Hunger strike area. Black ribbons stand for indefinite hunger strike.

The most persistent and determined protest in Turkey for a decade: “Tekel” was the government-owned tobacco and alcoholic beverages company for many years, but when the tobacco branch of Tekel was sold to British American Tobacco in 2008 as part of privatization plans, Tekel workers lost their job status.

The government is now forcing them to sign a 4/C status, which means they will get only 1/3 of their current wage (around 300 Euros per month), getting paid only 10-11 months of a year, no extra working hour fees, no social benefit payments and don’t have any compensation or union rights.

Because of this situation thousands of Tekel workers started a protest at the downtown Ankara. Today is the 60th day of it (12th of Feb.2010). They are living in nylon made tents in bad winter conditions. Most of the days It’s below zero degree in Ankara (capital city of Turkey). People from all across Turkey are helping them with providing foods, blankets, medical supplies etc. Also volunteer doctors provide healthcare to the ones who get sick in these conditions.

5th of February around 140 workers started indefinite hunger strike and today (12th) 16 people left on hunger strike. Others had to stop because of health problems. Workers determine to fight till they get their rights back and considering death hunger strike as next step if government doesn’t change its decision.

Also Prime Minister said if workers don’t end protest till end of February, they will use police forces to stop.

Special resting area for the ones whose conditions become worse during hunger

Pharmacy section of hunger strike area. Volunteer doctors provide healthcare with medicines which donated by other people.

Paper says: I'm donating my organs if I die. But do not give them to the prime minister, otherwise he would sell those too.

“In December 2008, the Indonesian Ministry of Agriculture reported a rabies outbreak in dogs on the island of Bali, Indonesia, to the World Organization for Animal Health.  As of October 2009, the Indonesia Ministry of Health has reported 15 deaths caused by rabies on Bali.  Most human and animal rabies cases have been confirmed near popular tourist destinations on the southern tip of Bali.” CDC, October 2009.

Rabie, a virus which infects the nerve cells and causes inflammation of the brain, can be transmitted through a bite from infected animals, mostly dogs.

More than 500,000 dogs live on the Indonesian resort island of Bali. First discovered in November 2008, four people had been found bitten by an untamed dog, later on the dog was found carrying rabies virus. Two of four victims had been positively infected by rabies. Since then the Indonesian Government has declared Bali a pandemic area. The cases are widely and rapidly spread across the island. In the end of 2009, dog bites to humans had been recorded to reach 16,680 cases including 25 infected victims died. This is the biggest number in recorded history in Indonesia.

The provincial government of Bali has been struggling to overcome the outbreak, several options have been attempted, such as eliminating untamed dogs. Since late 2008 until early 2010, 49.095 untamed and suspected dogs have been mass culled.

Pet dogs which have been well-cared for by their owner obtains a free of charge vaccine from the government to prevent the spreads of the virus. So far 170.962 dogs have been vaccinated or 35% of the total estimated dogs in Bali.

At the Color Mine, Ilakaka, Madagascar 2009

Since 1998 the region of Ihosy has been undergoing a process very similar to the Gold Rush phenomenon in California in 1848. There has been a large influx of immigrants due to the discovery of sapphires. First there was much internal migration of people from all over the country  which is composed of 18 ethnicities. Secondly, there has been immigration from foreign countries like Sri Lanka, Bangla Desh, or South Africa. Suddenly, the dry landscape of Ihosy was inhabited by small and provisional villages with hardly any public services. No healthcare, no electricity or water supply, as well as lack of governmental security were very common circumstances of the inhabitants. Everything was provisional and privatized. Therefore, mafias and crime rates rose promptly and large fortunes were made, joined very often, with big private and foreign investments.

Soabia, small miner village at Ihosy region. Showing sapphires. Madagascar 2009

Around Ilakaka, Madagascar 2009

On the other hand, many of Malagasy miners work everyday under exhausting conditions to escape from the traditional poverty. Today, although the region is more secure, the phenomenon still has a fascinating similarity with the history of the American Far West. At the same, this calls into question why most of the benefits leave country. The feature shows how they are exploited by big enterprises, or by their own needs, the selling of sapphires, child labor and prostitution. A journey through small villages of the Idaho region, including Voimena Mafana, Antsohamadiro and the infamous Ilakaka.

