“That is, in the UN’s terms, a crisis … But because it’s been a similarly awful picture for such a long time, the crisis warning bell no longer produces the fire brigade”, Paul Smith-Lomas , Oxfam GB’s east Africa director.

Somalia presents the single largest humanitarian challenge in the world. “Over 3.6 million people, or half of Somalia’s population, are currently in desperate need of aid. In terms of numbers of people, access to any form of social welfare or livelihood choices, and the apparent intractability of it (the conflict in Somalia), it is the most pressing concern in humanitarian terms that we have globally”, Jane Cocking the humanitarian director for OXFAM GB said.

In the past 21 years, the country has lived through droughts and famines, wars and conflicts, massive population displacements, appalling human rights violations and state orchestrated terror. These conditions continue to devastate the country. Civilians without any other options are pouring into impoverished camps in neighbouring Kenya, Ethiopia and Yemen. In Somalia, 1.3 million persons are living in makeshift camps, without assistance from humanitarian agencies or from the UN

Robbert Van den Berg, Oxfam International’s spokesman for the Horn of Africa, describes the conditions in the refugee camps as “barely fit for humans”. The UN Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit for Somalia, issued a report on Tuesday, August 25, 2009 saying Somalia is now in its worst humanitarian crisis for 18 years.

Operation Inshallah

Somali warlords and Islamic insurgents have been powerful enough to drive out foreign troops serving under the United Nations, including Americans, Germans, French and Norwegians. But none of them were strong enough to kill the others.

In a state of total destitution, were its population depends solely on a small amount of international relief aid, the Transitional Federal Government, headed by the previous chairman of the Islamic Courts Union, a former school teacher and once a head wanted by the Bush Administration, President Sheikh Sharif, is now, with support from his old American enemies, planning a major offensive against his old insurgent friends.

Sheik Sharif is a thinking man. He is 45 years old, but today, without his long beard, wearing special tailored blue dresses and expensive diamond engraved watches, he looks younger. After almost being killed during an American air strike in 2006, Sheikh Sharif managed to escape to Kenya and asked for political protection. Almost 3 years later he was invited to meet Mrs Hillary Clinton, the United States Secretary of State, who said “We believe that his government is the best hope we had, for quite sometime, for a return to stability and a possibility for progress in Somalia.” Sheik Sharif had moved back to Mogadishu. He left behind in Kenya the Kalashnikov and the simple clothes he used to wear when he tried to convince the rest of the world that his Islamic courts were not a treat, dismissing any accusation of links with Al Qaeda or any terrorist organisation.

Somalia struggles to rescue its identity from a deleterious war, and Sheik Shari, tried to be more than just a cosmetic treatment in his country´s mutilated face. He promised he would be able to produce profound facial and moral reconstruction. After only one year as president, he has already understood the treatment might be harder than he previously thought.

He lives isolated in Villa Somalia, a fortress constructed during the days of Italian colonial rule. The first entrance is guarded by doubtful soldiers from the new Somali Army. Young men, mostly in their early 20’s or younger, some wearing light brown, oversized military uniforms with sandals, others, in the best Rambo style, with their chests shielded by bullet-belts, ready to feed their rusted Chinese-made Kalashnikovs. They spend the days together, protecting their boney faces from the sulphurous East African sun under an old, improvised tarp shelter. In Mogadishu, soldiers with khat-fuelled values are one hundred dollars a month loyal to anyone and therefore, the president cannot trust to leave his own men to go beyond the first gate. From there, only high-level government officers and African Union soldiers can enter.

The UN sent the African Union Soldiers to Mogadishu (AMISOM) to replace the invading Ethiopian army. They have been in Mogadishu for 3 year with a peacekeeping mandate, but there is no peace to keep and the AU soldiers are constantly in close fighting with insurgents wearing civilian clothes. Their weapons, powerful and destructive, are not engineered to make distinctions in their targets. During its years in Mogadishu, AMISOM has been responsible for the death of many civilians.

