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  • Green shoots of bamboo at The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, usually referred to simply as Kew Gardens, are 121 hectares of gardens  and botanical glasshouses between Richmond and Kew in southwest London, England. It is an internationally important botanical research and education institution with 700 staff, receiving around 2 million visitors per year.
    20100427kew gardensAP.jpg
  • Healthy green leaves sprout from a tree below a tall office skyscraper, a scene of economic prosperity, growth and recovery. We look up at the tall structure whose dark surfaces reflect passing clouds while below, the tree's new leaves look more verdant after season rainfall.
    city_tree05-27-04-2012_1.jpg
  • Police officers on duty including Commander Salah Mohamed, Islamiedin second Lieutenant and Abdullah second Lieutenant. They are not permitted to talk to the press. <br />
<br />
One of the main problems for the police force, is overcoming corruption. Just before this photograph was taken a man pulled over and handed six rolls of toilet paper to the commander. The police hadn’t been paid for two months, so from the very smallest amounts to much larger sums, corruption is a way of getting by.<br />
<br />
Experienced fixer, Zia Haidary elaborates: “If he had not been paid for two months, why is he still doing his job? He was fooling around, doing nothing then stopping people and cashing in on the bribes. My neighbour was arrested, he is a drug dealer. The police found 6kg of heroin and an AK47 in his house. The next day he is out of police custody -  How? It is corrupt.  The police here are uneducated boys who cannot find work. If you ask them to write their name, they can’t do it –they’re just really good at shooting.”
    afghan_03_1.jpg
  • Police officers on duty including  Islamiedin second Lieutenant and Abdullah second Lieutenant. They are not permitted to talk to the press. <br />
<br />
One of the main problems for the police force, is overcoming corruption. Just before this photograph was taken a man pulled over and handed six rolls of toilet paper to the commander. The police hadn’t been paid for two months, so from the very smallest amounts to much larger sums, corruption is a way of getting by.<br />
<br />
 Experienced fixer, Zia Haidary elaborates: “If he had not been paid for two months, why is he still doing his job? He was fooling around, doing nothing then stopping people and cashing in on the bribes. My neighbour was arrested, he is a drug dealer. The police found 6kg of heroin and an AK47 in his house. The next day he is out of police custody -  How? It is corrupt.  The police here are uneducated boys who cannot find work. If you ask them to write their name, they can’t do it –they’re just really good at shooting.”
    afghan_04_1.jpg
  • Manager owner Shareef Mohamed (at window) photographed with his waiters Noor <br />
19, Mohamed Moneer, 27 and  Mohamed  Agha at the Aryana Wedding hall. <br />
The wedding business is very big and Afghans can pay huge sums $20 000 for a middle class wedding  is normal. Bear in mind that a Moderate guest lists can top 600 people; the biggest exceeds 2,000. Included in the prices is the dowry or ‘bride price’. Even a poor laborers on 350 a year could be expected to pay $2000 and grooms are left with crushing debt. Tradition and societal pressure leave them with no alternative but to have expensive weddings in spite of their poverty. Marriage is arguably the most important rite of passage for a young Afghan man, and the luxuriousness of the ceremony reaffirms his family's status.  Since the Taliban were ousted in 2001, the Afghan wedding industry has rebounded and is now bigger than ever. The growth is reflected in the proliferation of wedding halls, The number in Kabul alone has risen to more than 80 today from 4 in 2001.
    afghan_011_1.jpg
  • Manager owner Shareef Mohamed. <br />
The wedding business is very big and Afghans can pay huge sums $20 000 for a middle class wedding  is normal. Bear in mind that a Moderate guest lists can top 600 people; the biggest exceeds 2,000. Included in the prices is the dowry or ‘bride price’. Even a poor laborers on 350 a year could be expected to pay $2000 and grooms are left with crushing debt. Tradition and societal pressure leave them with no alternative but to have expensive weddings in spite of their poverty. Marriage is arguably the most important rite of passage for a young Afghan man, and the luxuriousness of the ceremony reaffirms his family's status.  Since the Taliban were ousted in 2001, the Afghan wedding industry has rebounded and is now bigger than ever. The growth is reflected in the proliferation of wedding halls, The number in Kabul alone has risen to more than 80 today from 4 in 2001.
    afghan_02_1.jpg
  • Sultan Mohammad, 74, carpenter and handy man. Sultan has been working in the Mustafa Hotel, where he is photographed, for 50 years.