Soabia, small miner village at Ihosy region. Modelling mining tools. Madagascar 2009

Voimena Mafana, small miner village at Ihosy region. Madagascar 2009

Voimena Mafana, small miner village at Ihosy region. Madagascar 2009

In Antohamadiro, small miner village at Ihosy region. Madagascar 2009

Around Antsohamadiro, Madagascar 2009

Ilakaka

Ilakaka, Madagascar, 2009

Among shanty dwellings and mud tracks, emerges provisory hotels in wood, casinos, restaurants and discos. After dusk prostitutes starts walking the main road looking for clients of any ages and social status. The city is ruled by an internal law. Fortunately are gone those years when local mafias ran the sapphire business with guns. Today the 20.000 inhabitants town is organized by small squads who keep clean the city. Situation seems today controlled. Nevertheless, Terees, a local policeman, advices me that there is still  a rate of 20 killed per year. Not in vain, people said that Ilakaka remains the most dangerous city of Madagascar.

Ilakaka, Madagascar, 2009

Ilakaka, Madagascar, 2009

Anyway walking around the streets is an unique experience. A multicolored local world surrounds the visitor. Small markets are spread all over the city where it is not hard to find products from the whole Island. The hustle and bustle of the city is endless. Even during the night streets are crossed by small groups of miners going to work while others are drinking beer and meeting prostitutes. Already at dawn light, everywhere it is sold coffee and boko-bokos,  a local sweet bread, to get energy for the working day. In the main road, taxis wait to get new customers for the mine, sometimes several kilometers away while others go by walking. Besides this, there are places everywhere, where sapphires, or stones which look like,  are sold. Everyone expects to scape poverty from sapphire’s market and behaves like  being close of a little fortune waiting for him. In any case, Ilakaka is a paradise in terms of money and jobs compared with most rural areas.

Ilakaka, Madagascar, 2009

Ilakaka, Madagascar, 2009

Ilakaka, Madagascar, 2009

Gems dealers. Ilakaka, Madagascar, 2009

Main road of Ilakaka, Madagascar, 2009

Prostitutes around Ilakaka, Madagascar, 2009

Prostitutes around Ilakaka, Madagascar, 2009

Around Ilakaka, Madagascar, 2009

Prostitution in Ilakaka, Madagascar, 2009

Prostitution in Ilakaka, Madagascar, 2009

Gem dealer in Ilakaka, Madagascar, 2009

Gem dealers in Ilakaka, Madagascar, 2009

Gem dealers in Ilakaka, Madagascar, 2009

In Color Mine. Around Ilakaka, Madagascar 2009

In Color Mine. Around Ilakaka, Madagascar 2009

Around Ilakaka, Madagascar 2009

Around Ilakaka, Madagascar 2009

Around Ilakaka, Madagascar 2009

That explains, in a way, why Ilakaka is the capital of  gems in the Island.  Now rather a miners camp that was years before is a center of sale  and distribution. In the surroundings new villages are developing the same way, like  Antsohamadiro or Manombo Be. Still  primitive settlements but changing very quick their social structures.

Surrounding Antsohamadiro, Madagascar, 2009

Surrounding Antsohamadiro, Madagascar, 2009

Surrounding Antsohamadiro, Madagascar, 2009

Surrounding Antsohamadiro, Madagascar, 2009

In a luxury shop in Ilakaka, Madagascar 2009

Apart the Hollywood view of the phenomenon, we should not forget that most of the people living there, are families trying to improves their  starving hard conditions of life. From small shaft to huge mines like Color-mine, the rush for sapphires disseminates all over the region. It is common, for example, to see children with no educations and women spending the whole day working with their parents. Everyone is needed in a always sunny and desert landscape without much water to develop a certain agriculture of subsistence.

Madagascar is one of poorest countries of the world, and, unfortunately, most of the wealth extracted from the hearth goes to foreigners hands.  Therefore, sapphire’s markets it is a one symptom more of the difficulties of the population to profit their owns natural resources to save from poverty.

A miner in Ilakaka, Madagascar, 2009

In Antohamadiro, small miner village at Ihosy region. Madagascar 2009

Idealized by tourists, members of Namibia’s Himba tribe struggle to maintain control of their lives and their land. This beautiful African tribe is now threatened by ongoing projects from the government of Namibia and also by invasion of Western tourists who put in danger their identity. In 1980 the lifestyle of the Himba seemed about to finish when a drought wiped out 90% of them. In the village of Opuwo, living was even more difficult. Located close to the border with Angola, many Himba have been victims of kidnappings during the civil war in Angola.

The Himba are monotheistic, they belive in one God called Mukuru. Each family has its ancestral fire, which is kept alive by a fire-Keeper. The fire-Keeper every seven or eight days communicates with the ancestors on behalf of the family.

