Amid the bleakly beautiful mountainscape of eastern Zimbabwe, a vast new diamond field was discovered in 2006. These 400 square miles of scrubland around Marange promised to bring untold wealth to this bankrupt nation, but for the people living ...
Clutching her mop and standing in a pool of dirty water, Laukaziemma Koko stands apart. For most of her life she lived in the shadows, working as a cleaner at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein for a wage of 70 pence an hour. She was ...
'Dear God, how many can there be?' whispered the captain of the Libyan coastguard vessel to his deckhand. As the rescue ship drew closer its searchlight picked out the corpses floating around the wrecked fishing boat. Even for experienced mariners, ...
Exhausted and caked in mud, they plough wearily on searching toxic water for traces of gold. Some look west from where they fled, across the border to Zimbabwe; towards home. There, the life of miners are even harder. Here in Mozambique, at least, ...
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), one in three Somalis suffers from some kind of mental illness. Wars, famines and natural disasters not only leave the dead to be buried but also the survivors who need to go on living. While many will...
Some groups either affected by or suffering from HIV/AIDS do not have access to proper care. These include injecting drug users, sex workers and homosexuals, many of whom are excluded because of what they are or what they do. They are more vulnerable...
The West is accustomed to tales of barbarism committed in third world countries by military regimes led by ill-educated thugs in uniform - Bokassa, Amin, Pol Pot. But it has been flummoxed by Mugabe. He is a highly educated, suave and eloquent man ...
Nigeria's Niger Delta region, where the Niger river flows into the Gulf of Guinea, has been a source of great wealth for the past five centuries. In the 18th century, slaves were taken across the Atlantic from the coast of West Africa. Later, palm ...
Twic county has suffered the worst excesses of conflict. Located on the border between north and south Sudan, for much of the last 25 years it was at the epicentre of a brutal civil war. Massacres of civilians were frequent, while women and children were...
The rise of Al Jazeera has been nothing if not meteoric. From its launch in 1996 as an Arab language news and current affair channel, the channel has become one of the most widely watched and respected global 24-hour news broadcasters. The Qatar ...
When a regime bombs and shells its own people - in hospitals, bakeries, schools, apartment blocks and places of worship - it knows it is losing the battle. Aleppo is as brutal a place as anywhere on earth - neighbourhoods laid to waste, bodies lying ...
Britain has experienced the wettest January since 1767 and overflowing rivers are bursting their banks, adding to standing water on sodden fields that has nowhere to flow. The village of Muchelney on the Somerset Levels has been particularly badly ...
In February 2002, Jonas Savimbi, leader of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) was shot dead in a gun battle with the Angolan Army. His demise brought about a quick end to the civil war that had raged between UNITA and the...
San art adorns the new South African bank notes. Their smiling, wrinkled faces appear on adverts and postcards across the country everyone knows the stereotypical image of the slightly built hunter covered in an antelope skin loincloth and carrying ...
There are 420 helipads in Sao Paulo. That is 50% more than in the whole of the UK. Sao Paulo's chaotic traffic, with its six million cars, oppresses and complicates even more the ordinary citizen's frantic life in Latin America's busiest city. Those with...
From 12 June, 12 new or newly refurbished stadiums around Brazil will become the stages for one of the biggest sporting events in the world - the Football World Cup. And for the first time since 1950, the cup returns to Brazil, the nation which has ...
Towards the close of the 20th century, Witold Krassowski photographed the British at work and at play. Colin Jacobson, then picture editor at the Independent Magazine, describes how it all began: 'It was late and I should have been at home. The phone ...
Under an elevated toll road, beside railway tracks and a filthy river in north Jakarta, many of the city's poor live in makeshift dwellings. But two sisters from Jakarta's more comfortable suburbs are making a very real difference to people's lives. They...
At the end of October 2010, Mount Merapi (literally Mountain of Fire) in central Java menacingly rumbled into activity after a 4 year lull. Smoke can be seen rising from the top of the mountain at least 300 days a year and many locals are inured ...
Like those of other countries blessed with plentiful natural resources, Indonesia's mining industry is caught between the lure of huge profits driven by rising global demand and the cost to the environment and public health. Tin, gold and coal are ...
On 9 July 2014, almost 140 million Indonesians (or 75% of those eligible to vote) turned out to cast their ballots and decide their nation's future for the next five years. With the return to democracy still within very recent memory, Indonesians ...
Zack Canepari was commissioned by Habitat for Humanity, an international housing charity, to photograph one of their projects near Dallas, Texas in 2010. What he found was a small, largely poor, self-contained community that could be anywhere in the ...
'As you can imagine, regular practice of synchronized swimming is a great way to maintain health and strength - and a great way to meet active and fun women! We have many members who have had arthritis, joint replacements, and other health challenges - ...
He usually starts his day with a Pall Mall. Then he maneuvers his skinny, forty year-old frame through his cramped apartment and into his bathroom.A sign over the door reads "I Can Do Anything.".He brushes his teeth quickly and then starts on his ...
Donuts and Ghost-rides, Boxes and Buckets, Cools and Stangs. It all started in the Bay Area back in the 90s. Deep in East Oakland they'd meet in empty parking lots and spin circles until the police came. The Sideshow, they called it. Elaborate and ...
Tudo Bom?! All Good?!Throughout the four weeks in which the world's top footballing nations battle it out for the game's highest trophy - the World Cup - Zackary Canepari is going on a road trip across Brazil to capture a flavour of this vast, ...
'Violence, impunity, and horrific human rights abuses continue in the Democratic Republic of Congo.' That was how Human Rights Watch began their report on events in the country in 2008. Sadly, the description could have been copied and pasted from any ...
For the first time in human history, the majority of the world's population live in cities. At the same time, the number of people living in urban slums has passed the one billion mark; every third person living in a city is a slum dweller. The ...
What has become known as the "Jasmine Revolution" - the ousting of Tunisia's autocratic president Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali who ruled the country for 23 years - is sending shockwaves through the Arab world. The coterie of despotic, kleptocratic rulers ...
The war between the Israeli army and Hamas militants in Gaza, dubbed "Operation Cast Lead", lasted for 22 unrelenting days from 27 December 2008 until 18 January 2009. In the wake of the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, shell-shocked Palestinians ...
The days of ultra-cheap labour and little regulation in China's manufacturing sector are gone. The Pearl River Delta, a former rice growing region, was remodelled into an industrial powerhouse for textiles, sporting goods and toys by the economic ...
China is in the midst of a love affair with coal - but it is not the healthiest of relationships. Year after year, China's production and consumption of coal increases. Worryingly, so do the fatalities. Shanxi Province is China's main coal-producing...
Like other photographers captivated by the events in North Africa and the Middle East, Christian Als was keen to get to Libya to document the uprising against the Gaddafi regime first hand. Though he couldn't be there in the first weeks of the ...
Families of victims of enforced disappearance in Algeria have been demanding for years that the authorities reveal the fate and whereabouts of their relatives, who vanished after being taken away by security forces during the violent civil war of the ...
One year on from the country's independence, South Sudan is facing a litany of challenges; none bigger than the health situation of those in the fledgling state's refugee camps. UNHCR has now placed the health crises afflicting camp residents as their ...
In June 2011, President Obama announced his intention to start the gradual withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan after a decade of bloody and often controversial engagement. But for many Afghanis, once again reeling from an increase in Taliban ...