Eric Simons (’08) took these photographs in January 2008 traveling and reporting with a Journalism School international travel course in India.

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Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh was the kind of guy you could have taken home to Mom. Smart and friendly, he once jumped in front of a train in a London tube station to rescue a fallen commuter. But he also, in the name of the Islamist cause, gleefully threatened a hostage with decapitation in 1994. That hostage survived, but Danny Pearl, the Wall Street Journal Pakistan correspondent whom Sheikh is charged with kidnapping in January 2002, did not. The video of Pearl’s beheading can still be found on the Internet (though the identity of the actual knife wielder remains unknown). How does someone like Sheikh–”the kindest, most gentle person you could meet,” according to his brother–turn terrorist? Aryn Baker (’01) reports for TIME.

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Once a year, during a full moon, camel traders and Hindu devotees gather at the edge of this desert for one of the world’s largest camel fairs. The traders tend to their thousands of camels. The pilgrims come to take a dip in Pushkar’s holy lake to purify their souls. So what’s the name of this Indian desert that’s the backdrop for camels and pilgrims coming from far and wide?  Anna Sussman (’05) reports for PRI/BBC’s The World. To listen to the radio piece and to find out the answer to the geo quiz, click here.

North Korea has one of the worst human rights records on earth. It’s a desparately poor country where even the slightest amount of dissent is punished severely. For average North Korean citizens, simply leaving the country without official permission is considered an act of treason. Still, over the last decade, tens of thousands of North Koreans have decided to do just that: to flee their native country. Some make to South Korea, where they get automatic citizenship and an array of financial benefits. Matthew Bell, (’00) produced a radio series on North Korea’s refugees for PRI’s The World.

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No matter who wins Taiwan’s fiercely contested presidential election on March 22, the fervent independence movement that has so agitated relations with mainland China in recent years seems destined to suffer a significant setback. Edward Wong (’98) reports for The New York Times.

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It is no€™t easy to get information out of Myanmar, also known as Burma, these days. Mae Sot, a Southeast Asian trading town on the Thai-Burma border, is one of the places to find out what’s happening in Burma. Despite the military government’€™s promise to hold multi-party elections in 2010, Burmese refugees and resistance fighters say the crackdown on dissent in far from over. Jonathan Jones (’05) and Anna Sussman (’05) are backpack journalists who are traveling around the world. They put together this report for CurrentTV. Follow their journey online at The Backpack Journalist.

Burma’s military leaders are masters of psychological warfare. And you can tell they’re pretty proud of their accomplishments in this area. How many other countries do you know that boast a “Directorate of Public Relations and Psychological Warfare”?

But there is something about the regime’s latest effort to manipulate domestic and international public opinion which smacks more of slick modern marketing than good old colonial-style “divide and rule.”

By announcing plans to hold a referendum on a draft constitution in May, the regime has given Burma and the world a classic non-choice. Kyaw Zwa Moe (VS ‘06), comments in the Thailand-based English language news magazine The Irrawaddy.

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A few weeks ago, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said in an interview that if he ever felt that the people didn’t support him, he would stand down. The Pakistani people have spoken: Musharraf’s party was trounced in the Feb. 18 election, earning only 42 seats out of 272 elected positions in the National Assembly, far fewer than the parties of the recently assassinated Benazir Bhutto and former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. The question is, Will Musharraf listen? And more important, does the U. S. Administration, which has always seen him as its best ally in the war on terrorism, want him to? Aryn Baker (’01) reports for TIME.

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Photograph by Stephanie Sinclair for TIME

By the numbers, Beijing’s preparations for the Summer Olympics are formidable. With less than six months to go before the August 8 opening ceremonies, 30 of the 31 competition sites and 44 of the 45 training venues have been completed. Organizers hold regular press conferences trumpeting progress on everything from sewage treatment to cloud seeding. But no amount of preparation has readied Beijing for the protest and criticism the Games are attracting. Austin Ramzy (’03) writes for TIME.

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