Himbas, struggle for survive is a Documentary film project and photoessay
Stay with several of the Himba tribes filming on the day for two weeks or three, depending on permission granted so far.
Realization: In our winter, spring on them at the time of drought and rainfall.

Stage of production: Contacts, instruments, permissions and locations of execution of works.

Local producer: Jimmy

Running Time: 00:50
Format: PAL

Aspect ratio: 16:9

Location: Opuwo, Kaokoland, Kunene River, Namibia-border angolen.

Year: 2009/10

Production Company: Delmi Alvarez + coproduccion possible.

There is now also schools where children learn English and Himba, and conservancies that give Himba control of Wildlife and Tourism on their lands. Vengapi Tijvinda, a grandmother in her 50s, lived through this rebirth. In the 1980 she was making baskets for tourists. Now she has started goat farming and is also raising cattle. She says that “Life is still the same, but the children can read and write. I am a member of [a] Conservancy, and we have tasted game meat again.” (from National Geographic Magazine).

Anthropologist David Crandall, who is an expert of Himba in Namibia, has recovered ancient dances of the tribes that are already disappearing along with the isolation that previously gave them security.

For the Himba, a visit to the regional main city of Opuwo is also an education on the uses of electricity. But with the advantages of having electricity comes new challenges, creating desire for electric goods such as a refrigerator to chill the beer. People who are thinking about cold beer, are no longer thinking about their cattle.

Concerns that the Himba society is being influenced by the temptations of western clothing and more severe alcohol and this driving fears among the largest of the tribes who say “we will not have another generation like us again” (Mutambo).  “We do not like the western clothing, we want to preserve our traditions. We want to be who we are. We are suffering. We are happy with us,” (Kapikas).

Aim, goal, mission of this project is get funds to set up a small place in Opuwo as ONG or other org managed by local young people. They need from help to have computers for workshops.

There are a few ONGs working in the area but is not enough.

“Himbas, struggle for survival” is a documentary film project and photoessay, staying with several of the Himba tribes filming on the day for two weeks or three, depending on permission granted so far.

Currently (Feb 2010) looking for partners and grants to follow.

It is the goal of this project to create a place in Opuwo where local young people can learn computers, and other skills to manage the tourism, as a progressive community. It will be managed locally by Jimmy  Elia Tolu, a concerned young person working with Himba people, wildlife and environment, .

TUOL SLENG PRISON, PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA Cambodian visitors walk past one of the old school buildings taken over by the Khmer Rouge for the interrogation and torture of prisoners before their dispatch to the Killing Fields to be murdered.

Tuol Sleng (S-21) Prison was created by order of the Khmer Rouge chief, Pol Pot on April 17th, 1975. The former Toul Svay High School classrooms were turned into interrogation rooms and cells 0.8 by 2 metres square.

S-21 was designed for detention, interrogation and torture. Once prisoners’ confessions were received and documented they were sent to the Killing Fields and murdered.  Many did not survive their torture. An estimated 3 million people were murdered by the Khmer Rouge regime.

The head of the prison, Kang Keck Iev - known as Duch, is at present on trial in Phnom Penh, Cambodia for his major role in the genocide of his people.

TUOL SLENG PRISON, PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA Khmer Rouge hammered holes in the wall to create easy access through the ex-school to reach the 0.8 by 2 metre cells where prisoners were shackled.

TUOL SLENG PRISON, PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA Every prisoner who entered Tuol Sleng (S-21) prison was photographed and an individual file created, the same practice utilised by the Nazi regime.

TUOL SLENG PRISON, PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA A Cambodian visitor takes a portrait in front of the cells at Tuol Sleng (S-21) Prison.

TUOL SLENG PRISON, PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA View through the bars of a cell where prisoners were brought for interrogation and torture at the Khmer Rouge prison Tuol Sleng (S-21).

TUOL SLENG PRISON, PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA Bed and torture implements in the Khmer Rouge prison of Tuol Sleng (S-21).

TUOL SLENG PRISON, PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA Blackboard in an interrogation room at the Khmer Rouge prison of Tuol Sleng (S-21). The prison, previously a school, was thought of by the Khmer Rouge as a place for re-education.

TUOL SLENG PRISON, PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA Under a stairwell at the Khmer Rouge prison of Tuol Sleng (S-21) prisoners clothes, shoes and food dishes remain in a pile. The prison is now a museum. Workers there have used the room as a place to dump their plastic bottles and cans.

TUOL SLENG PRISON, PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA Above a stairwell at the Khmer Rouge prison of Tuol Sleng (S-21) foreign visitors have written their emotional reactions on the walls.