    CB7V3273_1.jpg
  • Humayan Beria works at Arianna TV Studios, as a comedian, writer and producer.He is the star behind some of Afghanistan’s biggest comedy shows. Fahim Sadozi, Head of Programming says, “There was no TV in Taliban times, but eighty per cent of the country now watches television”. <br />
Arianna are also working on an Afghan version of ‘Who wants to be a Millionaire’.. Contestants win 1 million (Afghani equivalent to 20,000 US dollars). There are also Afghan versions of Oprah, Dragons Den and Pop Idol.
    afghan31_10_121_1.jpg
  • Hassina Syed,  business woman, with her two daughters Sana (age 3)and Hirah(2), photographed at her home and business the Gandamack Lodge Hotel.  She also rents armoured cars, runs a farming business, a travel agency and a bedding shop. She is married to Peter Jouvenal an ex soldier, journalist and westerner who has lived in Afghanistan for twenty years.<br />
<br />
She experienced first hand, how terrifying the Taliban could be. She says: <br />
<br />
‘I opened up the Chadri (mesh front of the burkha) to see a tea-cup and suddenly from the back, a Taliban soldier came with a big stick, shouting at me. If you get beaten by a Taliban, you could die. <br />
“I made myself look as old and bad as possible because if  they ( the Taliban) saw you looking even a bit beautiful, they could come to your house and take you as one of their wives”<br />
<br />
“For me having money is dangerous, kidnapping is a big problem. A friend’s uncle was kidnapped; they wanted $150 000, He was so mad he said, ‘I am not paying that he is an old man!’  Eventually they dropped the price and said OK, just cover our fuel and the bribe for the police (30 000 dollars)."
    afghan23_646_1.jpg
  • Ahmad Sidiqqi, photographed in the laboratory that he runs,  has worked at Afghan Film for many years. “During the Mujahideen years the building was attacked. I was here when it was shelled, The archives were saved from the Taliban who wanted to burn them. They were hidden in a secret room”<br />
<br />
His boss is Engineer Latif Ahmadi, who explains how, even with the allied occupation of Kabul, filming is still difficult:<br />
<br />
“We were filming a hundred yards from a suicide bombing, one hundred metres from the Ministry of Culture, five people were killed. We actually felt the force of the explosion and heard the shots. It took two minutes for the dust to clear but I told the director, ‘please continue’, because what can we do but carry on?”
    afghan22_10_019_1.jpg
  • Mustafa, aged 19 (although he is unsure of exact age) is a labourer on the Turquoise Mountain project rebuilding the old town centre, Murad khane. He is single and lives with his parents. The monkey is called Shadi. <br />
<br />
“Before Turquoise Mountain came here it was very bad. Everywhere smelt, it was full of rubbish and the sewage – people just threw it out in front of their houses-   it was two or three metres high, you could reach the top floor of the houses by standing on the garbage.  During the war, there was nobody to clean up the rubbish, then buildings would collapse and then rubbish would go on rubbish. <br />
Before working with Turquoise Mountain I was just polishing shoes, now I get $5 dollars a day.”
    afghan21_10_048_1.jpg
  • Sameer Iqbal,10, holding the chewing gum he sells on the street, with his social worker, Shafiq, at Ashiana headquarters in Kabul. This charity works with vulnerable children. <br />
“I make almost a dollar a day selling chewing gum, half as much as my mother, my father Is crippled”<br />
<br />
Ashiana, a charity working with vulnerable young people, is run by Mohammed Yousef who set it up in 1995.<br />
<br />
They  work with 4500 children in Kabul, Parwan, Mazar-e-Sharif, and Heart  running activities for street and working children, returnees, displaced child soldiers and similar vulnerable children offering education recreation and respite.<br />
<br />
“Life for the working children is very stressful. They are at risk from abusive adults, dangerous traffic, suicide explosions and their dysfunctional families. They are stressed at home and on the street there is no room for them to be children. We are here to provide them with some respite.”
