Nature – first prize, stories. Pandemic Pigeons – A Love Story. The photographer’s daughter, Merel, cowers after Dollie flies past and perches on the balcony before entering the house in Vlaardingen in the Netherlands on 6 April 2020. “She’s still frightened when Dollie suddenly lands on the balcony railing. I hide my smile behind the camera, as I try to comfort her by saying they won’t hurt you. “I thought he was going to attack me”, she replies. As the nesting pigeons keep coming back to our place, slowly my girls have started to appreciate them – perhaps not as much as I do, but it’s a start”. (Photo by Jasper Doest/World Press Photo 2021)

Shamila, 15, from an internally displaced family, adjusts her wedding dress in an old mud house yard, on her wedding day, on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, May 19, 2023. “I have no choice. If I don’t accept, my family will be hurt”, she says. Due to poverty and debt, her father had to marry her to a boy at a young age. Her father said that if I did not do this, I might have to give my daughter to someone that I owe. Now, with the money I received from the boy's family, I can pay my debt and treat my son. (Photo by Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo)

Ismail Mustafa, seen in 2007. “I was collecting mushrooms on the hill near here. I didn’t see the mine. There was a huge explosion. When I woke up I saw that both my legs were gone; I thought my life was over. My brother and another guy were with me. They made a stretcher from sticks and tied it together with clothing. It took two hours to get off the mountain. ‘My daughter has also been injured. She found a shell and brought it into the house and put it on the fire. She didn’t know what she was doing at the time – she was only three. She is blind and has lost an arm”. (Photo by Sean Sutton for the Mines Advisory Group/The Guardian)

Life in lockdown: Schoolteacher Marzio Toniolo, 35, takes a picture of his two-year-old daughter Bianca painting his toenails as they while away time at home in San Fiorano, one of the original “red zone” towns in northern Italy that has now been extended to the whole country, as his wife, Bianca's mum Chiara Zuddas looks out from their balcony, March 20, 2020. Toniolo has been documenting how his family has dealt with being under quarantine since it began for them in February. (Photo by Marzio Toniolo via Reuters)

“Lafayette Ronald Hubbard (March 13, 1911 – January 24, 1986), better known as L. Ron Hubbard (and often referred to by his initials, LRH), was an American pulp fiction author and religious leader who founded the Church of Scientology. After establishing a career as a writer, becoming best known for his science fiction and fantasy stories, he developed a self-help system called Dianetics which was first published in May 1950. He subsequently developed his ideas into a wide-ranging set of doctrines and rituals as part of a new religious movement that he called Scientology. His writings became the guiding texts for the Church of Scientology and a number of affiliated organizations that address such diverse topics as business administration, literacy and drug rehabilitation”. – Wikipedia

Photo: American science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, founder of the Church of Scientology, uses his Hubbard Electrometer (patent pending) to determine whether tomatoes experience pain, 1959. His work led him to the conclusion that tomatoes “scream when sliced”. (Photo by Scott Lauder/Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

“Sektor gaza” (Russian: Сектор газа) was a Russian rock band formed on 5 December 1987 in the city of Voronezh, Russia. Despite only semi-officially existing (due to obscene lyrics), the group remains popular in Russia today. The group name was taken from an eponymous industrial district of Voronezh (itself named for high levels of environmental contamination). Their music style could be defined as Russian punk, integrated with elements of different musical genres such as rock, rap, and Russian folk. On 4 July 2000, group leader Yuri “Hoy” Klinskih complained of strong pains in his stomach and the left side of his chest. He suffered heart failure shortly thereafter. Klinskikh died in Voronezh (Russia)at the age of 35. He is buried in the Levoberezhniy Cemetery. The group ceased to exist.

About the music video: The First Chechen War, also known as the War in Chechnya, was a conflict between the Russian Federation and the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, fought from December 1994 to August 1996. After the initial campaign of 1994 – 1995, culminating in the devastating Battle of Grozny, Russian federal forces attempted to seize control of the mountainous area of Chechnya but were set back by Chechen guerrilla warfare and raids on the flatlands in spite of Russia's overwhelming manpower, weaponry, and air support...

“Reem Riyashi (1982 – 14 January 2004) was a Palestinian mother of two from Gaza City who killed herself and four Israelis at the Erez crossing on January 14, 2004 in a suicide bombing attack. Hamas and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade claimed that the attack by Riyashi was a joint operation mounted as a response to weeks of Israeli incursions into West Bank cities that had left about 25 Palestinians dead”. – Wikipedia

Photo: Reem Saleh Al-Riyashi, the first woman suicide bomber from Hamas, is shown with her daughter, Duha, in the Gaza Strip. She was married and the mother of two young children. (Photo by Getty Images)