TUOL SLENG PRISON, PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA Cambodian guides inform foreign visitors of the history of the Khmer Rouge regime genocide.

TUOL SLENG PRISON, PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA The prison is crumbling. Metal braces stop the ceiling from collapsing. One wonders whether such a building should be kept standing or left to perish.

TUOL SLENG PRISON, PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA The view through the bars of a prison interrogation room show life goes on as normal. Many of the people who live near the prison make their livelihood from the tourists who visit the prison.

TUOL SLENG PRISON, PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA A Cambodian man sits in the garden in front of the prison, perhaps thinking of loved ones killed by the Khmer Rouge.

KILLING FIELDS, PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA After prisoners were interrogated and tortured at Tuol Sleng (S-21) Prison they were then brought to the Killing Fields and murdered. Dry cracked earth now covers one of the pits where people were killed.

Hotel Nacional, Sunrise in the Havana. This hotel is one of the most luxurious of the city, The Havana - Cuba 2007

The archipelago of Cuba consists of 110.992 square kilometers, situated in the center of the Caribbean Sea. This country has been whipped by both natural disasters and political regimes, both of which have left the island the bearer of a past that marks it in the extended and continually-changing story of Universal History. A national producer of tobacco, the flavour and smell of “havanos,” famed Cuban cigars, are enjoyed by aficionados in smoking parlours around the world. However, the island also exports the history of one of the most powerful revolutions in the twentieth century, its images and legends: Fidel Castro, the leader; Che Guevara, the heroic rebel, and a continually struggling people, who despite their daily challenges, still manage to smile.

Sunrise on the Malecón in Havana, Havana - Cuba 2007

Almendrón, American Car of the 50s, even riding through the streets of Havana, The Havana, Cuba - 2007

American cars are one of the most economical transportation for Cuban, The Havana, Cuba - 2007

Cuba is often depicted in two extremes. First, with the aura of a tropical dream, marked by the signs of Eurocentric visions, the insatiable need to find a lost paradise in the antipodes; taken in by the mystical halo of the exotic, the magical and the mysterious. Sugar Cane Ron, tams tams and “mulatas” configure the exotic fancy foreigners establish in their initial impressions of Cuban culture. This “innocent vision” often does not consider the realities of the socio-political conditions of the island, those that determine the way of life for Cuban people, their history and their future.

The bike also works as a transport for both the Cuban and for the tourists. The Havana, Cuba - 2007

The Morro Castle in Havana, 153 year existence. A traditional symbol of Cuba. The Havana, Cuba - 2007

The January 1, 1959 triumph of the Cuban Revolution commanded by Fidel Castro, opened a new chapter in the history of Cuba, after centuries of economic domination first by the Spanish Crown, and second by the United States of America, the neighbour of the North. The revolution promised hope of a new way of life, full of humanity and justice for all, delivered by the hand of Fidel. An end to poverty and equal rights (health, work and education) for every citizen were the initial intentions of the new order. In short: to dignify the lives of Cubans.

Nevertheless, the inner failings of the Cuban system, the fall of the USSR and the Eastern European Communist Nations, in addition to the trade and economic restrictions imposed by the U.S. government (without considering the Missile Crisis in the seventies, cast by those two Empires) devastated the Cuban economy and left the country in a severe economic crisis. Many Cubans subsequently lost faith in the revolution that they had fought so hard and sacrificed so much for. The island survives today as a flag of socialism, independence and bastion of resistance to the politics of the United States; a condition that now is suddenly changing with the possibility of dialogue between Raul Castro, brother and successor of Fidel and U.S. President, Barack Obama. The future of Cuba is, in fact, unpredictable.

Detail of American car of the 50s. The Havana, Cuba - 2007

The second common depiction of Cuba is the “restricted vision”. This vision only sees the political face of Cuba (in support of, or in opposition to Castro’s regime) and too often forgets to include the daily lives of Cuban people, in their quiet moments of happiness or strife; their moments of just being an individual human, with dreams and aspirations. Cuban people spend their days living as people live in all countries, Cubans laugh as everyone laughs and Cubans cry just as everyone cries, indifferent to their geographical location or moment in history.

A group of students sitting on the malecon to talk after leaving school. The Havana, Cuba - 2007

Flower Seller. The Havana, Cuba - 2007

Santera smoking a tobacco in the door of his house, Havana Center, The Havana, Cuba - 2007

I do not intend to say that Cuba does not have paradisiacal qualities nor make an apology for Castro’s regime. The central idea is to show two of the thousands of incomplete visions of a Latin-American country that has a complicated idiosyncrasy and history that escapes to the construction of national identities made for particular subjects; including the person who writes this.