    afghan06_1.jpg
  • Rohullah  Nikpay,21, Bronze medal winner,  photographed at his gym.  Rohullah is from a typically poor Afghan  background, A  Hazara, one of the most marginalized tribes in his country. He spent several years in a refugee camp before emigrating to Iran during the Taliban years. When he returned  Taekwondo   became an important  part of his life, supporting himself only  with  help from his family and a  menial job. It was, then, a hugely emotional experience, for him to return to Kabul after his success in  Beijing to find crowds of cheering Afghans. Apart from meeting with the president the first thing he did was hire him self  a body guard: any -body in Afghanistan with money is a target for kidnapping. Now the target  for Rohullah is   2012 in London . He trains every night with the Afghan team for two hours every night and 3-4 times a day when a competition is due.  His responsibility is much more now he has reputation to defend.
    CB7V3215_1.jpg
  • Zulgai, a furniture maker at home with his family. “The children watch cartoons ,I like serious programs, like the news and my wife prefers to watch a Chinese soap that deals with the  unhappy life of a royal daughter.”
    afghan31_10_123_1.jpg
  • Engineer Ebrahim Faizi age 27, hotel manager and architect with Sultan Mohammad,74, carpenter and handy man. Sultan has been there since he started work over 50 years ago. He remembers a time when the girls use to wear mini skirts in Kabul. Ebrahim has lived at the hotel most of his life during the civil war and for some time during the Taliban era ( he left after a year ). He had to hide at the back of the building during factional fighting in the civil war. The hotel took hits from rockets at least 20 times during one vicious fight.<br />
<br />
“I was here in the civil war but when the Taliban came I left.  Every day a hundred or two hundred rockets were fired, inside and out side the city. In 2001 this city was totally devastated We took at least twenty rockets in this building. we were at the back hiding; it went on for hours. It was just me, mum, uncle and the Mujahideen” .
    afghan30_10_116_1.jpg
  • Golsher, has 4 children, is married and lives with her family in two rooms, they have no proper sanitary conditions sewage is throw out on the street. She works seven days a week and earns 90 dollars a month. she is saving to buy her own home, the loan from Arianna a micro finance company helped buy her a generator to power the machine, before she would sew by hand, she wants to buy another machine and teach her daughter. The small loan has had a tremendous impact on her life and she is saving to buy her home she will need a loan of 10 000 dollars at least.
    afghan28_10_104_1.jpg
  • Akba has been a soldier and guard for fifteen years. He originally fought  in the Mujahideen against the Soviets with the warlord Gulbuddin before most recently, joining Majad Maly to fight against the Taliban in Khandahar province. Now he is a security guard working for WRN (Witan Risk management ).
    afghan27_10_093_1.jpg
  • Qudsia Zohab, member of the Ethnography Department at the Afghan National Museum is single and a student studying literature at Kabul University. In the background is Shirazeden Saifi, Director of Restoration. <br />
<br />
Qudsia says: “The Taliban time was the black period of Afghanistan. It was a jail. I remember the burkha, it was heavy and suffocating. You can only see straight ahead and wearing it made you feel ashamed. One of our relatives didn’t wear the burkha, she was consequently beaten so badly (by the Taliban) that two days later she died - a young woman of only thirty-two. Many women wear burkhas because they are still under the control of their husbands but some because they don’t have to think about what clothes or make-up to wear!
    afghan26_10_094_1.jpg
  • Mr Massoudi,  Director of the  National Museum of Afghanistan pictured next to a statue recently restored after the Taliban smashed it to pieces. Overall the Taliban smashed 2000 museum exhibits and more famously two colossal Buddhas in Bamiyan ‘because they were "false idols" contrary to Islam.  Mr Massouudi with the help of the international community has rebuilt and reopened his museum and is now seeking to recover and restore the many artifacts either looted in the civil war or smashed by the Taliban:<br />
"They took the decision that artefacts such as statues, or anything representing the human figure, was against Sharia Islam . Looking at statues as part of history, is not the same as worshiping them. It was an extremely sad time not just for me, but all museum staff , cultural and educated people in Afghanistan. They destroyed around 2000 artefacts.”
