Amanda Knox
After the nightmare of four years in an Italian jail, the 24-year-old American woke up on Wednesday morning back in her home town of Seattle. Having been cleared by an appeals court on Monday of the 2007 murder of her British housemate Meredith Kercher in Perugia, Knox was whisked back to the US, where she received a rapturous welcome. It was a dramatic turnaround for the young woman portrayed as a femme fatale with an angel face who was convicted of sexually assaulting and stabbing to death Kercher, 21, in one of the most notorious murder cases in recent times.
Athena Chu Yan
The Hongkonger was ecstatic at being nominated for best actress at the International Emmy Awards for television productions initially aired outside the United States. She was chosen for her role as a wheelchair-bound girl in the series A Wall-less World, a joint RTHK and Social Welfare Department production. Winners will be announced on November 21 at an awards ceremony in New York which Chu hopes to attend.
Nobel Peace Prize winners
Leymah Gbowee rallied mothers to confront armed forces in Liberia to demand they stop using rape as a weapon; Liberian president Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf (pictured) became Africa's first woman to win a free presidential election; Tawakul Karman, founder of Women Journalists Without Chains, began pushing for change in Yemen long before the 'Arab spring'. They share a commitment to women's rights in regions where oppression is common, and now they share the Nobel Peace Prize. It was the first time in seven years that the Norwegian Nobel Committee did not give the prize to a man.