But it is silly to ask objectivity from the human being. We are all “subjects” and we cannot ask objectivity from subjects. That is illogical, for we all have inherent biases dependent on our life experiences, our cultural and theological indoctrination, the filters that determine our worldview and interpretation of our daily occurrences. More subjective than anything is the writing of history, that construction of identity. In this regard, I do not believe Cuban people have an objective vision about themselves as a nation and a culture but what they do have, is the inner vision.

In 2008, Aaron Sosa, a young Venezuelan photographer, travelled to the city of Havana in Cuba to document the daily lives of Cubans. These images belong to him. The city of Havana has been one of most important cultural cities in Latin America for years. Architects, painters, musicians, philosophers and writers have been travelling to Havana for decades, attracted to its particular cultural and political conditions, and especially for the beauty of the city that many value as a lesson in architecture. For example, Havana has one of most important occidental cemeteries: the Colon cemetery, build in the XIX century and second in importance only after Pere Lachaise, in Paris.

Man works ironing clothes. At the back a portrait of communist leader Camilo Cienfuegos. The Havana, Cuba - 2007

Advertisement, The more you block me but I grew. The Havana, Cuba - 2007

A woman in Yabo, received his holy and is giving offerings to the sea. The Havana, Cuba - 2007

The CNN news channel is only allowed to see tourists in hotels. The Cubans have no access to international events. The Havana, Cuba - 2007

Cuban culture is a syncretism, melting its Spanish, African and Indigenous ancestral roots, whose influences have survived in food, music, skin tones and religious traditions, as seen throughout Latin American and especially in the Caribbean. For example, the “Santeria”, is an African devotional cult brought to the island by slaves during colonization that was mixed with Catholicism as a means of avoiding persecution albeit maintaining the ability to practice their religion. Today, Santeria is practiced by nearly 60% of people living on the island. Cubans have an ability to mix and adapt various cultural influences when confronted with challenges. We possess a resiliency and a sense of humour that I believe is our key to survival against our many troubles.

The Havana captured by Aaron Sosa’s camera isn’t a pamphleteer Havana, a postcard Havana. His quotidian depiction is that of a local Cuban, even though he is not. He is a traveller who looks through his lens as if he were seeing through the eyes of the people he photographs, seeing and understanding their particular reality.

In his photographs, you can see and feel all that you experience walking the streets of Havana: the golden clouds at sunrise, the 1950’s American cars that embody the memory of better times, the gracefulness of people at work and their studies, trying to pave a better future for themselves. You can see Havana’s rich architecture, Cuban colonial style to Neo Baroque, Art Noveau and Art Deco all periods coexisting together in the same city, connected by city streets. You can see the sea, the island sea, which Cuban writer Virgilio Pineira described as “a damned circumstance everywhere”. The sea that, in the long history of the island, has been the place of migrations, spanning since the African slaves and Spanish conquests until the “balseros”, which represent the tragic migration troubles suffered by Cuba during the last decade. An estimated half of the Cuban population has migrated to the United States of America, only 90 miles from Havana’s coast, in boats and home-made rafts in precarious conditions, in search of better living conditions, yet more often than not, perishing during the difficult journey.

This sea, more than a sea, it is another cemetery, less glamorous than Colon’s cemetery and, of course, a thousand times more dangerous and cruel. In its waters rest African slaves who took their own lives in hopes that their souls would return to Africa; in its salty depths rest Indian chiefs who refused to live under Spanish rule and Spanish soldiers who lost their lives battling the long travesty between their natal country and Cuba. In this sea, sleep thousands of Cubans who in despair and desperation in the 1990’s lost their lives fleeing the island in search of nothing more than a better life. Cuba has a history that can at times sound sensationalist, however it is the reality, and that of one of the most controversial countries in Latin America. Nevertheless, Cuban people do not lose hope for a brilliant future; they do not lose their smiles. Cubans keep living because the human desire to live, to move forward, will always outweigh the sting of past struggles.

Detail of the facade of a house in El Vedado. The Havana, Cuba - 2007

A group of youths trying to bring some fish for dinner. The Havana, Cuba - 2007

It is easy to look for a scapegoat, someone to blame for Cuba’s problems. Those on the right point fingers at Fidel Castro, those on the left blame the USA for chastising the island through its economic restrictions. The guilt is laid without considering the entire spectrum of facts. As noted previously, it is unreasonable to ask objectivity of affected participants; we can only interpret circumstance through what our life experiences have taught us. Those that understand the human historical process understand that no one is ever completely right or wrong, and that it is never correct to place sole responsibility of the state of a country on one leader, or one political side. History is complicated and Cuban history surely does not escape this. Perhaps in the future, we will be able to understand the present more clearly, to learn from mistakes made and prevent future generations from having to endure the strife that Cubans have suffered for decades. This is a hope, however, it is also a possibility.