Under the same protection but in separate houses, are the president’s three wives living with their respective children. The president is a very busy man administrating an area the size of a small middle class condominium with protocols of a nation. He has little liberty to move around his fortress. Bullets are constantly flying over people´s heads, leaving signs of destruction on almost every wall. His own home is ironically on the top of a hill, less than a kilometer away from Bakara Market, the area controlled by Al Shabaab. From his veranda, if he were allowed to go out, he would be able to see his enemies running and shooting.

Discouraged by the slow or non-existent political or social progress in Mogadishu, some government officials express their frustration with cynicism and refer to the president’s plans to attack his enemies as “Operation Inshallah,” because it will only begin when Allah wants it to. Although the new Somali Army has some 9,000 soldiers, the president can only depend on a few units. Many soldiers desert, because there are no officers and no safe barracks, and all too often, there is no pay. Some sell their weapons to the enemy, while others mow each other down in battles between clans.

New soldiers are being trained, in Kenya, Uganda and Sudan, partly with the help of the Americans and the European Union. But no one knows yet whether they will ever arrive in Mogadishu, or whether they will fight on the president’s side.

People dying like ants stepped on.

Mohammed Yusuf Hassan is the chief physician at the Medina hospital, the best working hospital in Mogadishu thanks to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) support. We met for the first time almost one year ago on an African Express flight leaving Mogadishu to Nairobi and become good friends. Mohammed is an interesting and somehow inspiring person. He could be living a good life in Europe but decided to come back to Mogadishu and help in any way. Mohammed studied medicine in La Sapienza university of Rome. He is officially retired and could be enjoying life near his grandchildren, but he is not a normal person. ‘I can’t be normal, or else I wouldn’t be here’ he says smiling. The Medina is a complex of pre-fabricated green containers and flat-roofed buildings in a park behind an old gate, where blood red flamboyant trees provide shade.

The shadows produced by those beautiful trees are welcomed by patients with normal diseases like little Mohammed. He is 3 years old and has been diagnosed with leukaemia. Patients like him have to lie underneath the trees, because the corridors inside are full of patients with open bullets wounds that could be infected if the patients were kept outside.

Doctor Mohammed really inspires me. He is 51, but he looks at least 15 years older and is clearly exhausted. “Everything here is bad. We Somalis are all traumatized. You can die any day. We are like ants that are being stepped on, a forgotten people. Darfur is a paradise compared to Mogadishu. But Darfur is new and we are old. The children have always been dying here, and no one sees it anymore.”

“An entire generation has grown up in this war,” he says, “and that several generations will never get it out of their heads. This too explains why there is no end to the suffering.”

Short-lived lives.

I´m invited to film a birth and I feel happy. I imagine a happy birth in my mind and I prepare my camera to capture the moment when the mother meets her baby for the first time. I never ask any question about her. My need to experience a moment of beauty was too strong. She is crying and the labor seens not to start. After a short meeting, the doctors decide to operate on the mother. She is young and after she receives the epidural anesthesia, her words make no sense and her eyes show no more pain. I move from my position to give the doctors better space to work. A young Iraqi doctor is leading the team. I´m impressed, she looks very small and does not want to talk or even tell me her name, but she shows total control over the situation.

Unexpectedly, at least for me, the door opens violently and a group of noisy, anguished young men enter the room pushing a stretcher. They say in Somali something that I cannot understand in words, but that I can feel in volume is call for help. On the stretcher I can see a scrawny body writhing in convulsions. His clothes, pale jeans, sandals and a short-sleeved beige shirt are soaked in a mixture of dark blood and dusty red sand. He is not older than 20 and he was shot in the neck, just bellow his month, his hemorrhagic wound making it impossible for him to breathe. The Iraqi doctor orders two of her Somali assistants to take care of him as she is trying to get through the diverse layers of muscle in the mothers belly and reach the baby´s head. They try to help the man with a tracheotomy. There is no time for anesthesia or proper preparation, and, without a sound, he shows his pain by hitting the wall, the table and the doctors with his feet and weak arms. I feel stressed and I don´t know what to film. The birth or this dying man I know nothing about. Moments later destiny gives me an orientation and he dies. I feel I can concentrate on my first idea of happiness again and I see a very small girl coming out to this world for the first time. She is rapidly moved to another table by a nurse holding the little body head down. I try to see if the mother is ok and go back to the baby. I see another Iraqi doctor trying to stimulate her heart and lungs. I´m not an expert but I find the shape of her head strange. The nurse leaves the little body over the small table, near some surgical tools used by the doctors trying to save the boy. I ask what is happening and a nurse says that the little girl is dead.

