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.

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.

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.

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.

Motherly Love

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

Popular Spot

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Carita Beach

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

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.

Shopping Time

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

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).

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).

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.

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.

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.