Thursday, April 30, 2009

Finding Balance


Nursery school children wash their hands before eating lunch at Hinagiku nursery in Moriyama, western Japan. Expanding child-care facilities and paying more attention to work-life balance would help the cpuntry by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD.


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Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Shopper’s Delight


A woman sorts through batik clothes before diciding what to buy. As one of Indonesia;s top tourist destinations, Yogyakarta offers a variety of products ranging from handicrafts to batik items.

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Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Cultural Show


Indonesia’s well-known dancer M. Miroto (left) performs “Umbra Penumbra” – a contemporary dance – at Singapore House during a recent fund-raising event for the fortcoming Indonesian Dance Festival in Jakarta. The event was organized by Gouri Mirpuri, the wife of the Singaporean Ambassador to Indonesia Ashok Mirpuri.


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Monday, April 27, 2009

Kiddies In The Middle


Children-eat bread and porridge at a makeshift camp for displaced people near the village of Kibati, some 12 kilometers north of Goma, in eastern Congo. Bombs, rockets and mortar shells exploded in eastern Congo, with the Congolese army claiming it came under attack by troops from neighboring Rwanda.


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Sunday, April 26, 2009

Motherly Love


Mothers and their babies wait their turn to consult with a doctor at a community health center in Tbet, South Jakarta.


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Saturday, April 25, 2009

Popular Spot



Browsing around Orchard Road is never complete without swinging by Takashimaya, especially when a sale is on.



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Friday, April 24, 2009

Fitting In Fine


Two wild deer walk toward shops and houses in the Pananjung tourist hot spot in Pangandaran, Ciamis regency, in West Java. The prevalence of deer in the region has helped the area regain its attraction after it was hit by a tsunami in 2006. Residents say the animals pose no threat.


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Thursday, April 23, 2009

Survival Instinct


Palestinian women cook over a fire due to a shortage in cooking gas in the southern Gaza Strip. Israel Defense Minister Ehud Barak rebuffed a call by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to allow humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip through crossings Israel has largely sealed in two weeks of violence.


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Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Soursop Fruit


A fish seller on Carita beach holds up a packet of dried, salted fish. The seller also offers visitors sirsak (soursop) fruits, as seen in the basket at bottom left.


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Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Food and Water


Children eat their lunch perched in the middle of the floodwater that washed through their area in Jl. Pemuda in Samarinda, East Kalimantan. Four days after the flooding began, 10 subdistricts in three districts in Samarinda are still under water. Many organizations and groups are helping the victims by sending food.


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Monday, April 20, 2009

Carita Beach


Visitors to Carita beach, West Java, take a leisurely stroll along the beach’s soft, white sand.


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Sunday, April 19, 2009

Music of The Streets


Several street children play musical instruments on Jl. Asia Afrika in South Jakarta. Busking at busy traffic intersections is one of the ways street kids beg for money.


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Saturday, April 18, 2009

Shopping Time


The hustle and bustle of shoppers fill Vivocity, one of Singapore’s huge malls and gateway to Sentosa Island.


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Friday, April 17, 2009

Sailing Close To The Wind


Lapang islanders in East Nusa Tenggara prepare to board traditional sail boats still widely used in the archipelagic province due to the lack of modern ferries. High waves and strong currents have made the area notorious for fatal boat accidents.


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Thursday, April 16, 2009

Row Your Boat


Teo Samuel, 10, takes a fisherman’s catch to the Hamadi fish market in Jayapura, Papua. Fishermen who live on their fishing vessels often pay children like Teo to take their catch to the market, paying them with cash of fish.


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Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Popular


A saleswoman of PT. Indosat explains to customers push e-mail service, i-motifs and the Blackberry. Push e-mail is becoming very popular as e-mails received and contact list are automatically entered into the cell phone.


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Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Value Added


A craftsman gives the final touches to a creative lamp shade made from coconut-palm blossoms at his workshop in Mantrijeron, Yogyakarta. Earlier used as fire wood, the blossoms – after being created into artistic lamps – are sold on the domestic market and exported to France at Rp 100,000 (US$ 9.24) each.


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Monday, April 13, 2009

Waterway


Villagers wade through flood waters on a highway in Puthimari, about 60 kilometers west of Gauhati, in India. Two days of continuous rains caused a flash flood to break an embankment and submerge Puthimari.


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Sunday, April 12, 2009

High Art


The newly renovated Room XX is pictured after the unveiling ceremony at the European headquarters of the United Nations, in Geneva. Spanish artist Miguel Barcelo was commissioned by the Foundation ONUART on the sixtieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to undertake the painting of the ceiling, the most extensive work of art in the history of the UN at the venue for the Human Rights Council.

Barcelo used more than one hundred tons of paint with pigments from all corners of the globe on the enormous 1,500 sq m dome. The complete renovations to Room XX cost approximately 20 million Euros (US$ 25 million).



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Saturday, April 11, 2009

Tough Living


Two men unload sacks of flour from a truck in Dukuh Waluh village in Banyumas, Central Java. The workers were paid Rp 300 (30 U.S. cents) per sack, and were aech able to unload abaout 10 sacks an hour.


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Friday, April 10, 2009

A Royal Whiff


Britain’s Prince Charles smells the earth where he plants an endangered Billian tree in the Harapan rainforest in Jambi (Sumatra Island).


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Thursday, April 9, 2009

No More Monkey Business


Posing as a dead orangutan, a volunteer from the Center for Orangutan Protection lies beside a funeral wreath during a rally in Jakarta. Protesters urged the government to take severe action against a massive conversion of forests into plantations for crude palm oil (CPO).


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Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Set Adrift


People and their vehicles cross the Lam Beso river on a wooden raft as they ply the Banda Aceh – Calang route in Lamno district, Aceh Jaya regency. The river crossing is an essential part of the route because the local administration has yet to finish building bridges and a highway, funded by USAID, across three major rivers in the area.

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Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Humble Beginnings



Syahrial Rozali, the current resident of the Menteng, Central Jakarta, home where U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama lived as a child, walks in front of the house.


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Monday, April 6, 2009

Historic Venus


Italy’s Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (left) listens to Libya’s leader Muammar al-Qaddafi during their meeting in Benghazi, Libya.
Libya and Italy signed an accord under which Italy will pay billions of dollars in compensation and investments for colonial misdeeds during its decades-long rule of the North African country.

In a goodwill gesture, Italy returned an ancient statue of Venus (right) taken to Rome during colonial rule, Libyan state media reported. The “Venus of Cyrene” was taken from the town of Cyrene, an ancient Greek colony, by Italian troops and put on display in Rome.



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