I go back to Hassan and try to find the boy´s name. He operates on young men, again and again, and eventually many end up dead. “Sometimes I think that we are just repairing guns here, guns that are reused until they break. And that the man we are operating on today could shoot a child tomorrow.” I start to understand why he says he is not a normal person. If this is a normal day at Medina Hospital, how can a man like Hassan keep his sanity?

The French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau, said once that “War is a series of catastrophes that results in a victory.”

For 20 years, no one has been strong enough to claim victory in Somalia, and the country´s humanitarian catastrophe will only continue. The UN and African Union officers estimate that about 1,000 people, mostly civilians, die each month in the struggle for Mogadishu in a senseless civil war.

The skyline of New York city is one of the world’s most recognizable, showcasing marvels of architecture, historical landmarks and some of the tallest buildings anywhere on the planet. Aside from the quintessential Empire State and Chrysler Buildings, New York’s skyline relies on many equally recognizable structures such as the triangular-shaped Flatiron building, GE Building, One Times Square and many others. The new One World Trade Center that is currently under construction on the site of the former World Trade Center Twin Towers – also known as 1 World Trade Center will be the tallest building in New York when it opens in 2013, 12 Years after 9/11 attacks….!

Today, eight years after 9/11,  New York City is still under construction and since the September 11 attacks over the Twin Towers, New York’s Ground Zero has barely changed. Since this infamous terror attack, all American landmarks and National symbols such as the Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge and Grand Central Station are highly secured and protected from the fear of further terror attacks. The attack over the WTC had a major impact on New Yorkers which has since increased their American patriotism. You can find American flags or landmark souvenirs almost everywhere.

As 9/11 was an urban disaster with tremendous impact and although the physical destruction and damage on 9/11 was limited to a small geographic area, the economic and social damage was widespread and prolonged.  Clean-up of the World Trade Center site proceeded more quickly than expected as no-one wanted a clean site sitting empty without a plan for recovery. So there was tremendous pressure to proceed quickly with physical and economic recovery. Although the beloved current American president Barack Hussein Obama skipped this year the memorial ceremony at 9-11 Ground Zero N.Y.C. the New Yorkers are coping with the loss of one of their most recognized landmark of all times bravely but are desperately looking forward into the future, to give the Manhattan skyline back its glory days.

Photo Essay and Photos by Rafael Ben-Ari/Chameleons Eye.

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‘Though people will find this place silly and nonsense, but learning the wisdom of Allah is every Moslem’s right, including transvestites!‘ said Maryani, 48 years old transvestites who’s also the founder of the Koran School for the transvestites and transsexual named ‘Pesantren Senen – Kamis’ in Notoyudan, Jogjakarta – Indonesia. Today the ‘Senen Kamis’ Koran School has more than a hundred members from transsexual community, and some of them come from nearby cities like Semarang, Jakarta and Surabaya and their goal is to learn the Koran and its wisdom.

Although the boarding house operates twice a week, as its name ‘Monday - Thursday’, but every afternoon this place becomes a gather-ground for its members. Learn the Koran, cant in Arabic rhyme or just resting their legs after walking around of being street musician. Lots of  these transvestites earn money by becoming street musician, collecting pennies after pennies for the whole day from the people along the way. Some with the make-up skills would become make-up artists on several night clubs and some even own their own small beauty-salon. While most of them working as prostitutes in the late of nights, with the HIV pepping on the corner of  the street and the fear of  being harassed by the society of  the biggest Moslem nation in the world.

Riot police patrol the streets of Kashgar, Xinjiang, China. After fighting between Uighurs and Hans in 2009, the government has maintained a heavy police presence in the city.

Government officials tour a public display of construction plans for the Old City of Kashgar, Xinjiang, China. The display provides visual evidence of houses in poor condition and lays out plans for the future of the city.

Uighurs walk through a market in the center of the Old City in Kashgar, Xinjiang, China.

