Asia

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The frontline of Burma's largest rebel army is a lonely hilltop ringed by a land mine-littered jungle, mountains controlled by the Burmese military and a patchwork of poppy fields visible through a rusting pair of Soviet binoculars.

"It's opium," said Nan Daw, a captain in the Shan State Army South. "I know because I have patrolled there."

To improve security in remote parts of the Bastar region, the goverment has sponsored civilian militia as part of Salwa Judum. Known as Special Police Officers, they are free to roam villages armed yet largely unchecked by the state.

The Bastar region is home to a number of indigenous tribes, many of which continue to live in nature as they have for centuries. Since the start of Salwa Judum thousands have been forcibly relocated to government-run camps.

Lung Lawn walked for 17 nights to get here, through heavily mined forests, past Burmese military battalions and over the mountainous battlefields where rebel guerillas ambush them.

The new moon of December is approaching, and he's come to celebrate the New Year of his people; the Shan, Burma's largest ethnic minority. He's 46 years old — as old as the military government's iron-fisted rule over Burma, and as old as his people's armed resistance against it.

To smooth over a nerve-wracking encounter with their village militia, the Naxalite cadres went on a hospitality offensive. An additional four hours' trek into the dense mountain jungle ended at one of their many camps situated on a high plateau where we were welcomed as their "honored guests". Ploughed fields and a vegetable garden were tended by a tribal family living on site, who welcomed our group with a mashed corn drink served in hollow gourds. Their faces bore none of the resignation common to the displaced I had met in the roadside camps.

Kevin Maurer, for the Pulitzer Center
Khost, Afghanistan

Lt. Col. Scottie Custer is an 82nd Airborne Division artillery officer in a place where the big guns he's trained to use are worthless.

Navy Cmdr. David Adams is a former submarine driver leading a team of Fort Bragg-trained sailors in a landlocked country.

And Arsala Jamal — a man schooled in accounting who once kept the books for the University of Nebraska's education center in Pakistan — is the appointed governor of a war-torn province in Afghanistan.

Globalization has intensified competition international trade. While U.S. companies outsource manufacturing to China to increase their profit margins, Chinese labors are paying for the difference.

The slideshow can be viewed at: http://photos.fayobserver.com/mycapture/folder.asp?event=391387&Category....

If our reception by the village militia the previous night was less than warm, the next morning was chilling. Already, Chandan, Arvind and I had been told that while we'd come by choice, there was no guarantee they would arrange a meeting with the guerillas. And either way, leaving was not up to us. So we really fell on the side of prisoners rather than guests, though no one wanted to acknowledge this openly.

U.S. lawmakers acknowledge horrendous work conditions in China and are pushing for better labor standards in foreign countries.

A labor organizer who’s helped workers write legal petitions for compensation in China was hacked from head to foot by two men wielding meat cleavers. He remains in critical condition at a hospital.