'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...