Uighurs walk among the debris of a demolished area of the old town in Kashgar, Xinjiang, China. If government plans are followed, the old style housing will be replaced by highrise apartment buildings as seen throughout the rest of China.

One of the world’s oldest cities, Kashgar serves as both the spiritual and political capital of traditional Uighur culture.  Since 1949, the modern People’s Republic of China has exerted strong control over the region, and Kashgar has been particularly hard hit.  Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, a province covering 1/6th of China’s territory holds a majority of the country’s oil and gas reserves.  Long at odds with the Uighurs’ sometimes bloody quest for independence, the Chinese government has insituted a program of subsidized migration and settlement in the area by Han majority Chinese.  In so doing, the government hopes to develop a stable and robust economy whose purpose is the exploitation of the region’s natural resources and to overwhelm the local ethnicities.  Whereas the Uighur population of Kashgar was previously as high as 90%, government settlement efforts have changed the city’s demographics to less than 70% Uighur, and the percentage is still dropping.

A Uighur woman stands near a partially-demolished building in the Old City section of Kashgar, Xinjiang, China.

Cranes hover above the Old City of Kashgar, Xinjiang, China.

New construction encroaches on the Old City section of Kashgar, Xinjiang, China.

Men butcher a cow outside of a small mosque in the Old City of Kashgar, Xinjiang, China.

Uighurs walk among the debris of a demolished area of the old town in Kashgar, Xinjiang, China. If government plans are followed, the old style housing will be replaced by highrise apartment buildings as seen throughout the rest of China.

At the heart of Kashgar is the so-called Old City.  Of tremendous historical value, the twisting alleyways and haphazardly built houses clump together and spring out of the city’s terrain in an organic and natural way.  After sporadic uprisings and fighting between Uighurs and Hans, the Beijing-controlled municipal government has unveiled plans to completely renovate the Old City. Uighur families who’ve lived in the same location for, in some cases, hundreds of years will be uprooted and resettled in cookie cutter apartment blocks built according to contemporary Chinese building standards.  Notwithstanding the individual upheaval of this process, the redevelopment of central Kashgar will radically transform the nature of daily life in the Uighur community.  The alleyways of the Old City create a naturally closed and safe neighborhood structure in which children can play and neighbors interact without fear of outsiders or traffic.  These alleyways also lead to central streets, arteries for the community on which Uighur-owned businesses thrive.  All of this will change as the government imposes redevelopment on the Old City, though not everyone is convinced the change will be bad.

Plans for the redevelopment of the Old City of Kashgar, Xinjiang, China. The plans will radically change the neighborhood, replacing the old-style alleyways and houses with contemporary Chinese apartment block style residences.

Mohmat, 60, smokes to relieve the pains due to his poor health in his home in Kashgar, Xinjiang, China. While he blames the central government for much of the trouble affecting the Uighurs in Xinjiang, he is optimistic about plans to rebuild ramshackle houses in the Old City.

In his home not far from the Grand Bazaar, 60-year-old Mohmat* cries as he describes his life.  Hans moving into the area have taken his job and his house is soon to be demolished.  Unable to afford medicine, he smokes marijuana to relieve the pain in his liver and legs.  Pages of the Koran hang on the walls of his bedroom.  At once blaming China’s central government for his problems, he also sees some sense in the policies.  His house has no plumbing and little electricity.  With the new apartment buildings, his family would enjoy a marked improvement in their quality of life.  Still, without a more systemic overhaul of city and state policies, and clear protection for Uighur employment and religion, he sees the development of the Old City as a small step toward much needed reform in Kashgar.

Uighur men trade livestock at the Kashgar Sunday Animal Market in Kashgar, Xinjiang, China. For hundreds of years, the Kashgar Sunday Animal Market was a weekly fixture on the streets of the city. In the 1990s, in a government bid clean up the city, the market was moved to a special facility outside the city.

The Id Kah Mosque, and surrounding plaza, in Kashgar, Xinjiang, China, serve as the spiritual center of the Uighur minority. In recent years, the local government has retiled the square and removed tiles that indicate the direction of Mecca.

Installed in 1968 during a time of ethnic tensions, this statue not far from the Old City in Kashgar, Xinjiang, China, is one of the largest statues of Chairman Mao Zedong in China.

