"Many people say that I’m very good at talking to ordinary people; poor people, like the ones I grew up with in my village," writes Thanh Nguyen, a freelance photographer based in Ho Chi Minh City who recently did a photo essay on people living in micro houses in the metropolis.

"I get along well with ordinary people, with people in the streets. It’s easy for me to get to know them and I can persuade them to open up to me."

"I am about to put my toddler boys to bed when I get the phone message that makes my heart sink and throws me into deja-vu. 'Please let him live, please let him live,' flashes through my mind," writes Kiev bureau chief Anya Tsukanova of the moment she received the news of the "murder" of Russian journalist and Kremlin critic Arkady Babchenko.

Less than 24 hours later the killing was revealed to have been a hoax by Ukrainian security services that they said was necessary to foil a real plot to kill the journalist.