In the late 1970s, Soviet geologists discovered large uranium deposits near the Mardai River in Dornod Province of Eastern Mongolia. A secret agreement established a mine and associated town, unmarked on any map, which operated between 1988 and 1998. Eventually the Russian miners and their families went home and the city’s infrastructure was left to slowly decay. Mongolians took advantage of the valuable metals found in the ruins. These were sold to the Chinese leaving behind dangerously unstable structures. Furthermore, untreated radioactive waste litters the area and locals suspect that this is responsible for increasing numbers of deformed livestock and high rates of cancer related deaths that are anecdotally reported in the area.

The mountainous kingdom of Bhutan was largely isolated from the outside world until the end of the 20th century when the ban on television and the internet were lifted. Today, the government remains committed to promoting the Gross National Happiness (GNH). Yet Bhutan’s record as the guardian of its citizens' well being is by no means universally applied. Bhutan's giant neighbour India is the main source of cheap labour, with migrant workers mainly being employed in the construction industry. According to a survey conducted by the Ministry of Trade and Industry, Bhutanese workers are less keen on low skill, low pay jobs and are happy for migrant workers to take up the slack. This, however, has led to exploitative practices in the construction industry, including child labour.

As global warming and climate change continue to endanger ecosystems and the way of life of the people from the affected communities of the Pacific Region, search for the solutions of how to deal with the sea level rise, coastal erosion and extreme weather events. Sea level rise in Oceania is already proving climate change scientists' worst prediction that the country might disappear under the sea in decades. Locals building seawalls, but the big waves continue damaging them, putting people's houses and gardens under the constant threat. Extreme weather events, such as unusually high temperatures and cyclones cause another big problem for the small island nations as emissions of global warming gases continue to rise.

On 25 April 2015 a powerful earthquake of 7.8 magnitude struck central Nepal, causing widespread destruction of property and infrastructure and killing approximately 8,000 people. Many buildings on the UNESCO World Heritage list were also damaged or destroyed. A second earthquake, considered an aftershock, struck on 13 May 2015, causing further loss of life and property. Gorkha District was in the epicentre the earthquake, where most of the villages were entirely destroyed and access to them was cut by landslides. The earthquake survivors built makeshift houses or stay in tents and heavily rely on international aid.

In modern Haiti more than 300,000 children are victims of domestic slavery. In Haitian Creole they are called “Restavek”, from French “rest avec” – “stay with”. Many parents, who live in poverty, are unable to feed their children and give them away to more affluent families, hoping that their child will live in better conditions and will be able to get an education. But, with few exceptions, restavek children become slaves, working in the homes of their owners from early morning till night. They fetch dozens of liters of water a day, cook, wash clothes, clean yards and do all other household chores. They are not allowed to sleep on the bed, eat at the table with the rest of the host-family or play with other children. Most of the restaveks are not permitted to go to school and constantly exposed to domestic and sexual violence. After the earthquake of 2010, the situation in Haiti deteriorated significantly, a lot of children lost their homes and parents. A big number of those kids became restaveks. To date, even poor families keep two or three restaveks, treating them sometimes tougher than rich people.

Sorcery-related-violence is widespread in Melanesia. In the Highlands Region of Papua New Guinea witch-hunts occur almost in every province. Locals believe in “puripuri” - the black magic, often accusing random women of causing the death of someone from the village. According to Amnesty International the traditional belief in sorcery was responsible for at least 50 murders in 2008 alone, and many more are thought to have gone unreported. Although men can also fall victim to these accusations, it is 6 times more likely for women. When those ‘sanguma’ women (witches) being tortured, locals cut their bodies with machetes and axes, burring them with hot iron bars, forcing to admit that they were involved in witchcraft. Many of these “punishments” result in the victim’s death. Even if the woman survives, she would be expelled from the community permanently. Despite this widespread violence, the PNG Government does not have a program to help victims of sorcery-related violence nor provides any shelter for those women. It is very rare such cases are brought to court and sometimes even police are involved in witch hunt, supporting the perpetrators, not women.

The Dani people populate the Baliem Valley in West Papua Province of Indonesia. They first came into contact with modern civilization in 1938 when the Baliem Valley was discovered by the American zoologist, Richard Archbold, during his expedition in New Guinea. At that time the Dani lived in the Stone Age and many had practiced cannibalism. When West Papua joined Indonesia in 1969, a policy of intensive settlement of the region by people from other parts of the country was carried out and attempts were made to force the locals to abandon their traditions and culture. In the years 1971-1972 the Indonesian authorities implemented the “Operation Koteka” to force locals stop using “kotekas” – penis sheaths. The operation was not successful: the Papuans neither had alternate clothes, nor soap and were unfamiliar with the care of such clothes so the unwashed clothing caused skin diseases. However, with the years of flooding the region with cheap Indonesian and Chinese goods, and the introduction of the prohibition to appear in traditional clothes in official places and educational centers, less and less people keep theirs customs and traditions. Only near Wamena, the Baliem Valley’s capital, there are “touristic” traditional villages, where almost all the population lives in the old Dani stile. These people stay in the Stone Age only to make money from foreigners, who pay them for taking pictures and buy handmade goods. The heads of such villages still use penis sheaths, but keep their savings in banks and maintain this lifestyle only to make money. In each of other nontouristic Dani villages there are only few people left who live by custom. However they listen radio, ride taxis and use mobile phones. Many of these “last Dani” are over 70 years old and admit that they are the only ones who observe old traditions. Most of them support OPM - “Free Papua Movement” and blame the Indonesians who, in their words, occupied the Baliem Valley, and made the Dani lose their customs over a very short period of time.

