North Korea is a perplexing, and often intimidating, place at the best of times. Ruled since its establishment in 1948 with an iron fist by the Kim family, the only family dynasty to have emerged out of the communist world, the Democratic People's ...
The tsunami that swept in from the Pacific Ocean following the massive magnintude 9 underwater earthquake that struck some 70 kilometres off the northeastern coast of the Japanese island of Honshu left a vast corridor of devastation in its wake, all ...
In Kyrgyzstan, almost two thirds of all marriages are thought to be the result of ala kachuu ('grab and run'), or bride kidnapping. Around 15,000 women a year are thought to be the target of abductions by their suitors. Though illegal since 1994, the...
The soul of Russia should be located somewhere along the banks of its rivers - the Volga, the Neva, the Oka - since Russia's development was so closely linked to the waterways. For centuries, the great rivers were the main trade arteries, whether it ...
When Guy Martin went to Libya in April 2011, he was aware of the dangers facing journalists on the ground. The situation along the frontline was fast-moving and impossibly fluid. Having covered the unpredictable frontline in the West of the country, ...
After 21 days of protests, the 32-year regime of Egypt's ageing president Hosni Mubarak finally came to an end on the evening of 11 February 2011. The roots of the revolution lay with a small group of educated internet bloggers using facebook ...
The photographs of these Libyan men adorn the walls of the courthouse and justice rooms on Benghazi's breezy seafront. They were shot in March and April 2011. Over the course of the uprising and revolution in Libya, from its early days in February...
Napoleon is thought to have said: "Give me 20,000 Cossacks and I will conquer the whole of Europe and even the world". Now Russian President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin are enlisting the help of the Cossack ethnic minority to keep order in ...
The town of Taranto on the heel of Italy lies in a region known for its picturesque baroque towns, stone cottages and olive groves. But this southern port city with its crumbling old town perched on an island at the entrance to a lagoon, is a dark ...
Ramallah, the de-facto capital of the Occupied Palestinian West Bank, is home to a growing, educated and secular youth. After years of economic stagnation, Israeli military incursions and poor infrastructure, this once occupied city is coming back to...
What started as a peaceful sit-in by environmental activists trying to dissuade the city authorities from building a gleaming new shopping complex, mosque and a replica of a former army barracks on the site of Gezi Park, a small island of green in an...
Extra-marital affairs, blood feuds, divorce and murder; scenarios that may not reflect the reality of contemporary life in Istanbul but are the plot lines of Turkish soap operas that are drawing in tens of millions of viewers from Athens to Riyadh. ...
Kacper Kowalski, an architecture graduate, combines his passion for paragliding and photography to produce serene, complex images of urban, rural and industrial landscapes from the air. Many of them show severe pollution and environmental degradation...
The historic town of Sandomierz in south-eastern Poland, close to Lublin and the border with Ukraine, is a major magnet for intrepid tourists on their way through Poland. Located near the junction of the Vistula and San rivers, the city became an ...
From his home in Gdynia, on Poland's Baltic coast, Kacper has been exploring the surrounding region from the air for years. Jutting out into the southern Baltic, Eastern Pomerania is relatively sparsely populated, save the Tricity area of Gdansk, ...
Kacper Kowalski takes to the skies above Poland to gain a vantage point over a country gripped by harsh winter. Temperatures can drop to - 30 C degrees and stay below zero for months. The few specks of colour in these images - a yellow bus on an ...
In the third of his four-part project gazing down at the rural landscapes of northern Poland from on high, Kacper Kowalski flies over the lush and green pastures and sprouting fields of crops near his home in Gdynia. Forest clearings previously ...
'The person who coined the term cityscape must have had China in mind. From above, it looks like a space full of contrasts and unexpected combinations. In some ways, it resembles Chinese cuisine - you recognise all the ingredients but you would never...
"Why do Japanese people work so much? The cause of my depression is defnitely overwork" wrote Naoya Nishigaki, 28, a systems engineer, on his blog about depression. " I can't do anything. I don't feel like doing anything. I just feel irritated, ...
The National People's Congress, China's central political institution and the only place where legislative decisions are made for the country as a whole, is the world's largest parliament with 2,987 members, about 70% of whom are members of the ...
The number of temporary, low-paid workers without benefits and job security has surged in the last decade, now making up about a third of Japan's workforce. The income gap between lifetime workers and their poorer "temp" colleagues is growing and they ...
In Japan, a hostess is a young woman who entertains men at bars or clubs. Customers pay considerable sums of money for the pleasure of their company - for flirting but no sex. Once frowned upon, hostess jobs have been gaining popularity among young ...
Kamagasaki, a neighbourhood of Osaka, used to be the biggest day labourer town in Japan. Today, it is home to about 25,000 mostly elderly former workers, about 1,300 of whom are homeless. Alcoholism, street death, suicide, TB and most of all ...
Once considered a birthright in Japan, the notion of stable, full-time positions for life, embodied by the "salaryman", are becoming scarce. The recession of the 1990s forced many companies to rethink their employment policies laying off tens of ...
On 27 March 2014 a stooped and bewildered 78 year old man walked out of a Tokyo detention centre after having spent the past 48 years behind bars, 44 of these on death row. The decision from the appeals court came suddenly for Iwao Hakamada, the ...
Panos photographer Julio Etchart left his native Uruguay after his release from detention by the military authorities who suspended Congress in 1973 and remained in control until 1985. After studying photography in the UK and working with, amongst ...
West Papua is one of the last great frontier wildernesses. Over 250 distinct indigenous communities live amongst spectacular rainforest, mountains and coral ecosystems. But all is not well on the world's second largest island - which now serves as a ...
Bolivia's vast salt flats contain the greatest concentrations of lithium on earth half of all global reserves according to some estimates. Lithium ion batteries power everything from smartphones to electric cars, and South America's poorest country ...
Yolanda La Amorosa flies through the air in a swirl of gold lame and petticoats, her calves clamped around the throat of her unfortunate opponent. He spins across the ring to land in a sprawl on the canvas, hand pressed against his lower back, face ...
'Forget your past'. Those people intrepid enough to venture to the top of Mount Buzludzha in the Balkan Mountain range in central Bulgaria will be greeted by these three words daubed in red paint above the entrance to Bulgaria's largest ...
In Thailand and the surrounding countries, a parallel realm of the spirits provide powerful, everyday companions to mortal man. The symbols of Sak Yan (sacred tattooing) serve as a key to a door and a means of influencing that parallel world that ...
The Square Mile, otherwise known as The City, is London's business and financial centre, home to the Bank of England and the London Stock Exchange. This small patch of land, one of the richest on earth, has been shaken to its foundations by the recent ...
'Every person in enemy hands must have some status under international law.' International Committee of the Red Cross The US government began using the naval base at Guantanamo Bay as a prison camp in January 2002. It quickly became a vital tool in ...
A 7,000 billion dollar secret, the Swiss banking industry holds a third of all global offshore assets, ring-fenced by ingrained conservatism and strict banking secrecy laws. Accounting for half of the Swiss banking industry, two banks - UBS, and ...
Freedom of movement for Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip has been so restricted in recent years that the territory is commonly referred to as the "largest open-air prison on earth." The ongoing Israeli blockade of Gaza began in 2007, but a...
Taking a leaf out of the book of Dubai and Las Vegas, the ultimate meccas of all things bling and plastic, Venecia palace is a riot of fluffy velvet, polished brass, faux-old furnishings and an artificial lake. Venecia is the first place offering this ...