Transforming the appearance of the sprawling slums of Rio and Sao Paolo is more than just art - it's a mix of political statement and social project, too, explains Vida Adamoli

In 2004 Dutch artists, Jeroen Koolhaas and Dre Urhahn, were in Brazil filming a documentary. While doing so they often visited the favelas of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. It seemed to them that the monotonous brick housing stacked up the steep hillsides symbolised the hopeless life of the people who inhabited them - people for whom gun-toting, glue sniffing and crime was the norm. Jeroen and Dre wracked their brains as to how they could help.

Bollywood actress Tisca Chopra has found success in her career and stability in her life.  But it wasn't always like that.

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And so once more to the stump - I have been selected as the Green Party candidate for Chelsea and Westminster in the forthcoming London Assembly elections, writes Julia Stephenson.

I say 'selected', but if I’m honest, no one else wanted to do it – like Amy Winehouse I said 'No no no’ but the thought of green-minded burghers trotting to the polling booth on 1 May to find no Green candidate to vote for was too guilt-making.  So in a triumph of hope over experience (this is my fifth election and I’ve lost every one of them), here I am again.

AGONY
My partner and I have been together for twelve years and have twin daughters aged six. Since their birth our relationship has deteriorated to the extent that we now sleep in separate rooms and lead virtually separate lives.

I still want us to stay together even though we spend much of the time screaming at each other.

I was brought up by a single parent and desperately want my kids to experience normal family life. We've seen a couples' counsellor but my partner's still adamant he wants a separation. Any suggestions as to where we should go from here?

Who speaks for you?

Courtesy of Avaaz

'How many brain scientists have been able to study the brain from the inside out? I've gotten as much out of this experience of losing my left mind as I have in my entire academic career.'

By Geraldine Royds

Dr Jill Bolte Taylor was a 37-year-old Harvard-trained and published brain scientist when a blood vessel exploded in her brain shutting down her left hemisphere’s neural circuitry.  

In this enthralling video made for the TED conference in February 2008, she describes how she watched as her brain functions - movement, speech, self awareness - slipped away, one by one.