Somalia has not had a functioning central government since 1991. While northern parts of the country have broken away, setting up de facto proto-states including Puntland and Somaliland, the rump of the country remains perennially riven by fighting ...
Afghanistan used to be a peaceful country, popular with hippies coming from Europe to South East Asia. But things changed dramatically after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979. The Soviet intervention left two million dead, a third of the ...
The Kurds are the largest ethnic group in the world without a nation, numbering over 30 million people with a common language and culture. Kurdish history came to a virtual standstill after World War I, when the region known as Kurdistan was divided ...
Under the brief reign of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the country's women bore the brunt of the suffering.Amnesty International calls Afghanistan under the Taliban 'a humanrightscatastrophe' and many Afghan women who struggled to survive this era ...
Lake Urmia in Iran's far Northwest, close to the border with Turkey, is the largest lake in the Middle East and the third largest salt lake on earth. Much like the much more famous Aral Sea, however, it has been shrinking over the past three decades,...
Before the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iran under the Shah had close relations with the United States which saw it as a reliable ally in a volatile region and an important bulwark against the neighbouring Soviet Union. With its vast oil reserves, ...
The Hijab, a headscarf worn by Muslim women in the presence of men they are not closely related to, divides opinion both in Muslim countries and in secular countries which Muslims call home. In the Islamic Republic of Iran, where Shia Islam has ...
Dhaka is the fastest growing megacity in the world and one of the poorest. It is the keeper of strong survivors, restless migrants and climate refugees. If a city is made of dreams and desires then a megacity is made of dreams, desires and fears. ...
MASS LAYOFFS SUMMARY SEPTEMBER 2010 For release 10:00 a.m. (EDT) Friday, October 22, 2010 USDL-10-1452 BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR Employers took 1,486 mass layoff actions in September that resulted in the separation ...
One in four people in Sweden will have personal experiences with mental illness in their lives according to Fountain House, an international mental health charity. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), around 450 million people worldwide ...
Flatlands focuses on Johannesburg's inner city. The work documents people who have moved into this high-rise urban environment; many of them refugees, all of them searching for 'gold' in one form or another. And so it has always been. For over a ...
Brakpan is a small town that lies on the East Rand of Gauteng, sandwiched between Boksburg, Benoni and Springs. A once-prosperous mining community, today there are pawnshops, roadhouses, mechanics, mini casinos and other day-to-day shops lining the ...
It was night. I had cut my hair, shaved my beard, and was dressed in blue overalls, a long sleeve blue shirt, and a blue baseball hat. I was one of them. 'Come here', Cornelius said. He was sitting with his wife in the corner of their dining room ...
It wasn't clear if they were lovers or just friends. I don't think they even knew. They had a chemistry that radiated from their intertwined bodies and spread over the crowd in tangible waves. Ceci and Meme were like yin and yang. Ceci was a ...
"It's not easy to catch a condor", Americo Waman said. He leaned in closer and his voice fell to a whisper. "You have to pay the Apus (Andean Gods) with incense, a coca seed, and a piece of llama heart. You must ask the mountains if you can borrow the ...
The southern tip of South America, made up of the Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego and thousands of smaller islands, is separated from the continent by the Strait of Magellan, where the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans meet in tempestuous seas, and shared...