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...