    afghan26_10_084_1.jpg
  • Mrs Farzana Samimi on her talk show ‘Banuî with psychiatrist, Mohammed Yasin Babrak.<br />
<br />
Farzana’s show centres on problems faced by Afghan women - largely a taboo subject. Currently, for security reasons guests have to talk by phone: “I remember one guest - a young girl -  who was forced ( by her parents) to marry.” Says Farzana. “But because she came on TV, her parents threatened to kill her”.  <br />
<br />
One of Farzana’s colleagues was shot dead by unknown gunmen in Kabul in May 2005 and Farzana’s  husband wants her to stop presenting but she says:  “The show is very important. For a lot of women, their only source of help is from the TV.”<br />
A survey of women in Kabul found that 98 percent suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, chronic depression or severe anxiety. Dr Babrak, Farzana’s co presenter says. “Most women who come to me suffer from mood swings and schizophrenia,"
    afghan26_10_076_1.jpg
  • Qudriya Yazdan Parast is an elected MP in the Afghan Parliament. She is photographed at home with friends who prefer not to be identified for fear of offending their families. Qudriya is committed to advancing women’s rights. As such, her life is constantly in danger and she and her family have been attacked several times.  <br />
<br />
She says, “There are still many problems. I know someone, a  candidate running  for Parliament who gave away two of his daughters as part of his campaign. Fortunately, he didn’t win!"<br />
<br />
In Afghanistan, there are no love marriages but I help couples to be together.  I once helped a girl and a boy who had fallen in love at university. They had to see each other secretly because her father did not approve. Eventually though, I gained the father’s trust and because of my standing he listened.  They have been married now for more than a year and have a son.
    afghan21_646_1.jpg
  • Housing development on side of a mountain in North Kabul, there are no sewage facilities, running water or mains electricity, but building a house here gives Afghans an opportunity to own their own home.
    afghan19_646_1.jpg
  • Housing development on side of a mountain in North Kabul, there are no sewage facilities, running water or mains electricity, but building a house here gives Afghans an opportunity to own their own home.
    afghan17_646_1.jpg
  • Bulbs wired to a generator indicate power to individual homes on this rudimentary housing estate on a mountain in north Kabul.
    afghan16_646_1.jpg
  • View from Hajji Gul serai looking south towards the Pul-e-Khishti mosque and the old city.
    afghan12_646_1.jpg
  • View from Hajji Gul serai looking south towards the Pul-e-Khishti mosque and the old city.
    afghan11_646_1.jpg
  • Madoon Ghaffur, 22, is single and works as a singer and actress in the dubbing studio at Ariana Television.  Ariana has an ambitious broadcasting schedule showing several Indian dramas which are contrary to conservative popular opinion.  Despite concerns from Parliament  - which has banned the airing of soaps -  and threats of violence from the Taliban, the company and its main rival Tolo TV, are aggressive in their airing of shows all of which have massive public appeal. <br />
<br />
<br />
Currently, Madoon is translating the Indian soap “Zaara” into the local Afghan language Dari. She also dubs “Dolhan” an Indian soap and is a well-known singer. Madoon is a success story in the new Kabul enjoying a freedom that was quashed under the Taliban and impossible during the civil war:  “During Taliban I couldn’t go anywhere, I had to stay at home , I felt imprisoned, but now I am free.
    afghan02_11_122_1.jpg
  • Actor  Basheer  Ahmad on location in an old mosque in the Baghe Bale  region of Kabul. Basheer is playing a king in a film about Maulana Jalaluddin Balkhi a great Afghan and Islamic scholar from the sixth century. The director is Latif Latif Ahmadi. The king is not popular in the next scene to be shot he is to be removed by the courtiers.
