Neil Bowdler is a multimedia editor at RFE/RL.
A volunteer in the central Moldovan village of Gidighici is helping elderly residents to apply online for government subsidies for those who heat their homes with coal or wood.
Since the Taliban retook power in August 2021, the Afghan economy has gone into freefall. Even the banknotes themselves are falling to pieces, with no new banknotes issued since the militant group's takeover.
Olha Shevchenko was seven months pregnant when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24. After her home in the village of Prudyanka was shelled that same morning, she fled to nearby Kharkiv and took refuge in a shelter beneath the factory where her husband works.
Dogs, cats, and even goats have been evacuated from combat zones in Ukraine, including a dog called Crimea that was the sole survivor of a Russian missile attack on a family home in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro.
A regional hospital in the Moldovan district of Floresti has recruited just two young specialist doctors in the last three years. Tatiana Turea says she was promised an apartment to relocate to the district, but is still waiting nearly a year later and plans to leave.
Oksana Leontyeva was killed on October 10 after a Russian rocket hit her car in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. She was traveling to the hospital where she worked as a cancer doctor after having dropped off her 5-year-old son, Hrysha, at his kindergarten.
Iranian security forces have intensified their crackdown on anti-government protesters in Iran's Kurdistan Province. Social-media video from Sanandaj, capital of the province, shows protesters hurling rocks at police and security forces allegedly firing directly into residential homes.
According to Ukraine's Health Ministry, more than 90 percent of Ukrainians have one or more symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) due to the ongoing war. It's estimated that only three in every 100 Ukrainians with PTSD are receiving support.
A businessman in the western Kazakh city of Aqtobe has opened a shelter for Russians fleeing President Vladimir Putin's mobilization of troops for the war in Ukraine. People will be able to stay at the shelter for up to three days.
Russia has resorted to using Shahed-136 drones from Iran in its war on Ukraine. Ukraine says it's already downed many of the drones, which work by slamming into their intended target, laden with explosives. Ordinary Ukrainians say they can already recognize the sound of the drones.
Mamat Kulmatov is a first-year pharmacology student at Osh State University in Kyrgyzstan. He is 85 years old and pays his tuition from his pension. He worked as a traditional healer and is studying pharmacology to learn more about the medicinal properties of herbs.
Video has emerged of angry female students, some of them with their hair uncovered, allegedly confronting an Iranian Education Ministry official and forcing him out of their school in the city of Karaj, west of Tehran.
Svitlana Popova is a mathematics teacher at a school in the town of Borodyanka in the Kyiv region. After her school was damaged by Russian forces, she set up a blackboard in her garden and conducts online math lessons.
During a September counteroffensive by Ukraine's armed forces, about 400 towns in the Kharkiv region were liberated from Russian occupiers. Ukrainian tank crews spoke to RFE/RL about how they launched a surprise attack that pushed out Russian troops from their fortified positions.
Luka Kurjacki, a 32-year-old writer and playwright from Serbia, has an aggressive form of brain cancer called glioblastoma. Before being diagnosed with the condition, he previously had surgery for brain tumors that damaged his ability to speak.
Thousands of migrants from war-torn countries including Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq are being temporarily housed in centers in Serbia. Most left home with little more than money, documents, a phone, and some prized personal possessions.
Doctors in the city of Kakhovka in southern Ukraine say the situation is stabilizing a little after a deadly COVID-19 surge but that they're still inundated with new cases. RFE/RL visited Kakhovka's Central City Hospital, where over 100 patients were hospitalized with the disease.
Iranian officials say around 4,600 children collect recyclable garbage on the streets of Tehran to sell and that the numbers are growing. It's estimated that 95 percent are foreigners and most of them are young Afghans. Many other children work at markets or cleaning cars in the Iranian capital.
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