Uighur workers transport building materials used in home improvements in the Old City section of Kashgar, Xinjiang, China.

Others are more optimistic.  On a bus from Kashgar to Hotan, a man named Askar* approaches me.  A Uighur living in Urumqi, the provincial capital, his english is great and he’s eager to talk.  ”I am hopeful,” he says of the future of Xinjiang.  He worries about the transformation of Kashgar, but sees it as a necessary step in the progress of the region.  His own life has changed dramatically, too.  His first career was working as a newspaper journalist, but it felt to him like a deadend job.  He spent hours upon hours teaching himself english in libraries and has been an Amway representative for the past year or two.  Amway, of course, being the multi-level marketing scheme made popular in the US in the 1970s.  ”I will be the president [of Amway] in 7 years,” he exclaims hopefully.  His trip to Kashgar and Hotan, in fact, was to set up more Amway franchises.  The business, he tells me, is an exciting opportunity, a way to live the American dream in a place that couldn’t be more different from the suburbs where Amway was made popular.  The promise of a better of life offered by the company, and which is never achieved by the overwhelming majority of Amway representatives, provides Askar with a goal far removed from the problems facing Kashgar and the Uighurs.

A teenage boy sits in the back of small work vehicles for sale at a market outside Kashgar, Xinjiang, China.

Buildings near the Grand Bazaar are demolished as part of a plan to redevelop the Old City of Kashgar, Xinjiang, China.

Cranes hover above the Old City of Kashgar, Xinjiang, China.

*only first name given over concern for safety

More photos from this story are available for license at M. Scott Brauer’s archive. View M. Scott Brauer’s portfolio.

Postraumatic stress, Phnom Penh, Cambodia 2009

In Cambodia today, there is an increasing number of emotionally disturbed persons. Traditionally the emotionally disturbed in Cambodia have suffered from the trauma caused by the historical tragedy of the  Khmers Rouges, who killed one third of the population and virtually enslaved the rest. But now, according to  Psychologists in Phnom Penh, we have to deal with contemporary psychosocial problems like poverty, lack of work, future and the new drug markets.

Psicosis. At the Friendship Soviet Hospital. Phnom Penh, Cambodia 2009

At the Friendship Soviet Hospital. Phnom Penh, Cambodia 2009

The first time I meet Sothia, a 29 years old Cambodian, he was tied up in bed and made sleepy with hard medication. His diagnose was schizophrenic with strong psychological disorder and delirious. Like him there are many who come every day the so-called Friendship Soviet Hospital in Phnom Penh to find out a solution against their suffering.

At the Friendship Soviet Hospital. Phnom Penh, Cambodia 2009

At the Friendship Soviet Hospital. Phnom Penh, Cambodia 2009

At the Friendship Soviet Hospital. Phnom Penh, Cambodia 2009

At the Friendship Soviet Hospital. Phnom Penh, Cambodia 2009

At the Friendship Soviet Hospital. Phnom Penh, Cambodia 2009

Doctor Ka Sunbaunat, Dean of the University of Medicine in Phnom Penh, doctor in psychiatry and Neurology and Head of the national program for mental health, explained that there are a whole range of conditions in the younger generations: Depression, anxiety and stress, along with psychological problems stemming from sexual abuse, dealing with HIV/Aids or other forms of severe trauma. Indeed,  the current hard conditions to leave is probably the main cause for young people to let their-self go. In Cambodia, half of the population is under 20 years old and 80% is illiterate.

In recent years, the national situation is slightly better due to the development of tourism, work of NGO’s and incoming of foreigner investment, the level of unemployed are still dramatic. This prospect left them in a very week position against drugs and little local mafias. Most of them related with prostitution and forced labour which profits their ignorance and vulnerability to expand their business. It is the new slavery in Cambodia. Therefore, many of them become, either collaborators or simply consumers. And Drugs market is a flourishing market in the region: sniffing glue, heroine and Meth crystal are the most common among them.

