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The Wide Angle Archive RECENT PHOTO ESSAYS Children at Work: While many children are now enjoying summer holidays from school, others are toiling away in sweatshops. Amid the Great Recession, more parents may be pulling their children out of school and putting them to work to supplement family income. Gay Pride, from Zagreb to Shanghai: People around the world are rising up and demanding dignity and equal rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. And despite a backlash, the LGBT movement marches forward, refusing to go back in the closet. Ahmadi Bye-Bye in Iran?: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has tarnished his country's international standing, presided over a crumbling economy, and doubted the Holocaust. As Iranians head to the polls June 12, many fed-up voters are chanting, "Ahmadi bye-bye." The Cars That Are Killing GM: General Motors is on government-provided life support. Here are some of the cars better-suited for the 21st century's fast lane that are picking up speed and sending GM to the junkyard. Working in Hell for $11 a Day: Working with oozing molten sulfur at a steaming crater lake, the miners of Indonesia's Kawah Ijen volcano endure wheezing lungs and bloodshot eyes to haul heavy slabs of the bright-yellow element, used in everything from cosmetics to gunpowder. A Day at the Races in Baghdad: Dictatorship, war, looting -- none of it can stop the twice-weekly horse races that are Baghdad's best show in town. Happy Birthday, Buddha: Swine flu and the Taliban in Pakistan may be worrying many people, but for Buddhists, now is a time of celebration. It's Buddha's birthday. Pig Panic: Swine flu is spreading across the world. In a globalized society, can a possible pandemic be stopped? The Land of No Smiles: Renowned documentary photographer Tomas van Houtryve entered North Korea by posing as a businessman looking to open a chocolate factory. Despite 24-hour surveillance by North Korean minders, he took arresting photographs of Pyongyang and its people—images rarely captured and even more rarely distributed in the West. They show stark glimmers of everyday life in the world’s last gulag. The World's Biggest Election: What do you call 714 million eligible voters, 5,500 candidates, 1,055 political parties, and 830,000 polling stations? Call it the world's biggest election ever, to be held in India, the world's largest democracy, beginning April 16. Portraits of Insecurity: A new alliance between Rwandan and Congolese forces may be a rare occasion for optimism, but as Michael J. Kavanagh of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting shows in this exclusive series of portraits, eastern Congo's future is still uncertain. A Light in Burma's Darkness: Burma is well-known for the repression of its ruling military junta. Nevertheless, the country’s economy is growing, in large part to due to the drug trade, migration, and foreign investment. Pakistan's New Homeless: Pakistan has engaged in its own 'war on terror' against Islamist militants in the northwest part of the country. The collateral damage: at least 450,000 Pakistanis forced from their homes. Spring Break Gone Wrong?: This time of year, many American college students head to Mexico's beaches for spring break, but a recent State Department travel alert about violence south of the border might be giving some party animals second thoughts. Landless in a Land of 1.3 Billion: The economic crisis has been rough for everyone, but especially so for China’s migrant workers. With jobs in the cities vanishing, some are returning home to the countryside. Abu Ghraib's Extreme Makeover: In his first address to the joint session of Congress, President Obama said the United States does not torture. Iraq might be trying to send the same message about itself with the recent makeover it gave to the notorious Abu Ghraib prison. Kosovo Year 1: Kosovo just made it through its first year as a self-declared independent country. People there may be celebrating, but Kosovo's continued poverty shows that independence is no quick fix. India's Real-World Slumdogs: With Slumdog Millionaire winning eight Academy Awards, it's easy to view Mumbai's slums as wastelands of filth and misery. But they're actually vibrant business centers filled with scrappy entrepreneurs. If some wealthy elites get their way, though, the slums' days may be numbered. Election Time in Iraq: On Jan. 31, Iraqis will head to the polls for the first time since 2005. If the provincial elections go off without a hitch, it'll be a positive sign that Iraq can hold it together as U.S. and coalition troops begin to depart. The Inauguration Heard 'Round the World: The inauguration of Barack Obama wasn’t the event of the day just in the United States. It received above-the-fold coverage in countries all over the globe. Russia