theatlantic:

In Focus: China’s Toxic Water

On World Water Day, I’d like to share with you a strong collection of images from southern China, showing local activists fighting against industrial pollution in their waterways, and cancer sufferers in so-called “cancer villages”, linked to pollution from hazardous chemicals. Earlier this year, China’s environment ministry released a report officially acknowledging the existence of these villages for the first time and signaling its willingness to address toxic water pollution. Greenpeace reached out to World Press Photo award-winner Lu Guang and other photographers to bear witness and has allowed me to share their images here on World Water Day, in an effort to bring this environmental and human tragedy to the world’s attention. 

See more. [Images: Greenpeace]

reportagebygettyimages:

Today is World Water Day

The world’s most abundant resource is also one of its most problematic. Climate change has brought a noticeable rise in drought and desertification. 258 million people in African have no access to clean water, and what is available often introduces a wide spectrum of disease or conflict into communities.

These problems bring with them a host of political, tribal, and gender issues. Community-based solutions exist; what is lacking are solutions at a global level.

See more from Brent Stirton’s ‘Water is Personal’ here.

(via fotojournalismus)

nationalpost:

Nuclear-capable U.S. B-52 bombers fly over South Korea in ‘deterrence’ message to North Korea
South Korea said a B-52 bomber will fly over South Korea on Tuesday for the second time in March as part of the U.S. effort to send a signal to North Korea after it threatened preemptive nuclear strikes.

“Just having the B-52 near the Korean peninsula and pass through means that the U.S. nuclear umbrella can be provided whenever necessary,” South Korean Defence Ministry spokesman Kim Min Seok told reporters in Seoul, declining to disclose Tuesday’s flight time. The bombers carry air-to-ground missiles with a range of up to 3,000 kilometres and “are believed to deliver nuclear warheads,” he said. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon, AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

theatlantic:

In Focus: Iraq War’s 10th Anniversary: Occupation and Insurgency

A few weeks after the invasion of Iraq, coalition forces began a long occupation, marked by almost immediate chaos. Groups held down by Saddam’s regime rose up, and groups who opposed them struck back. Militias based in Iraq began a long insurgency against the occupation, and terrorist organizations joined the fight, escalating levels of brutality with each attack. Dozens of battles were fought across the country, with mounting tolls on the insurgents, the allied troops, and the civilian population caught in the middle. From 2003 to 2010, progress toward a new government and reconstruction was made in fits and starts, punctuated by frequent bombings, assassinations, and uprisings. Ten years later, we look back in a three-part series. Today’s entry focuses on the period during which the majority of the war took place, after the 2003 invasion and just prior to the 2011 withdrawal. This entry is part 2 of 3, be sure to see part 1 from yesterday, and come back tomorrow for part 3.

See more. [Image: AP/AFP/Getty/Reuters]

theatlantic:

In Focus: International Women’s Day 2013

Today is International Women’s Day, a day set aside to celebrate women and their economic, political, and social achievements around the world. It is also a time to focus on places and situations where women’s rights, equality, health, and safety still have a long way to go. Collected below are images of women around the world — powerful and poor, young and old — on International Women’s Day.

Read more. [Images: Getty, AP, Reuters]

rofotojournalismus:

International Women’s Day: tribal heroines

(via The Guardian)

In many tribal communities, including the Hadza and the Innu featured here, women and men enjoy equal status. But tribal people often face displacement, murder and rape, according to Survival International. Often humiliated by governments that perpetuate the idea they are ‘backward’, some have their lands taken away. Yet resistance is growing as they take action to protect their land and ways of life.

What problems do tribal peoples have?

Violence

Tribal people are still violently attacked, and sometimes killed, particularly in parts of South & Central America, Africa and Asia. 
Violence, often self-inflicted, is also a big problem in wealthy countries, which have largely dispossessed their indigenous peoples (such as Canada and the USA, Australia and New Zealand).

Slavery

In some areas, tribal people are still held in a form of slavery, called ‘debt-bondage’, where they are forced to produce raw materials to pay a supposed debt to an outsider.

Racism

The view that tribal people are ‘primitive’ and not able to make rational choices about their own future derives from a colonialist, racist ideology. It is still used to justify their dispossession.

Land theft

Tribal peoples are generally self-sufficient and dependent on their land to provide their food and support their way of life. It also forms the bedrock of their identity. It is stolen for ‘development’, such as mining, dam-building, farming, etc., as well as for ‘conservation’ projects.

Resource theft

Even where the land itself isn’t taken, its resources often are. These can be timber or minerals.

Forced progress

All peoples are changing all the time, but changes forced on tribal peoples in the name of ‘progress’ result in a far lower quality of life than before, with increased illness, suicide, imprisonment, substance abuse and dependence etc. Changes should be under the control of the people themselves.

More information at Survival International’s website.

Photographs :

1. The Dongria Kondh women of the Niyamgiri hills in Odisha state, India – who call themselves Jharnia, or protectors of streams – have lived in the lush, forested hills for millennia. For the past 10 years these women have worked with Dongria men to protect their most sacred mountain, Niyam Dongar, against plans for an opencast bauxite mine. (Jason Taylor/Survival International) 

2. The Bushmen are the original people of southern Africa. Between 1997 and 2002, after the discovery of diamond fields in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, almost all Bushmen were taken from their homes in the reserve and driven to eviction camps. Some women and their families have now returned to the reserve, but harassment and intimidation continue. (Mark Håkansson/Survival International) 

3. A Nenets woman outside her chum, or teepee, in Siberia’s Yamal Peninsula. Her homeland is a remote, wind-blasted place of permafrost, serpentine rivers and dwarf shrubs; the reindeer-herding Nenets people have migrated across it for over a thousand years. Today, their way of life is severely affected by oil drilling and climate change. (Steve Morgan/Survival International)

4. These Innu women on the shores of the Labrador-Quebec peninsula in north-eastern Canada have resisted attempts by missionaries and the Canadian government to impose European patterns of living. The women have been prominent in opposing extractive industries on Innu lands, and have been active in efforts the people are making to maintain their way of life. (Dominick Tyler/Survival International)

5. Between Tanzania’s Lake Eyasi and the Great Rift Valley live the Hadza, a tribe of approximately 1,300 hunter-gatherers. The Hadza are one of the oldest lineages of humankind. Over the past 50 years, however, the tribe has lost 90% of its land. The tribe value equality highly, recognising no official leaders. Hadza women have a great amount of autonomy and participate equally in decision making with men. (Joanna Eede/Survival International)