    afghan_07_1.jpg
  • Noor Akor, with his children. Lailee, 7, Almos, 5 Jawat, 1.5, Javed, 3, (Farid 12 years old and  Parvees, 10,  his other children and wife are not in the picture )<br />
 Noor is not untypical of the average Afghan he has to support his family  on 2-4 dollars a day; he lives on the side of a mountain with no running water, sanitary facilities or schools ( 2.5 hours to the nearest school) it takes him one hour to walk down the hill to his work as a hairdresser.
    afghan31_10_124_1.jpg
  • Hallid, a fish monger, has been helping out with the family business since he was  fourteen. The fish come from rivers in the north of Kabul. It is a good business making as much as sixty dollars a day. He bakes on site for his customers -  mainly wedding guests who offer fish as a traditional present. Sometimes as much as fifteen or twenty kilos of fish are brought for the bride’s family. It is then distributed to the family guests.
    afghan29_10_112_1.jpg
  • Vultures at Kabul Zoo. In the civil war the zoo was completely destroyed because it was on the front line. Most of the animals died, the vultures being one of the few exceptions along with the lion which Shah Noori, the zoo manager tells us "survived by eating humans".
    afghan22_10_020_1.jpg
  • Sayed Mohammed, 18, a mason’s assistant is responsible for plastering the walls, during the renovation of the old city district of Murad Khane. He is using a traditional mud-based render made out of gravel, straw and mud. <br />
“The builders tread the mud, straw and gravel mixture for a couple of days to make it strong” he says. “It’s tougher than concrete when it’s finished.” . <br />
<br />
Sayed dreams of being a good mason, having a car and a family. He has been working since he was ten when he used to sell fruit during the Taliban years, he has no education.  Murad Khane, the ancient centre of Kabul is undergoing a massive regeneration thanks to the Turquoise Mountain Foundation. The foundation was set up by Steward Rory Stewart, the man who’s life has inspired a Hollywood biopic starring Orlando Bloom. He walked across Afghanistan with his dog, governed a province in  Iraq , tutored Prince William and Harry and was asked personally by Prince Charles to undertake the project of regenerating the heart of the old city centre. Two years later, the project has galvanized the local community who have all been offered work. The organization has cleared some 20,000 tons of rotting garbage from the streets, built a primary school, a clinic and restored several of the finest courtyard homes to near-mint condition. With an eye for capacity building Stewart has also developed a school for traditional crafts,
    afghan21_10_044_1.jpg
  • Fatima, age nine, daughter of Nemat Khalil  poses briefly for this picture in Murad Khane as she is late for class at the local primary where she is in third grade. The school was recently built with the support of Turquoise Mountain.  It is rare to see such a confident smile on an Afghan child and a sign that maybe the work the charity is doing is having very good effects in the local community.<br />
<br />
Murad Khane, the ancient centre of Kabul is undergoing a massive regeneration thanks to the Turquoise Mountain Foundation. The foundation was set up by Steward Rory Stewart, the man who’s life has inspired a Hollywood biopic starring Orlando Bloom. He walked across Afghanistan with his dog, governed a province in  Iraq , tutored Prince William and Harry and was asked personally by Prince Charles to undertake the project of regenerating the heart of the old city centre. Two years later, the project has galvanized the local community who have all been offered work. The organization has cleared some 20,000 tons of rotting garbage from the streets, built a primary school, a clinic and restored several of the finest courtyard homes to near-mint condition. With an eye for capacity building Stewart has also developed a school for traditional crafts,
    afghan21_10_037_1.jpg
  • Street life in Murad khane, Kabul. The Burkha is still a common site in Kabul with the influence of the Taliban still  very strong .
    afghan20_10_058_1.jpg
  • Street vendor waving spand, (smoking seeds burnt in a can) for good luck,
    CB7V3562-1_1.jpg
  • The daughter of Noor Agha showing some of the look of Sharbat Gula the girl made famous by Steve Mc Curry’s photograph  that featured on the cover of National Geographic in 1985.
