Mario Cruz / EPA

A woman places flowers on the grave of a relative at the cemetery of Benfica, on All Saints' Day, in Lisbon, Portugal on Nov. 1.

Jon Nazca / Reuters

Catholic nuns from the congregation Saint Jose of the Mountain pray as they visit a tombstone on All Saints Day in the cemetery of San Lorenzo in Ronda, near the southern Spanish city of Malaga.

Emilio Morenatti / AP

A woman prepares flowers to be sold at a cemetery during All Saints Day, a Catholic holiday to reflect on the saints and deceased relatives in Barcelona, Spain.

Cheryl Ravelo / Reuters

Children play beside a tombstone as their family visit deceased relatives at Heroe's cemetery to remember their departed loved ones on All Saints Day in in Taguig City in Metro Manila.

Cheryl Ravelo / Reuters

A boy darkens the inscription of a tombstone of a deceased relative during the commemoration of All Saints Day in Navotas City, Metro Manila on Nov. 1.

On All Saints' Day, cemeteries around the world are crowded with people paying their respects to departed loved ones by offering flowers, candles and prayers. In the Philippines, the day is also observed by cleaning and repairing the graves of deceased relatives, but this tradition is slowly dying.

Vasily Fedosenko / Reuters

An elderly woman prays near a grave at a cemetery in the village of Ivenets, 31 miles southwest of Minsk, on Nov. 1. Catholics in Belarus marked All Saints Day by visiting the graves of their relatives and friends.

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AP

People walk among rubble at the site of a fuel truck explosion in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Nov. 1, 2012. A fuel truck exploded after hitting portions of a bridge, engulfing buildings and cars in flames, witnesses and officials said.

Reuters

An injured man lies on a stretcher after an explosion in eastern Riyadh on November 1, 2012.

AP

People walk among debris at the site of a fuel truck explosion in Riyadh on Nov. 1, 2012.

NBC News staff and wire reports — Updated at 9:39 a.m. ET: At least 22 people were killed when a fuel truck crashed into an overpass in the Saudi capital Riyadh on Thursday, triggering an explosion that brought down an industrial building and torched nearby vehicles, officials and state media said

Health ministry spokesman Saad al-Qahtani said 135 people were injured in the disaster. He told state television they were mostly men and included some foreigners. Click here for updates on this developing story.

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Tim Wimborne / Reuters

A potential bidder views a foal at the Magic Millions sales complex on Australia's Gold Coast during an auction of Broodmares from Patinack Farm, the horse racing stud owned by mining magnate Nathan Tinkler, on October 30, 2012.

Martyn Rushby / Handout via Reuters, file

Nathan Tinkler's rise from obscure electrician to mining magnate, sports club owner and champion of a rejuvenated Australian industrial town could be unravelling.

Reuters reports — With a cry of "cheap as old boots" from the auctioneer, the hammer came down at A$5,000 ($5,200) on the first broodmare to open a three-day auction of 350 horses from the stables of faltering mining magnate Nathan Tinkler.

Tinkler's rise from pit electrician to Australia's youngest billionaire has hit a hurdle, with creditors circling his stable of mining, sports and racing businesses, and he is raising funds with the out-of-season sale that began on Tuesday.

His 19.4 percent stake in Australia's biggest independent coal miner Whitehaven Coal, which represents the bulk of his wealth, is heavily leveraged and has shrunk considerably in line with falling coal prices. Read the full story.

Tim Wimborne / Reuters

An auctioneer at the Magic Millions sales complex on Australia's Gold Coast brings his hammer down during an auction of Broodmares from Patinack Farm on October 30, 2012.

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SANA via EPA

People gather at the site where a car bomb exploded in the Al Rawda area of Jaramana, southern Damascus, on October 29, 2012.

SANA via EPA

People inspecting damage at the site where a car bomb exploded in the Al Rawda area of Jaramana, southern Damascus on October 29, 2012.

SANA via EPA

A general view of the site where a car bomb exploded.

NBC News wire services report — Syrian jets bombed suburbs of Damascus and a car bomb killed 10 people in the capital on Monday, the last day of a four-day truce that U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon acknowledged had failed.

Each side blamed the other for breaching the Eid al-Adha truce arranged by international envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, who nevertheless promised to pursue his peace efforts.

Syrian state television said women and children were among those killed or wounded by a "terrorist car bomb" near a bakery in Jaramana, in the southeast of Damascus. Local residents say the district is controlled by Assad loyalists. Read the full story.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Pictures released by the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency. 

SANA via EPA

People gathering at the site of the explosion.

SANA via EPA

An injured girl on a stretcher after receiving first aid.

SANA via EPA

People in a damaged building at the site of the explosion.

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Jose Cabezas / AFP - Getty Images

Fishermen sail a boat with an image of Saint Raphael the Archangel during a procession, at the port of La Libertad, south of San Salvador, on Oct. 23.

Jose Cabezas / AFP - Getty Images

Believers touch the image of Saint Raphael the Archangel before the start of a procession, at the port of La Libertad on Oct. 23.

Saint Raphael was named patron saint of the local fishermen of the port of La Libertad after the image survived an explosion in the port in 1934.

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Married at the age of 8. That fact alone is hard to fathom. It's even more difficult to stomach when you think of the resulting forced sex, physical abuse and early pregnancies that often result. But for girls in more than 50 countries in the developing world, and for a minority in the developed world, this is their reality. The reality of child marriage.

