Merit Prize Winner: “A Well Earned Rest in the Sahara”. This photo of Moussa Macher, our Tuareg guide, was taken at the summit of Tin-Merzouga, the largest dune (or erg) in the Tadrat region of the Sahara desert in southern Algeria. Moussa rested while waiting for us to finish our 45-minute struggle to the top. It only took ten minutes of rolling, running, and jumping to get back down. The Tadrat is part of the Tassili N'Ajjer National Park World Heritage area, famous for its red sand and engravings and rock paintings of cattle, elephants, giraffes, and rhinos that lived there when the climate was milder. Photo location: Summit of Tin-Merzouga, Tadrat, Tassili N'Ajjer National Park, Algeria. (Photo and caption by Evan Cole/National Geographic Photo Contest)

An Afghan judge hits a woman with a whip in front of a crowd in Ghor province, Afghanistan August 31, 2015. An Afghan man and woman found guilty of adultery received 100 lashes on Monday in front of a crowd who filmed their punishment, TV footage showed. (Photo by Reuters/Pajhwok News Agency)

A police officer fires tear gas at protesters after the presidential election results were announced in Kisumu, Kenya on August 15, 2022. (Photo by Baz Ratner/Reuters)

An adult helps a young girl light a cigarette as a band plays in the background in the village of Vale de Salgueiro, northern Portugal, during the local Kings' Feast Friday, January 5, 2018. The village's Epiphany celebrations, called Kings' Feast, feature a tradition that each year causes an outcry among outsiders: parents encourage their children, some as young as 5, to smoke cigarettes. (Photo by Armando Franca/AP Photo)

An Afghan refugee girl stands near her parents' makeshift shelter in a slum on the outskirts of Lahore January 12, 2015. (Photo by Zohra Bensemra/Reuters)

Afghan children have ice cream during the Afghan New Year (Newroz) celebration in Kabul March 21, 2014. Afghanistan uses the Persian calendar which runs from the vernal equinox. The calendar takes as its start date the time when the Prophet Mohammad moved from Mecca to Medina in 621 AD. The current Persian year is 1393. (Photo by Ahmad Masood/Reuters)

Schoolchildren perfom during celebrations to mark 35 years of Zimbabwe's Independence at the National sports stadium in Harare, Saturday, April 18, 2015. President Robert Mugabe, 91, the central figure in Zimbabwean politics 35 years after Independence from Britain, has led the country since 1980. (Photo by Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/AP Photo)

Flying pigeons pass over Nepalese street vendors near the earthquake damaged UNESCO World Heritage Site, Durbar Square in Kathmandu on May 20, 2015. Nearly 8,500 people have now been confirmed dead in the disaster, which destroyed more than half a million homes and left huge numbers of people without shelter with just weeks to go until the monsoon rains. (Photo by Ishara S. Kodikara/AFP Photo)