Vietnamese villagers release hostages over land disputes
Residents of Dong Tam, a village in Vietnam, freed 19 hostages after a weeklong standoff over a land dispute. Tensions had been rising since 2015 when the Vietnamese government announced it would sell the villagers’ farmlands to a military-run communications firm. Villagers have protested this, calling it an unlawful seizure of land.
According to Hanoi’s top local official Nguyen Duc Chung, an official investigation into the land dispute will take place, and the villagers will not be prosecuted.
Female mechanic in Sudan breaks gender norms living her dream
From an early age, car mechanic Sahar had known what she loved to do: take things apart and put them back together. And she’s really good at it. Living in Sudan, she has faced challenges as a female in a male-dominant profession, but she says she wants to keep studying mechanics and one day make her own car. She’s on the road to making that dream into a reality.
Calexico Mission School: a different story of life on the border
We all know about the Wall. What a lot of us may not know is, for many students, crossing the US-Mexico border is just another step on their way to school.
For 80 years Calexico Mission School, just 50 feet from the fence separating Calexico, CA, from Mexicali, Mexico, has served students from both countries. Currently Mexican students make up 85% of the student body, crossing the border daily with student visas. According to the school’s principal, families are more concerned about the economy than about immigration. Despite the depreciation of the Mexican peso, parents make the financial sacrifices needed to provide their children with what they consider a better education.