Schizophrenic. Under control after several tries of committing suicide. Soviet Friendship Hospital. Phnom Penh, Cambodia 2009

Under treatment. At Soviet Friendship Hospital. Phnom Penh, Cambodia 2009

Under treatment. At Soviet Friendship Hospital. Phnom Penh, Cambodia 2009

On the other hand lies History. Madame Priep Phral Theary, was one of thousands patients who suffered psychological trauma after being one of slaved Cambodian in a working field ran by Pol Pot’s Regime. Today, fortunately she managed to get over the trauma and became a counseling assistant for other patients. But she remember that after getting up the courage to ask for help she was sufferings phobias, obsessions, compulsions and excessive anxiety for years without knowing the real problem.  As her, many people all over the country had the same experience. Even today, probably still remains and unknown number of people who don`t know that they are suffering mental disorder, and they think they have been hurt by black magic or that they have done something to offend their guardian spirit.

Madame Priep Phal Theary in her house. Phnom Penh, Cambodia 2009

Madame Priep Phal Theary in her house. Phnom Penh, Cambodia 2009

Government started to invest to solve the situation since 1993 but with a very low budget. 16 years after, situation is not better. At least there are 32 psychiatrists overwhelmed for the whole country. And only in the  Cambodian-Russian Friendship Hospital come every day around 200 people. Anxiolytics, antidepressant, anticonvulsivs as regular 6 months therapy are served every day.

At the Friendship Soviet Hospital. Phnom Penh, Cambodia 2009

More than 200 people come daily asking for help to the Soviet Friendshop Hospital, Phnom Penh, Cambodia 2009

More than 200 people come daily asking for help to the Soviet Friendshop Hospital, Phnom Penh, Cambodia 2009

After all, main problem is still there: as experts realizes stress-related social problems are playing a main role in this matter. And future does not seems very bright. Cambodia is still one of most corrupted countries of the world. Even today, many survivors from last Khmers Rouges guerrillas still are part of the government enjoying high salaries and privileges and avoiding a healthy transition to an  open democracy with a certain transparency. Not in vain cambodians everyday is strongly linked to Buddhism, a doctrine which advice serenity, patience and smile against inherent life’s pain.

Mental disorder. Chronic depression.Soviet Friendshop Hospital, Phnom Penh, Cambodia 2009

Mental disorder. Chronic depression.Soviet Friendshop Hospital, Phnom Penh, Cambodia 2009

There weren’t as many blondes on May 29, 2010 in Riga as expected by organizers, “tens of thousands”, but the event was conceived to change the public mood in Latvia, a country in Europe hit hard by economic crisis. The Latvian press said that this ‘Go Blonde’ will be a major tourist attraction for the whole region, expecting to generate donations for Latvian child charity.

Marika Ģederte, President of the Latvian Association of Blondes, organiser of the event: “Blondes in Latvia are unique. Last year’s parade, this year’s festival and next year’s carnival have and will make a substantial contribution toward Latvia’s tourism sector. Go Blonde will soon be as important a project for Latvia as the carnivals in Brazil and Italy which are of great interest to thousands of tourists.”

Friday, the Go Blonde festival offered a party called “Some Like it Hot,” a competition for impersonators of Marilyn Monroe at the Motor Museum.

Blonde ready to participate in the Marilyn Monroe competition.

Saturday, dozens of blondes followed the parade till Dome Square, dressed in pink color. Also many British tourists in the square, some totally drunk and bothering people. The police didn’t appear on the scene. Empty beer glasses fell down in the Human Heritage square, Doma Laukums, and many others just was sit down in their chairs taking pictures from the place. Saturday, sun and cloud played in the sky and wind close racks of jackets till the end. A concert with blonde artist girls, one DJ and one showman are on the stage. Music move bodies but for many the event is like a temporary drug: Inese and Ieva are students, this year finishing their careers and will work as part time workers in coffee shop. A few meters from both girls are a couple of fourties, that are working in Ireland. One blonde delivery leaflets on hand to the visitors regarding “tonight we have a pink party in  Godvil nightclub”.

The Latvian Association of Blondes focuses primarily on charitable events. Unique T-shirts for this year’s festival will be sold, with part of the profits to be devoted to charity projects. The association is helping to establish a playground for children with special needs, with airBaltic securing the first large donation for the purpose. It organises the “Princess Camp” for mothers with children with special needs, and it organises a Christmas charity event for children.