Beyond its history, in this reportage, Havana shows her soul, her quotidian soul without spectacle and grandiloquence. She opens herself to the camera and the photographer in her innocuous and unseen details; those moments that happen in time that wait for a smart eye, a trained eye in the art of revealing the secrets hidden beneath that of the initial impression. Aaron Sosa possesses this quality to truly see, and I say to him, just as Jack Kerouac said of legendary photographer Robert Frank, “You have eyes.”

Without support or denial of the current socio-political moment in Cuba nor painting an exotic view of city’s culture and life, this photographer bring us truthful images of Havana, a city and people that fight daily against time and destruction.

Holy Feast of Havana Center. The Havana, Cuba - 2007

Photo commentary by Kelly Martinez, Cuban writer and daughter of iconic Cuban documentary photographers Ramon Grandal and Gilda Perez.

There is no respect economically or socially for farmers in India, they struggle to survive with dwindling finances dolled out by local governmental agencies at its disposal for grass root level farmers across the drought prone areas of Rajasthan, Bihar, Chattisgarh and the green belts of Punjab. While 64% of India is an agricultural based economy, the livelihood is undervalued, and farmers are invisible in the social and political sphere.

The low productivity in India is a result of the following factors:

1. According to World Bank, India’s government intervenes in labour, land, and credit markets. India has inadequate infrastructure and services. The allocation of water is inefficient, unsustainable and inequitable. The irrigation infrastructure is deteriorating.The overuse of water is currently being covered by over pumping aquifers, but as these are falling by foot of groundwater each year, this is a limited resource.

2. Illiteracy, general socio-economic backwardness, slow progress in implementing land reforms and inadequate or inefficient finance and marketing services for farm produce.

3. The average size of land holdings is very small and is subject to fragmentation, due to land ceiling acts and in some cases, family disputes. Such small holdings are often over-manned, resulting in disguised unemployment and low productivity of labour.

4. Adoption of modern agricultural practices and use of technology is inadequate, hampered by ignorance of such practices, high costs and impracticality in the case of small land holdings.

” Slow agricultural growth is a concern for policymakers as some two-thirds of India’s people depend on rural employment for a living. Current agricultural practices are neither economically nor environmentally sustainable and India’s yields for many agricultural commodities are low. Poorly maintained irrigation systems and almost universal lack of good extension services are among the factors responsible. Farmers’ access to markets is hampered by poor roads, rudimentary market infrastructure, and excessive regulation. ” —World Bank: India Country Overview 2008

65 years ago, Mahatma Gandhi had led two great revolts of communities of poor Indian farmers against the tyranny of the British government and allied landlords in  Champaran,  Bihar, and Kheda, Gujarat. Success in both struggles had helped win the farmers economic and civil rights, and electrified India’s people.

Today, many decades later, after countless efforts and revolts by mortals who stood by their nations men, have had to witness hundreds of farmer suicides in states like Maharashtra and Chattisgarh, questioning the governments attitudes towards Indian farmers, the respect they get and deserve for feeding an ever populating country.

Precisely at a time when India is confronted with development imperatives, it will also be severely impacted by climate change. Like other developing countries, several sections of the Indian populace will not be able to buffer themselves from impacts of global warming.

With close economic ties to natural resources and climate-sensitive sectors such as agriculture, water and forestry, India may face a major threat, and require serious adaptive capacity to combat climate change.

As a developing country, India can little afford the risks and economic backlashes that industrialized nations can. With 27.5% of the population still below the poverty line, reducing vulnerability to the impacts of climate change is essential.

“Worldwide in developing countries women do most of the farming work although their work and their role remain invisible, unrecognized and undocumented in statistics,” says Annina Lubbock from the IFAD.

The Indian government cannot afford to neglect and marginalize the farmer in its efforts for a safe and healthy future.

In the cities of Chongqing, Yichang and Wuham where the Yangtze River flows, people are caught in the middle of major transformations. These changes to their environment have left many displaced and disturbed. With the construction of The Three Gorges Dam, entire towns and cities have disappeared and new towns are emerging with no clear identity.