Stephanie Sinclair / VIl

Faiz, 40, and Ghulam, 11, sit in her home prior to their wedding in the rural Damarda Village, Afghanistan on Sept. 11, 2005. Ghulam said she is sad to be getting engaged as she wanted to be a teacher.

Photojournalist Stephanie Sinclair has been documenting this issue around the world since 2003. A large body of her work was published last year in National Geographic.

We asked Sinclair to tell us more about her reporting:

How did you come up with this story idea and how long have you been reporting it?
This project began in 2003, after I met several girls in Herat, Afghanistan who had attempted suicide by self-immolation. I noticed that many of the girls who had set themselves on fire had been married at very young ages, in many cases prepubescent. It was the first time I’d ever encountered anyone who had been married so young. This phenomenon seemed to link many of these girls and this intense act of desperation. I couldn’t help but feel a responsibility to research and document whatever it was that would make these girls take such drastic measures. The resulting project has taken almost a decade to date, and I am still working on the issue. What makes it so complicated is its prevalence in more than 50 countries worldwide. To document it properly, one needs to address the many cultural reasons behind the issue as well as the differing impacts on the varying societies.

How many different countries did you travel to for this story, and how did you gain access to these sensitive stories and events?
I have documented this issue in Afghanistan, Nepal, India, Ethiopia and Yemen. Access has always been incredibly difficult for several reasons. The most obvious obstacle is that parents and families innately know that what they are doing can harm their children. But they continue this harmful traditional practice because they may feel societal pressures, have concerns for their safety and well being should they remain unmarried, or may even need to simply sell their girls in a desperate move to feed their other children. Fortunately, almost every image in this project was done with the help of the locals living within these societies. They wanted this issue to get support so they could be further empowered to combat child marriage. Those people were key in helping me gain access, and telling these stories would have been impossible without them.

Stephanie Sinclair / VII

Nujood Ali was ten when she fled her abusive, much older husband and took a taxi to the courthouse in Sanaa, Yemen. The girl's courageous act and the landmark legal battle that ensued turned her into an international heroine for women's rights. Now divorced, she is back home with her family and attending school again.

What is most disturbing to you about child marriage and what would you most like people to know about it?
There are many disturbing factors related to child marriage. But I think the thing that we must acknowledge is that in most cases these young children do not want to be married. They want normal lives — to play with their friends, be educated and have a full adolescence. These marriages rob many girls of their innocence, many times before puberty, and this is something that as a global society we cannot tolerate. The bottom line is child marriage isn't just harmful to the girls involved. It's at the root of so many other societal ills: poverty, disease, maternal mortality, infant mortality, violence against women. All of those are symptoms connected to the same problem: child marriage. If you solve the child marriage problem, these other issues benefit as well.

Is there a solution?
A multifaceted approach is needed to address the issue of child marriage. In fact, yesterday Sec. Hillary Clinton announced a USAID-sponsored pilot program in Bangladesh that will work with religious leaders, media, local governments and NGOs to foster community support for an end to child marriage. However education is still the single most protective factor against this practice. This means keeping the children in school as long as possible, as well as educating the communities about its harmful impact on the health of their girls, their grandchildren, as well as their societies as a whole. 

I also strongly believe there is not just a need for awareness-raising and prevention work, but we must find ways to help these girls who are already in these marriages — be it through giving financial incentives to their families to let them stay in school, or vocational training so they can have more say in their lives and households. Quality medical treatment is also needed for girls who are giving birth at these young ages. These girls need long-term solutions. Unfortunately, there is no quick fix. But there seems to be a growing  movement aimed at ending child marriage. In fact, at yesterday's State Department announcement, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, chairman of The Elders, announced a very ambitious goal: to end the practice by 2030. If this issue remains a global priority, I'm optimistic that we can meet that deadline.

To mark the first inaugural International Day of the Girl Child on October 11, 2012, the United Nations Population Fund will partner with VII Photo to host an exhibition at the United Nations Headquarters in New York to present the personal narrative of the girls themselves. The hope is that their stories, presented in photography and video productions by Stephanie Sinclair and Jessica Dimmock, will renew global attention toward this critical issue and accountability across the international community. Archbishop Desmond Tutu and UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon will be among many prominent figures attending the opening.

• Follow the campaign at Too Young to Wed and tooyoungtowed.wordpress.com
• See additional images from Sinclair's project and read more about child marriage at National Geographic Magazine
• View a video including interviews with some of the child brides at the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting
• Read 'In Niger, child marriage on rise due to hunger' in PhotoBlog

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Suzanne Plunkett / Reuters

Britain's Jonnie Peacock, second from left, wins the men's 100m T-44 final ahead of South Africa's Amu Fourie, left, Richard Browne of the U.S. and South Africa's Oscar Pistorius, right, at the London 2012 Paralympic Games on Sept. 6.

The AP reports: Oscar Pistorius lost another of his Paralympic titles, finishing fourth in the 100-meter final.

Jonnie Peacock of Britain won the showpiece race in 10.90 seconds Thursday to loud cheers from the home crowd. Pistorius, the defending champion, had a time of 11.17.

Emilio Morenatti / AP

Britain's Jonnie Peacock, left, wins the men's 100m T-44 category final on Sept. 6.

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