Last year’s blonde parade in Riga attracted global media attention, presenting Latvia in a positive way – “Latvia has found a way to fight against the crisis.”

Vietnam’s capital is at a critical junction, balanced precariously between its past and present, trying to maintain a certain sense of culture and identity while integrating further into the global economy. Rice fields and farmlands are being overtaken by new highways, skyscrapers and industrial areas. The lakes and rivers for which the city was once known are drying up and suffering from increased levels of pollution. And urban farmers who have relied on their families’ lands for generations are being slowly edged off their fields in the name of progress.

A farmer burns off crop residue to prepare for the upcoming harvest.

Farmer Nguyen Van Duoc stops for a cigarette on his field beneath Long Bien Bridge in Hanoi, Vietnam. Each harvest he grows over 200 pounds of soybeans to sell to tofu makers in the city, making less than US$60 a month to support his wife and four children.

A young migrant worker walks past a new construction project in the southern suburbs of Hanoi, Vietnam. What were once abundant rice fields on the outskirts of the capital are now being paved over and converted to new urban and industrial areas.

A portrait of Anh Tuan near his home on the banks of the Red River in Hanoi, Vietnam. Tuan recently spent time in jail and is having a hard time getting his life back in order, as many businesses are weary of hiring an ex-convict.

As Hanoi moves forward to celebrate its 1,000th anniversary this year, the changes taking place are more relevant than ever. This once-sleepy city on the banks of the Red River is now a growing metropolis with millions of people living within its borders. The urban farmers, migrant workers and local inhabitants portrayed here comprise only a small part of the population. But they are an important part nonetheless. There is a history worn on their faces. Theirs is a way of life struggling to survive. This is Hanoi’s new urban landscape, at once steeped in its own history and battling its inevitable surge into modernity.

Pollution beneath Long Bien Bridge on the farmlands near the Red River.

An elder man plants pumpkin seeds on his farmlands in the center of Hanoi, Vietnam.

An older woman rides her bicycle past a new housing development in the suburbs of Hanoi.

A view of downtown Hanoi from the farmlands beneath Long Bien Bridge.

A young fisherman casts a line from a makeshift pier on West Lake in Hanoi, Vietnam. West Lake is one of the capital

A portrait of Pham Thi Thu, 53, outside of her makeshift home on the banks of the Red River.

An elderly Vietnamese woman, Nguyen Thi Quen, poses for a portrait on her way to the temple in her village outside of Hanoi, Vietnam.

Farmer Nguyen Thi Hoa works her land beneath Long Bien Bridge in Hanoi, Vietnam. As pollution worsens on the land and in the nearby Red River, local farmers are finding it harder and harder to work the once-fertile fields.

Farmers pull roots from their fields on the banks of the Red River. These particular roots are used in traditional medicines and are sold to herbalists at markets in the capital’s center.

An aerial view of northern Vietnam, around the capital of Hanoi, with towns and rice fields spread out across the landscape.

A young migrant worker pours tar into a burgeoning construction site as another young man sweeps dust from the walkway on the southern outskirts of Hanoi. Construction sites such as these, all staffed by young migrant workers from the countryside, are taking over the once rural lands of the outer-capital.

Farmer Nguyen Van Duoc pauses to look out over his farmlands in Hanoi, Vietnam.

A man walks along Long Bien Bridge in Hanoi, Vietnam, with the Red River and a small island of farmlands and house boats spreading out to the horizon. Because of a prolonged dry season, the river is at its lowest level in over a century.

Thaipusam is the biggest annual Hindu festival in Malaysia, celebrated mostly by the Tamil community on the full moon in the Tamil month of Thai. Pusam refers to a star that is at its highest point during the festival. The festival commemorates both the birthday of Lord Murugan, the youngest son of Shiva and Parvati, and the occasion when Parvati gave Murugan a vel (lance) so he could vanquish the evil demon Soorapadman.

The celebration is held in Batu Caves Temple, Kuala Lumpur. This ritual attended by millions of devotees from around Malaysia and some from abroad countries.