    CB7V3320_1.jpg
  • Customer in  beauty parlour, Since the fall of the Taliban there have been an explosion of parlours opening. Under the Taliban they were banned with whipping and amputations common punishments.
    CB7V2991_1.jpg
  • Boy Mohammed works the streets with Spand ( the can and seeds he is holding are burnt and waved into the car for good luck) he spends some of the time at Ashiana  a charity that works with  vulnerable children.<br />
<br />
“I must support my family I am the oldest, my father works but he cannot earn enough on his own I  earn up to a dollar a day. I don’t like working on the streets; I worry about the suicide bombers, kidnappers, gangsters and traffic. Recently a friend was selling gum and got knocked over by a car, it did not even stop.”
    afghan29_10_111_1.jpg
  • Young Afghan girls on hill top overlooking Nadir shah and Kabul. Names, right to left:  Historai, 11, Sheba , 2, Rifer, 10, Soloha, 9, Tina 4 ( all names spelt  phonetically).<br />
Children have been the primary victims of more than two decades of conflict. Of the estimated 1.5 million people killed during this period, some 300,000 were children. Abduction and trafficking in children is now a rapidly growing threat, with the most common forms of trafficking being child prostitution, forced labour, slavery, servitude and the removal of body organs.
    afghan28_10_107_1.jpg
  • Golsher, has 4 children, is married and lives with her family in two rooms, they have no proper sanitary conditions sewage is throw out on the street. She works seven days a week and earns 90 dollars a month. she is saving to buy her own home, the loan from Arianna a micro finance company helped buy her a generator to power the machine, before she would sew by hand, she wants to buy another machine and teach her daughter. The small loan has had a tremendous impact on her life and she is saving to buy her home she will need a loan of 10 000 dollars at least.
    afghan28_10_105_1.jpg
  • Freydeen , Bird seller , for fifteen years, poses for the camera at Kabul’s bird market , Ka Farushi<br />
<br />
The market is a narrow lane crammed with stalls and tiny open-fronted shops where shop keepers sell birds of all descriptions -  canaries, budgerigars, songbirds and pigeons as well as specially trained fighting birds like quails and partridges.  There is a long tradition of bird keeping in Afghanistan. Although it was banned under the Taliban, the market is once again vibrant and alive with the sounds of birdsong
    afghan26_10_090_1.jpg
  • Mrs Farzana Samimi on her talk show ‘Banuî with psychiatrist, Mohammed Yasin Babrak.<br />
<br />
Farzana’s show centres on problems faced by Afghan women - largely a taboo subject. Currently, for security reasons guests have to talk by phone: “I remember one guest - a young girl -  who was forced ( by her parents) to marry.” Says Farzana. “But because she came on TV, her parents threatened to kill her”.  <br />
<br />
 One of Farzana’s colleagues was shot dead by unknown gunmen in Kabul in May 2005 and Farzana’s  husband wants her to stop presenting but she says:  “The show is very important. For a lot of women, their only source of help is from the TV.”<br />
A survey of women in Kabul found that 98 percent suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, chronic depression or severe anxiety. Dr Babrak, Farzana’s co presenter says. “Most women who come to me suffer from mood swings and schizophrenia," <br />
 Farzana can empathize: “During the Taliban I was depressed and I am still traumatised. It took me two years after the collapse of the Taliban to stop wearing the burkha. Educated women wouldn’t come out on the streets even after the Taliban fell. But gradually women got more courage and things are changing.”