Trapped in the rush to be transformed and to modernize, faces express
mixed feelings, between acceptance, bewilderment and curiosity.

Moved, destroyed, polluted, “the river at the centre of the world” is portrayed here
as an allegory of China’s metamorphosis, a country whose population is both
actor and spectator.

Bill Pinchers stands with a group of his workmates – tough looking men, waiting for a red hot bar of steel to make its way towards them inside one of the last hand-rolled steel mills in Britain. Outside, the Black Country weather is doing its worst with heavy rain being driven almost horizontally by a cold autumn wind.

Inside the mill the heat is overpowering and as the specially built furnace doors open briefly, another glowing bar rushes its way down the track towards the first set of rollers 50 metres away. The incandescent metal is shaped and stretched each time it passes through more sets of water-cooled rollers as it moves inexorably towards Bill and the others waiting to thread it though the tools that will put the final pattern and shape into the searingly hot metal.

Pinchers performs a ‘dance of death’, deftly avoiding the lethal strip of hot steel , now over 10 metres in length and as rubbery as a liquorice lace squirming across the metal floor, grabbing it with long handled metal tongs, just inches away from his boots, before feeding it like some unruly glowing snake into the confines of the machinery once more. One mistake here and limbs or lives can be lost in an instant.

Eventually the steel will be formed into strips shaped to make Victorian style hand rails, horseshoes, lawn mower blades, window sections and even miniature railway tracks. These are exported all over the world and Operations Manager John Legg jokes that they can’t make the metal window sections fast enough to keep up with the demand. Wars in distant lands bring an unexpected bonus in sales of building products it seems.

John Legg’s mill is based in Ettingshall, Wolverhampton where many of the old ‘metal bashing’ factories which were once prolific in the area have long since gone, replaced by shops, houses, and new roads with roundabouts sporting sculptured tributes to the area’s industrial past.

The steamy, hot ‘Dante’s inferno’ at Legg Brothers Ltd., is a world away from Bill Pinchers hobby and his passion, which is breeding and flying hunting falcons. He spends his leisure hours in an environment that could hardly be more different than the one of the factory. Bill can be found with a falcon on his arm, breathing the clean upland air of Shropshire, Staffordshire or Worcestershire, enjoying a sport that is centuries old and filled with arcane words and more than a little mythology.

Once the preserve of Arab princes and warlords, hunting with falcons came to Europe with travellers returning from the Middle East, and it was already a frequent sight in Saxon times, but despite its apparent elitist lineage, there has always been a place for the commoner, with references to The Knave’s Bird or the Yeoman’s Bird for instance.

Pinchers is perhaps one of the last members of a dying breed. Men who work in the heat and noise of the Black Country, but whose heart and soul is to be found in the open air, in touch with the natural environment that the Industrial Revolution destroyed over two centuries ago. It is as if there is some “folk memory” that calls such men back to the rural roots that their great -grandfathers would have been familiar with. Bill was given a linnet in a cage by his own grandfather when he was only seven years old, and this provided an insight into the world of the wild creatures that still fascinate him. Although we frown upon their behaviour now, catching and caging wild birds was part of their life and often the only pleasure and relief from the grind of a factory.

We followed Bill to one of his hunting grounds on the Staffordshire/Shropshire borders, and as we drove behind him, it was strange to see a trio of hooded falcons, like nodding dogs in the back of his small hatchback, as we wound our way through busy streets lined with red brick terraced houses. Soon we come to the open farmland where the first signs of winter wheat are pushing through the black soil of Staffordshire. With the falconer carrying a home made “cadge”, on which the birds perch as he walks, we make our way across the fields and find a sheltered spot, where he can exercise and train his favourite birds. In the factory, the noise is a deafening mixture of hammering and screeching metal, but here the only hammering is from a woodpecker somewhere in the woods behind us, and the shrill shriek of the falcons as they sniff the air.

Taking his position twenty five metres away, the falconer whirls the lure around his head and calls – in a flash of feathers and talons, the falcon launches herself at dazzling speed, and in a matter of seconds is on the lure and back to the ground. At this point, the bird is rewarded with morsels of raw meat fed from Pincher’s gloved hand.

The morning wears on, with several training flights like this, when from nowhere an unfortunate Mallard drake chooses to overfly the Gyr’s domain. This time the launch is unexpected and spectacularly powerful as the falcon homes in and does what nature made her for. The duck is downed in one devastating strike, and the Gyr stands on the broken carcass and begins to rip the feathers from the breast.

