Italy is in turmoil. Its economic problems are symptomatic of the current crisis in the Eurozone and need to be addressed, urgently. But part of the solution needs to come from the political establishment which is very much part of the problem. On ...

'I never know, although I use the term myself occasionally, quite what people mean when they talk about multiculturalism'. Tony Blair, August 2005 'Multiculturalism: the policy or process whereby the distinctive identities of the cultural groups within ...

Behind the fashion for wearing distressed jeans lies a sorry tale of worker exploitation. The wear and tear process is outsourced to countries such as China, where cheap wages and lax environmental controls have allowed the rapid growth of a ...

If there is such a thing as being well prepared for having an autistic child then Rupert Isaacson and Kristin Neff were in a better position than most parents. Rupert is a human rights activist and journalist while Kristin is a developmental psychologist...

It is December 2007, and China is preparing to host the Olympic Games. At a vocational college in the Beijing suburbs, twelve hundred young women are in training to be volunteers. The competition is intense: successful applicants are required to be ...

From the ashes of the Soviet Union, Russia has again risen to world power status, with money, oil and attitude. The country has embraced capitalism, flinging its door open to all the luxuries that money can buy. Yet dark forces remain, and democracy is ...

Spring arrives in Siberia as life stirs beneath the snow that has smothered it for half a year. Lake Baikal - the world's largest body of fresh water, more voluminous than all the North American Great Lakes combined - freezes so solidly that locals ...

Two o'clock in the morning, a railway siding in Kazakhstan. The guard dogs' barking is incessant. Glaring search lights bounce off the silvery cars of an armoured train as a crane lifts its heavy cargo aboard. Spooks lurk in the shadows, gun-toting ...

Since the days of the Tsars, territorial disputes have flared between Russia and China, pitting the world's largest country by landmass against its most populous nation. Until two decades ago, the Chinese were a welcome source of low-wage ...

The Tuva Republic, in the far south of Siberia on the border with Mongolia, is a remote and inaccessible land of mountains, forest and steppe, inhabited by wolves, bears and snow leopards. Shamanism is the local religious form and the people, many of...

In another comprehensive rethink of the country's economic trajectory the Chinese leadership has decided that for the economy to continue to grow at its present rate it needs to move 250 million rural dwellers into newly constructed urban ...

Do we have an idea of what teenage girls want from life? What do they like and dislike about their lives? What are their hopes for the future? Karen Robinson's project in association with Newcastle's Side Gallery is an attempt to get beneath the skin of...

The world's largest convention of computer enthusiasts, simply called 'The Gathering', takes place in Norway. Over five thousand young people come together each Easter, some travelling long distances, each carrying their own computer equipment to the ...

According to the UN's Human Development Index, Norway is the best place to live on the planet. It certainly seems to be one of the best places to be a baby. In contrast to most European countries, the Norwegian birth rate is a healthy 1.9. Norway's ...

The shout was 'Azadi' - 'freedom!' In August 2009, hundreds of thousands of Kashmiris took to the streets in the largest popular protests in nearly two decades. Frustrated with the bloody, brutal stalemate between the Indian army and militants local and ...

In winter thick ice covers the lakes around Oslo. In March 2009, a hardy group including some of the world's best freedivers carved a hole in the ice and dived deep into the freezing waters below.The Oslo Ice Challenge was the first officially recognised...

On the morning of December 26, 2004 an underwater earthquake measuring nine on the Richter scale triggered a series of tidal waves which caused devastation when they struck dry land. Twelve countries were affected by the tsunami and the United Nations ...

A couple of months short of his fourteenth birthday and weighing in at a mere 35 kilograms, William Kalfoss does not show any signs of fear as he stands at the top of the Midtstubakken ski jump, preparing to fly through the air at 85 kilometres an ...

On 22 July 2011, a lone terrorist set off a huge car bomb in the middle of Oslo's Regjeringskvartalet, the executive government quarter of Norway. Eight people were killed and scores seriously wounded. However shocking this attack was, it was ...

On 22 January 2012 it will be 6 months since the quiet calm of summery Oslo was rent apart by a huge bomb blast that tore through the central government and business district and killed 8 people in the area. As the Norwegian capital went into a state...

They start with the bow of the 200,000 tonne supertanker, using cutting torches to slice off huge steel panels, which are then winched through the mud to dry land. After that, the vessel is taken apart only by hammer and hand, piece by piece, bolt by ...

The British Isles, removed from mainland Europe by the choppy English Channel, have long been a refuge for religious dissenters from other parts of the continent and a fertile breeding ground for its own sectarian communities. Augustine's mission...

Colombia is a country obsessed with beauty. Four hundred beauty pageants are held each year, one of the most unusual being the contest held amongst inmates at the Buen Pastor women's prison in Bogota. Dermot Tatlow photographed the 2004 event, which saw ...

What would you bring with you if you had to flee your home and escape to another country? More than 1 million Syrians have been forced to ponder this question before making the dangerous journey to neighbouring Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq or other ...

There was killing and blood. They were raiding houses, people were escaping onto the roofs. The Basijis were tearing up people's houses, they were smashing windows and beating people. They smashed all the car windows of the cars that were parked in the ...

As the countdown to the beginning of the 20th Football World Cup nears its end, football fans and media outfits from across the globe are gathering in Brazil for a month of nail biting international matches between 32 teams in 12 venues across the ...

In Norway, the 22nd of July 2011 has etched itself into the collective and private memory forever. That day, a car bomb killed eight people and wreaked havoc in the government quarter of Oslo. While emergency services dealt with the fallout of the ...

This photo project explores the restless lives of adolescents growing up in Finnmark, the northeastern most county of Norway which loops over the top of Finland and borders on the empty wastelands of northern Karelia in Russia. Norway's renowned ...

Over the last century, adventurers have travelled to Greenland to explore this vast, frozen land. The pictures they brought back show hardy men battling against nature against the backdrop of a pristine wilderness. Today, however, few of us know much...

At the St. Moritz Polo World Cup on Snow, on the shores of Lake St. Moritz in Switzerland, glimpses of British imperial tradition blend with the ostentation of the international jet set to create a quite unusual spectacle that brands itself as 'the ...

Hemmed in by the wiggly course of the Dniester River in the West and a strange assortment of jagged and straight lines marking the border with Ukraine in the East, Transnistria or the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic as it is known by its official ...

While much of the rest of Spain is still reeling from years of economic contraction, a massive hike in the rate of unemployment and a collapse of the property market that has left tens of thousands of homes unsold there is one corner of southern ...

The grinding crisis that has been battering Spain's economy since 2008 is starting to rock the very foundations of society with increasing numbers of people resorting to scavenging for food and whole households subsisting on zero disposable income. ...

In Spain, memories of Franco's fascist dictatorship which only ended with the death of el Generalissimo in 1975, are still fresh amongst the older generations. With an estimated 150,000 people disappeared and believed killed by government forces ...

Despite frequent media reports about immigrants drowning at sea, being abandoned by traffickers who take their money or being deported from Europe the columns of hopefuls seeking a better life and work seem to keep on arriving at Europe's borders. ...

At 400 metres long, 73 metres high and 59 metres wide, she's a big girl by anyone's standards. Weighing in at 55,000 tonnes, she can accommodate up to 18,000 containers in her voluminous belly and, while not exactly a racer at a top speed of 25 ...