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He triat aquesta imatge que expressa realment les causes de la contaminació que esta provocant tots els humans.

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After the Cultural Revolution, in the space of just three decades, China became the second largest economy in the world, and such unprecedented growth caused a considerable increase in both energy consumed and pollution.

Some industrial plants discharge untreated industrial wastewater into rivers, others emit toxic gases into the atmosphere, contaminating the air and water, farmland and pastureland. Over the past ten years, certain companies have moved from the eastern coastal areas to central or western regions, extending the pollution even further, and it has reached critical levels.

The Ministry for the Environment has shut down many of the smaller companies causing pollution, but some have continued illegal practices such as discharging waste at night, burying drainage pipes beneath riverbeds, or storing toxic wastewater in large evaporation ponds which in turn contaminate the groundwater.

Minerals such as coal and iron are no longer mined underground, but come from open-pit mines that destroy the environment. Grassland has turned to desert; animal farmers have nowhere to graze their stock, while crop farmers have lost their arable land and have had to move, sometimes to another country. In a smog of toxic coal dust, schools are closed, flights are delayed and canceled, highways shut, and more and more people suffering from respiratory disease have been admitted to hospital. Food and drinking water are contaminated, and communities with a high prevalence of disease are now known as "cancer villages." Here environmental pollution is not a theory. In China it is a very real danger and threat to the people.
Exhibition curated by: Jean Loh

Lu Guang is distributed by Contact Press Images

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After the Cultural Revolution, in the space of just three decades, China became the second largest economy in the world, and such unprecedented growth caused a considerable increase in both energy consumed and pollution. Some industrial plants discharge untreated industrial wastewater into rivers, others emit toxic gases into the atmosphere, contaminating the air and water, farmland and pastureland.

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He triat aquesta foto perquè al mirar-ho tot detalladament es pot veure la soledat que es pot trobar una dona al queda vidu.

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In many regions of the world widowhood marks social death for a woman, casting her and her children out to the margins of society. In these cultures a woman is usually defined by her relationship to a man: first a daughter, then a wife. When her husband dies she becomes an outcast. Often uneducated and unable to support herself, she is an easy target for abuse. Even if a woman stands to inherit land or money, she does not know her rights, and her husband's family will chase her away and keep her assets. Sometimes she becomes an object of "inheritance" herself, being passed on as wife to a brother of her dead husband.

In India, stigma associated with widows is deeply rooted in Hinduism. Some Hindus believe that if a woman is pure and faithful she will keep her husband from death, ostensibly blaming the wife for her husband's death. In the most extreme cases, widows throw themselves on the husband's funeral pyre. While this practice, known as Sati, was outlawed in the early 1800s, some communities still expect widows to spend the remainder of their lives in mourning. Today, thousands of India's 40 million widows seek refuge in holy cities such as Vrindavan and Varanasi where they serve a life sentence: shaving their heads, wearing white, and never remarrying. However, younger generations are now rejecting these expectations and the situation is changing. One ashram recently threw a party for the Holi festival, as The Times of India reported: "They sang and danced, laughed and shed tears. They threw flowers at each other and played with gulal. The widows of Vrindavan celebrated Holi with a riot of colours - defying tradition that bids them to stay away from festivities of all kinds."

In Bosnia, the Srebrenica massacre in 1995 left thousands of widows in its wake when Serbian forces killed over 7000 Bosnian men and boys in just one week. Entire villages became husbandless, changing the structure of families and entire communities. Widows have now become the heads of households, local leaders and activists, fighting for the rights of the victims of the genocide.

In Uganda, and many parts of Africa, a woman traditionally has no inheritance rights, so when a husband dies his family will often come to claim everything: the land, the woman's home, and sometimes even her children. The NGO International Justice Mission (IJM) decided to tackle the problem in one district on the outskirts of Kampala where 60% of widows experience what is known as "property grabbing." Yet Uganda has an equitable and progressive constitution that protects a woman's right to inherit; IJM recognized that education was the problem. Since 2007 they have been present and active in the district, training everyone involved in the law and law enforcement, from policemen, to local leaders and judges, and now the situation is starting to change.

The United Nations has recognized the condition of widows as a global issue, and in 2011 officially declared June 23 to be International Widows' Day: "No woman should lose her status, livelihood or property when her husband dies, yet millions of widows in our world face persistent abuse, discrimination, disinheritance and destitution." [UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon]
Amy Toensing

The project was partially supported by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting & by National Geographic Magazine

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In many regions of the world widowhood marks social death for a woman, casting her and her children out to the margins of society. In these cultures a woman is usually defined by her relationship to a man: first a daughter, then a wife. When her husband dies she becomes an outcast.

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He triat aquesta imatge perquè m'aporta una sensació de felicitat i d'estiu, vacances. Trobo que esta molt bé que hi hagin fotografs que no busquin fotografià les desgràcies i intentin fer algu que expressi felicitat.

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In a back street in the center of Old Havana, Sarah Caron discovered Cuba's first Muslim prayer room, on premises renovated with assistance from Saudi Arabia. Here, Sarah Caron met Zakina, Shahida, Dannys and others, a small number of believers forming the discreet community of Cubans who have converted to Islam. The mezquita, or mosque, as they call it, is certainly noticed by Western tourists passing by. The standard view of Cuba is that religion means Catholicism, and it is the image conveyed by the many magnificent churches, such as the Cathedral of the Virgin Mary of the Immaculate Conception, and, in general, by the country's Latin culture and traditions.

It is difficult to find any clear date marking the advent of Islam in Cuba, but one key moment was in 2005 when a massive earthquake struck Pakistani Kashmir, and Cuba sent medical teams to help. In recognition of this assistance, Pakistan initiated a program of scholarships for young people to study in Cuba, and when Cubans met these young Pakistanis in various provinces around the country, and in Havana, they discovered the Muslim religion, which led some of them to convert.

There are no accurate estimates of the number of Muslim Cubans as the government issues no official data. An American center of statistics gives the figure of 10,000; for the French media it is between 6,000 and 8,000; for the BBC it is closer to 4,000, and for one of the leaders of the local Muslim community, it is just under one thousand.

In Cuban society, which has been cut off from the rest of the world for around sixty years, converting to Islam is not only a spiritual revelation when discovering a new faith, but for many it is an opportunity to open up to a new world, a new language, new cultural traditions and new people to meet. However, as there are no muftis, mullahs, thinkers or spiritual leaders in Cuba, it is not easy for them to learn the religion and practice it. Followers pick up information they can find by whatever means available: word of mouth, through tales told by rare people who have traveled to Muslim countries, or sometimes through glimpses of Turkish television programs downloaded illegally and sold on flash drives on the black market.

In a country where corruption is prevalent, where revolutionary committees are still carrying out active surveillance of the population, and where there is virtually no access to the Internet (with only 5% of Cuban households connected), it is a real challenge to develop a proper religious community that is both honest and independent. This open attitude to Islam may be an opportunity for the government to be on good terms with countries willing to invest in Cuba, e.g. to build a "proper" mosque, but such diplomatic rapprochement may not please President Trump's administration and those who see Saudi Arabia as a major source of radical Wahabi Islam, and may help put an end to the process of better diplomatic relations initiated by Barack Obama in his second term of office.

Vincent Jolly, reporter, Le Figaro Magazine

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