Leaves Eastern Europe Out in the Cold: Russian gas monopoly Gazprom was supposed to have restarted the flow of natural gas to Europe via Ukraine Jan. 13. How much is actually getting through is uncertain at this point, but one thing is certain: Eastern Europe has been left in the cold ever since Gazprom ceased gas flows Jan. 7. On Gaza, Children, and War: The current Israeli offensive into Gaza has taken a heavy toll on everybody, but it's the innocent children on both sides whose suffering is most undeserved -- and most often exploited. China's 30 Years of Economic Overdrive: Thirty years ago, China set in motion economic reforms that have transformed it into one of the most powerful countries on the planet today. The country may be officially “communist,” but it knows how to play the capitalist game—well. Mayhem in Mumbai: Drifting in on inflatable boats, 10 young men brought India’s largest city to its knees in a 60-hour siege last month. But, Mumbai, the country’s financial capital, has been quick to get back on its feet and resume business as usual. Gaza's (Literal) Underground Economy: Since Hamas gained control of Gaza in June 2007, Israel has blockaded the flow of goods into and out of the territory. But when trade is closed aboveground, the economy simply moves underground, in more ways than one. Cholera in a Time of War: With its bounty of natural resources, it could have been one of the world’s wealthiest countries. Instead, the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been plundered and wracked with fighting. And if one rebel leader has his way, the government will be overthrown in this latest outbreak of violence. - For China's Polluting Factories, a Change of Address: Breakneck economic development has turned China into one of the most polluted places on Earth, and the country’s ceramics industry is hardly blame free. In the ceramics capital of Foshan, entire factories that produce everything from glazed sculptures to porcelain tiles have been relocated in an effort to clear the air.
- Making Peace, One Trinket at a Time: This autumn, an ancient trade route that crosses the disputed Kashmiri border between India and Pakistan opened for the first time in 61 years. For Kashmir’s famed artisans, at least, it’s a rare sign of hope.
- Cairo's Trash Collectors Down in the Dumps: Cairo’s zabaleen form the backbone of the city’s garbage disposal system. Largely scorned by Egyptian society, the trash scavengers recently lost one woman who had worked tirelessly for their well-being—Sister Emmanuelle, a Belgium-born nun who died Oct. 20 at age 99.
- Christians Under Attack in Iraq: Comprising one of the world’s oldest Christian communities, followers of Jesus have lived in Iraq for nearly 2,000 years. But with thousands of families fleeing on a biblical scale since the 2003 U.S. invasion, Iraqi Christians face an uncertain future.
 | It takes only weeks for a diamond, once uncovered in an African mine, to travel to India to be cut and polished and land in the showrooms of Paris or New York. The journey reveals some of globalization’s greatest fault lines—inequality, child labor, and outsourcing—and the people who too often fall through the cracks. View the essay--> |
|  |  | Where do ships go to die? Thirty years ago, Europe's shipyards took apart most of the world's supertankers. But rising costs eventually sent much of the ship-breaking industry to Bangladesh. In just two months, teams of workers will reduce a 240,000-ton tanker to scrap metal using crowbars, hammers, and their bare hands. View the essay--> |
| |  | Every evening, as many as 40,000 children in northern Uganda hike for miles from their rural villages to shelters in town. These so-called night commuters are hiding from the Lord’s Resistance Army, a radical, religious paramilitary group that seeks to swell its ranks by abducting children while they sleep. If caught, their next march will be as Uganda’s youngest soldiers. View the essay--> |
| |  | Running a poor country has never been a tougher job. Civil servants are asked to do the people’s work with very little, sometimes with nothing at all. They see to it that the job gets done—or grinds to a halt. Meet the bureaucrats. View the essay--> |
| |  | Iraq is virtually littered with bombs. After two decades of war and fighting, there are more than a million tons of live munitions lying under foot. When it comes time to clean up the country, these are the men who are called to carry away the most dangerous debris. View the essay--> |
| |  | Technology drives the forces of globalization. But when we replace our computers and flat-screens with the newest in high-tech cool, what happens to the hardware we throw away? Welcome to the digital dumping ground, where the poor make a living off other people’s spare parts. View the essay--> |
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