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 - ...