Young women in Africa are up to 14 times more likely to contract HIV than boys of the same age. But, in Uganda, a complex economy built on transactional sex is hindering efforts to keep the virus at bay By Paul Nuki. Photographs by Jason Florio Bright and proper in…

More than 800 children in Pakistan face a potential death sentence after being infected with HIV. Now families are demanding answers By Ben Farmer. Pictures by Saiyna Bashir One-by-one Irshad Khatoon points out the children in her family who have tested positive. In the cramped brick compound she shares with…

Eight years on from the tsunami and nuclear meltdown, much of Japan’s Fukushima province remains derelict and deserted. But are the radiation fears stopping people returning misplaced? — By Rob Gilhooly. Pictures by Simon Townsley There was a chilling silence in the town of Tomioka in the days after the March 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster. Shoes were left in porches, half-read newspapers lay abandoned next to cups of tea, long gone cold. As night closed in on the…

Up to one in 370 Indians suffers from XP, a genetic condition which causes skin to burn and take on a blistering, scaly appearance. But corneal transplants are bringing hope to those living in the shadows — By Joe Wallen. Photographs by Simon Townsley A s the sun sets on the poor Muslim neighbourhood of Jeedimetla in the city of Hyderabad, life begins anew. The faithful wander out to answer the call to prayer and so too do those cursed with Xeroderma pigmentosum (XP), a rare genetic…

During the 1980s AIDS crisis, misinformation and hysteria were rife. But Lord Fowler realised the only way to combat the disease was through prevention – even if that meant going against the advice of Number 10 By Anne Gulland In the mid 1980s there was a mystery illness laying waste…

Colombia’s great Amazon rainforest — a ‘vital lung’ of the planet — is being cleared for grazing cattle by an area bigger than Los Angeles every year — By Joe Shute. Photographs by David Rose Calamar is the town that cocaine built. Until recently ruled by armed guerrillas in the heart of bandit country, this frontier outpost of 5,000 or so inhabitants is situated quite literally at the end of the road in Colombia’s remote Guaviare province, where…

Nearly one billion of the world’s population go hungry, while two billion eat too much, using up the planet’s precious resources — By Josh Wilson Fixing the world’s “faulty food system” is increasingly being recognised as one of the key ways to fight climate change as well as tackle high rates of both malnutrition and obesity. Each year 821 million people suffer from hunger — a figure that is rising despite an…