    afghan26_10_086_1.jpg
  • Mohamad Aris,  pictured holding a biscuit icing glazer fashioned out of newspaper, is <br />
a cookie maker working  13-14 hours a day,  he is married with one child: <br />
<br />
“Kabul is getting worse , I want peace and security from the Elections but I am not confident this can happen. For now I think only of making money for my family. I live for today, I cannot think further ahead than two hours"
    afghan26_10_079_1.jpg
  • Mrs Farzana Samimi on her talk show ‘Banuî with psychiatrist, Mohammed Yasin Babrak.<br />
<br />
Farzana’s show centres on problems faced by Afghan women - largely a taboo subject. Currently, for security reasons guests have to talk by phone: “I remember one guest - a young girl -  who was forced ( by her parents) to marry.” Says Farzana. “But because she came on TV, her parents threatened to kill her”.  <br />
<br />
One of Farzana’s colleagues was shot dead by unknown gunmen in Kabul in May 2005 and Farzana’s  husband wants her to stop presenting but she says:  “The show is very important. For a lot of women, their only source of help is from the TV.”<br />
A survey of women in Kabul found that 98 percent suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, chronic depression or severe anxiety. Dr Babrak, Farzana’s co presenter says. “Most women who come to me suffer from mood swings and schizophrenia,"
    afghan26_10_074_1.jpg
  • Qurban Ali, zoo keeper, in the vulture cage feeding the birds meat for their evening meal. “In the civil war the zoo was completely destroyed because it was on the front line.” Says Ali. “Most of the animals died”, the vultures being one of the few exceptions, along with the lion which apparently survived by eating humans.
    afghan22_10_021_1.jpg
  • Engineer Latif Ahmadi, pictured below outside the studios, producer, script writer, cinematographer and General Director of Afghan Film. Latif returned to Kabul in 2002 to recommence his work with Afghan film after the civil war forced its closure and him to leave in 1992 ( bomb damage can be seen in the concrete). He is currently working on a film about Maulana Jalaluddin Balkhi, a great Afghan and Islamic scholar from the sixth century. He has three children and lives in Kabul with his wife. He says, <br />
“We were filming a hundred yards from a suicide bombing, one hundred metres from the Ministry of Culture, five people were killed. We actually felt the force of the explosion and heard the shots. It took two minutes for the dust to clear but I told the director, ‘please continue’, because what can we do but carry on."
    afghan22_10_014_1.jpg
  • NCO Training in action at Camp Alamo. Corporals are turned into sergeants. The trainers are Afghans watched over by the UK Army. Most of the soldiers pictured will go on to fight the Taliban. At the moment the Afghan Army has been started from scratch they have currently 64000 troops the aim is to double this figure.
    afghan10_646_1.jpg
  • Hamidullah 30, apprentice tyre salesman. Hameed works in the wheel shop on Parwan 3 (street name) as an apprentice. He returned a month ago from Pakistan, after fifteen years absence. He is paid 28$ dollars a week: "I came back to Kabul because the work situation is better," he says. "My family left during the civil war, but this is our county, which is why we returned from Pakistan. The economy is better here, I can live with my family,  I am happy to be back here, I am not afraid of the Taliban, I am afraid of God."
    afghan_08_1.jpg
  • Typical landscape view of Houaphan province with bamboo forests and swidden rice fields, Lao PDR. The terrain of Houaphan province is rugged, with dense mountainous forest forming much of the province, particularly on the western side bordering Vietnam. Bamboo is important in rural parts of the province and used as a principal building material and the women collect bamboo shoots both for food and for sale. In Viengxay district there are two bamboo processing factories which produce items such as floormats, fences, chopsticks and toothpicks for the Vietnamese market.
    DSCF2293cc_1.jpg
  • A view of the bamboo forest close by to the Hmong village of Ban Pom Khor, Houaphan province, Lao PDR. The terrain of Houaphan province is rugged, with dense mountainous forest forming much of the province, particularly on the western side bordering Vietnam. Bamboo is important in rural parts of the province and used as a principal building material. The women collect bamboo shoots both for food and for sale. In Viengxay district there are two bamboo processing factories which produce items such as floormats, fences, chopsticks and toothpicks for the Vietnamese market.
    A0026678cc_1.jpg
  • A pair of gloved hands in a greenhouse potting shed on a north Somerset farmstead. Pressing soft soil into small pots containing young tomato plants to be planted elsewhere, the anonymous person fills a tray of other growing items such as herbs and salads. The sunshine comes through the greenhouse glass allowing temperatures to stay even and favourable for fast growth.
    potting_greenhouse01-04-05-2013.jpg
  • A montage of seasonal local products from various markets around Lao PDR.
    Produce montage_1.jpg
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