to drive himself to the hospital, walked into the ER in the middle of the night complaining about shortness of breath and severe chest pain. He worried that he was going to suffocate. Unfortunately, he had no doctor’s referral, and even worse, his medical card was invalid. Well aware of these facts, Bojan Kajtna was prepared to pay for his medical examination. Nevertheless, the attending nurse instead referred him to the health center just around the corner to fetch the required referral, a technicality that would allow him admission into the hospital. Unfortunately, Bojan never reached his destination. Just a few steps from the ER, he collapsed and died.

by Hayward Hawks Marcus
USA

• Mast Cells. Photograph by Ed Uthman •

No, they’re not angels - at least not in the literal sense. They are our cells, and just like those legendary guardians, they work night and day without rest on our behalf, doing the countless tasks needed for bodily maintenance, including supply, communication, renewal, repair and defense.

By Lara Vogel
USA

Though meant as a break from the hectic pace of my eight-month trip around the world, it had been an intense few weeks. Leaving Europe and Northern Africa behind, I spent July in Mumbai exploring its hospitals to help decide if I had what it takes to head toward medical school back home.

By Esther Nakkazi
Uganda

The number of pregnant women in Uganda accessing Nevirapine, the drug that stops mothers from passing HIV to their newborn babies, is rapidly growing with all districts in the country now offering the service.

Health officials say by the end of last year all 74 districts in the country were offering Prevention of Mother-To-Child HIV Transmission (PMTCT) services at III and IV level Health Centre (HC) facilities, compared to only 50 districts that were offering them in 2005.