The cargo cult is a religious practice in Melanesia and it focuses on obtaining the “cargo” (material wealth) from the Western World through magic, religious rituals and practices. Cargo cult followers believe that their ancestors destined the cargo to them, but crafty Western people unfairly took possession of it. In the first part of 20th century, the followers of John Frum cargo cult of Tanna Island (Vanuatu) build big wooden aircrafts, landing strips and bamboo control towers, duplicating all “white men rituals”, in hope they would attract real airplanes with cargo to the island. Nowadays this tradition does not exist anymore, but the elders of Tanna still remember the good old times, when they were imitating the behavior of American soldiers that they had observed during the World War II. They believe in a mythological man called John Frum, who appeared in Tanna in 1937. He told the islanders to go back to their old traditions and start to live in “custom”. In exchange for this all locals would receive “cargo”. Every day in Lamakara village, followers of the cult raise an American fl ag, which symbolizes power and material wealth, still owned by Westerners (by the legend, John was from America and “Frum” might be a distortion of the word “from”). In anticipation of John, who according to the local myths should come back with “cargo” on 15th of February, on this day, every year, the people of Lamakara wear U.S. military uniforms that were given to them by U.S. soldiers decades before. Many of them paint the acronym “U.S.A.” on their chests and backs and march with bamboo “rifl es” in the U.S. Navy style. Adherent of another Tanna’s cargo cult – Prince Philip Movement – from Yaohnanen village, don’t go to Lamakara for celebrations of John Frum’s day. They believe that there is another “true messiah” – Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, who is worshiped as a divine person. Legend says that Prince once left the island and traveled to a faraway country, where he married a powerful woman. Soon he will return to Tanna, bringing to his “motherland” all power and wealth of the British crown. However, according to the words of some educated islanders, plenty of cargo is already arriving to Tanna. Every day the local airport receives several fl ights that bring tourists with money. Tanna people have learned how to make profi t from tourists which means that the “cargo” is working!

When it opened its doors in the 1950’s, the Grande Hotel was billed as the “Pride of Africa”. Set in the lush Mozambican port of Beira, it was the largest, most modern hotel on the continent, an Art Deco masterpiece filled with parquet, marble, and glass, surrounded by sweeping views of the Indian Ocean. Yet within a decade, it had shut its doors, unable to turn a profi t. Then, in the late 70’s, civil war broke out in Mozambique, and the hotel became a refugee camp for another decade and a half. But when the war ended, many people stayed on, unable to return home, and thousands of other landless, unemployed Mozambicans arrived. The Grande Hotel is now the biggest squat in the world, with about six thousand squatters living inside its crumbling walls. Makeshift charcoal cook stoves dot the once-elegant lobby, lily pads grow in the stagnant swimming pool, and lavish gardens have been replaced by thirsty plots of corn and yucca. Even the elevators have been plundered, the empty shafts are now giant trash bins, as well as a serious danger for residents; in recent years, a handful of people, including several children, have fallen to their death in the shafts. “Some people think we don’t want to leave,” says Arlindo Wafero, who has been living in the hotel-turned-squat for over thirty years. “We want to leave, but where can we go? We want to work, too, but there are no jobs in Mozambique. We want to go back to where we once lived, but to do that you need transportation, and money. Every day the prices of those things get higher, and we’re more stuck where we are. Here, there’s no such thing as free will.” In fact, the Mozambican state owns the Grande Hotel, but has done nothing to aid its residents. Instead, they’re left to scrape by as they can, often clinging to the rituals of everyday life to give shape and order to the chaos of being a squatter.

According to the statistics, in Papua New Guinea, two thirds of women are constantly exposed to domestic violence and about 50% of women become victims of sexual assaults. Local men don’t respect their meris (“meri” in Pidgin means “woman”), constantly beating them, often using bush knives and axes. While in traditional villages such attitudes toward women can be attributed to tribal culture, today in Port Moresby violence against women shocks modern society. Every day most of the dozens of crimes are reported to be against women from Port Moresby slum areas. In most Papua tribes, when a boy wants to become a man, he should go to enemy’s village and kill a pig. After that, his community will accept him as an adult. In industrial Port Moresby, women have replaced pigs. “First young gang member should steal something, money or a car – and he will be admitted to the gang. After that, he must prove that his intentions are serious and pass through some kind of “initiation” – rape a woman. And it is better if a boy kills her afterwards, there will be less problems with the police”, says 32 years old Moses, who had raped more than 30 women himself. It is very rare that violence-against-women cases are brought to court. Most assailants are kept in a prison cell at the police station for a couple of days and then released. The police claim the lack of conviction stems from the fact that victims often fear fi ling a statement.

Nowadays in Mozambique there are dozens of churches of Zion. According to the Church’s belief, the evil spirits (demons) can possess anyone and should be excelled from the people. The Zion exorcism practices are usually conducted by “prophets” – special members of the religious community, who are granted the authority over demons. The ceremonies take place in the churches during the “night of healing” or the Sunday liturgies, or in the open water. In the Mozambican capital, Maputo, on the 5 km long “Beach of Maziones”, those purifi cation ceremonies are held two times a week – every Thursday and Sunday. The exorcism rites are always accompanied by ritual singing and shouting conjures, and the people, who are possessed by “evil spirits”, most of the times, become unpredictably aggressive and dangerous. To protect other members from such violence, priests and “prophets” tie the feet and arms of the possessed people with “tichakachakas” – special ropes, which, according to the Zion belief, have God’s power to hold demons.