Devotees prepare for the celebration by cleansing themselves through prayer and fasting. On the day of the festival, devotees will shave their heads undertake a pilgrimage along a set route while engaging in various acts of devotion, notably carrying various types of kavadi (burdens).

Many of them believes when being possessed by the Lord of Murugan they feel painless of anything. They are obligated to present pots of fresh milk as special offerings for Lord Murugan, the milk later will be poured on the sacred spear of Lord Murugan.

In Lebanon, a small but densely populated country, there are 12 official camps with about 230,000 refugees. Compared with their counterparts in neighboring Syria and Jordan, Palestinians in Lebanon has the highest percentage of refugees who are living in abject poverty and who are registered with UNRWA’s “special hardship” program.

Shatila camp, located in Beirut’s “belt of misery” is home to about 15,000 Palestinians and Lebanese who share a common experience of displacement, unemployment and poverty. In September 1982, the Israeli military’s Phalangist allies conducted an extensive series of raids on the Sabra neighborhood and the Shatila refugee camp. The camps were externally surrounded by Israeli soldiers throughout the incident and the extent of Israeli involvement in the attack has been hotly disputed. The attacks resulted in some 700 to 3500 victims, primarily civilians. The Sabra & Shatila massacre still strikes hard at the minds and hearts of Arab people, an atrocious event that must not be forgotten for the Palestinian people in their long struggle to free Palestine.

Shatila camp, located in Beirut. Seen here is entrance to the militant's head office.

About 15,000 registered refugees are squeezed into one kilometre square of land. Many buildings were haphazardly built to accommodate new refugees or when a couple forms a new family. Water, electricity and sanitation conditions are also in near dire states. Narrow alleys with a messy canopy of wires and water pipes running above one’s head are common sights in the camps. Without proper infrastructure for more than 60 years, living conditions are tough for its inhabitants.

A young Palestinian woman walks out of a run-down apartment with electric wires and water hoses, attached to very rusty pipes in the background.

Two Palestinian girls walk down the stairs of a dilapidated building which is home to thousands of refugees in Camp Shatila.

A young Palestinian girl stands in front of a dilapidated building which is home to thousands of refugees in Camp Shatila

A Palestinian refugee family walk by a group of Fatah supporters in Camp Shatila.

A Fatah militant member dances with his rifle, vowing to free Palestine and return to his homeland.

A young Palestinian boy waves a yellow flag with a picture of Yasser Arafat in support of Fatah.

A disturbing mural of beheading found on one of the narrow alley's walls.

The children of Shatila pass their time playing computer games, snooker or soccer. Trapped in a vicious cycle of poverty and undesirable living conditions in camps, many youths lack opportunities to move up the soccer ladder. In Lebanon, Palestinian refugees are not accorded with rights to own property and no matter how well-educated they are, they are only allowed to work in 72 professions.

Naji Al-Ali created Handala, the refugee child who remains till this day, a potent symbol of the struggle of the Palestinian people to return to their homeland

In pain after a fall in the ruins of Port-au-Prince, a young looter hides from the police in fear of being killed.

My pictures document the eruption of violence and looting when the hungry, desperate and frustrated people of Haiti, unassisted by their country´s leaders or helped by the international community, decided to find their own means of survival in the badly damaged capital Port au Prince.

The Bel Air neighbourhood in downtown Port-au-Prince has seen its share of troubles including poverty, high unemployment, gang violence and other social ills. But nothing prepared the usually resilient community for this earthquake. Many of the residents were forced to flee their homes and are now camping out in open-air settlements. Residents who have tried to return have been scared off by the frequent aftershocks.

The Haitian authorities, already weak and reliant on UN forces, are now crippled by heavy casualties and widespread destruction of infrastructure while international peacekeepers are focused on disaster relief.

Looters fighting inside a appliances store in Port au Prince Bel

Up to two million children are feared orphaned or at least separated from their parents in Haiti.Most are sleeping on streets next to dead bodies without shelter, food or water, UK’s Save the Children charity said.

Destruction in Port au Prince

Invisible injuries to the psyches of the survivors. Emotional wounds may be the slowest to develop, but they can also be among the toughest to heal.

Interview with A-Magasinet in Norway