Bill’s dream is to develop a business where he can breed and improve these birds, and market them to the Middle East where demand is strong. A particularly beautiful bird, with a good pedigree can sell for thousands of pounds, and Bill, who has flown falcons since he was 16, has already established a reputation and contacts in the area. As a mark of respect and love for their birds, an Arab falconer will hunt one bird for only one year, before releasing it to the wild as a “thank you” – something which means the demand for new birds is continuous.

Always on the look out for ways to get more involved with this “other world” and maybe inspired by the 1930s feature film of Robin Hood with Errol Flynn, Bill also sees potential in training birds for the film and TV market.

As the Autumnal afternoon light fades, and a cold mist rises from the ground, it’s time for Bill Pinchers to head back to Coseley, where his house is surrounded by thousands of similar properties. TV screens are flickering in front rooms as he lovingly returns his falcons to their shed in the back garden and tidies away the equipment, before changing into heavy boots and heading off for the evening shift at the mill once more.

Story and photos by John Robertson and Bob Caddick.
‘JR’ - 07850 931219 john@jr-photos.com
Bob - 07920 133159 bob.caddick1@btinternet.com

The overall tuberculosis prevalence in Cambodia is extremely high. With 703 cases per 100.000 population per year, it is the highest in Asia (after East Timor) and the 7^th highest in the world. The burden of the disease poses great challenges to the national health system, even though the National Tuberculosis Program, with the support of major organizations, donors and the NGO sector, has made considerable efforts to stem the TB tide.

In spite of the significant strides in healthcare post Khmer Rouge regime, the system suffers from cash crunch. As a result on Saturdays and Sundays all departments other than the emergency are closed.

The TB ward of Siem Reap Provincial Referral Hospital. Even though the National Tuberculosis Program has sustained high treatment success rates of over 90% for more than a decade— human resource capacity, and laboratory capacity to perform smear microscopy, culture, DST and new diagnostic technologies, remain major challenges.

Rean Sokha aged 51, is a soldier with Royal Cambodian Armed Forces. He started coughing blood and decided to get himself admitted for check up. He has been at the hospital for three months.

A unique feature of the Cambodian Hospitals is the fact that family members stay with the patients to provide care. Lounh Bourng, whose father is a patient of the TB ward at the Siem Reap Provincial Referral Hospital complains, “Hospitals are understaffed and the doctors and nurses tend to neglect the poor patients. So at least one family member has to stay back with the patient.”

Farmer Oum Khun stays with his wife Chum Ly, 52, at the hospital undergoing treatment for TB. The couple say they are happy with the treatment and expect a fast recovery.

Patient number 36 of TB ward at Siem Reap Provincial Referral Hospital suffers from HIV and TB. The third national seroprevalence survey showed a further decline in HIV prevalence among TB patients from 11.8% in 2003 to 7.8% in 2007. Collaborative TB/HIV activities and community-based DOTS have been further expanded.

Doctors prepare Ceftriaxone injections for the TB patients at Siem Reap Provincial Referral Hospital. Ceftriaxone injections along with Rifampicin (150 Mg) and Isonazid (75 Mg), collectively known as RH is used in treatment of Category II TB to prevent development of resistance.

Doctors at work in the TB ward of Siem Reap Provincial Referral Hospital.

A patient shows his daily dose of medicine at the TB ward of Siem Reap Provincial Referral Hospital. The treatment takes eight months in total and the patients are required to stay back at the hospital for the first three months.

A TB patient at the Siem Reap Provincial Referral Hospital.

TB patient Seng Sal, 31 looks on as his wife Oeun Sang sews his clothes. Seng, a farmer, is thankful to his NGO for providing him financial assistance. His Oeun Sang is afraid of being infected with TB but still remains with her husband at the hospital to look after him.

Sourn Mao, 37 is a widow. She has no one to look after her. Her son Bun aged 12 helps her to take care of her two month old baby. Sourn Mao is thankful to her NGO for giving her financial support. A bed at the TB ward requires a one-time payment of $40, which a vast majority of poor Cambodians who live on less than 2 USD a day are unable to pay for.

Navy, 33 developed a pain in her trachea and started coughing blood. She was diagnosed with TB and has been receiving medication since 2 months. She has a son and is afraid of infecting her child.

A patient suffering from Multi Drug Resistant TB at the Drug Resistant TB ward of Siem Reap Provincial Referral Hospital. The treatment for the multi-drug resistant form of the disease is extremely costly, and patients must follow a strict regime for two years and suffer side effects including severe nausea. What’s more, there is no guarantee that MDR-TB can be cured.

Interviews and Photography by Chhandak Pradhan