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Photographs by Jason Motlagh

In Kibera, a massive slum of rusty tin roofs and makeshift homes spreading out from the southwest of the city, the rain is turning the twisting dirt roads and alleyways to thick red mud.

Here in one of largest slums in the world--a flashpoint for violence stemming from Kenya's parliamentary elections in December--the rain is causing open sewers to swell and uncollected garbage to rush in rivers of tattered plastic and human waste through backyards.

Beads of sweat run down Rajaa Tag's face, as she crouches in the dark mud room that serves as her bathroom in a small village in northern Sudan. Her young son is screaming wildly - he hates being washed. She holds the small, malnourished boy in one hand, resting him against her hip, and washes him with the other. "It's ok. It's ok," she insists to him gently.

I arrived in the dusty Sudanese capital Khartoum three weeks ago – after more than 30 hours of travel, two nights of airports and planes and way too many screaming babies.

Khartoum is not what I expected – much more alive and developed. The sun is as hot as everyone warned, but it is more than manageable with enough water and occasional escape to fanned or air-conditioned areas. There are many paved roads, but still enough sand to get in your eyes on a windy day.

Vast ethnic diversity, geography and under-development have bred dozens of separatist movements in India's far-eastern Assam state. But these same factors that gave rise to spasms of violence throughout the region over the last 20 years have also had a containing effect: Militant groups have run up against each other, in addition to the Indian military.

Caught between India, Pakistan and a homegrown desire for independence, Kashmir has been hostage to conflict for more than fifty years. Today violence is in decline, a trend that is attributed to fatigue, a bilateral peace process with traction, and Pakistan's preoccupation with radical Islamic militants in the tribal areas along its Western border.

From the VQR website:

"Bolivian President Evo Morales won office three years ago with the support of the nation's coca growers. He's supporting those cocaleros with his "Coca Si, Cocaína No" program, allowing coca to be produced and marketed legally, while barring production of cocaine. This is a difficult line for Morales to walk, but he does it to satisfy both his citizens and the international community."

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The United Nations' International Narcotics Control Board recently made the announcement that Peru and Bolivia should, once and for all, outlaw the chewing of coca.

Those are fighting words in Bolivia, where coca leaves have been grown and used in their natural form for thousands of years.

Continue reading and watch audio slideshow on Walrusmagazine.com.

The first thing I thought of when I saw the scorched whitewash, shattered windows and collapsing skeletons of businesses in Kisumu's downtown was my father's furniture store in Seattle.

Poking through the remains of doctors' offices, electronics shops and grocery stores — plastic vials and discarded packaging cracking and rustling beneath my sneakers — I imagined the nights of heartbreak the owners of these business lived through in the anarchic weeks following Kenya's most recent elections.

Water is the new oil.

I’ve spent the last four months reporting stories on water from Ethiopia and Kenya, two countries at the forefront of the world’s coming water crisis. And while Western politicians and consumers fret over the declining economy and increasing oil prices, the news from East Africa is that with a growing majority of the world living on less than a dollar a day, the liquid that fuels bodies is becoming even more contentious than the liquid that fuels cars.

For women in Dillo, Ethiopia, fetching water is a daily ritual, but also a daily danger. Jessica Partnow and Alex Stonehill follow Fadi Jilo on her journey to a disease infested pool that her village relies on for water.

All images by Alex Stonehill.