A protester thanking Demotix for the coverage.

People enjoy La Tomatina, a Battle of tomatoes in Buñol, a little town 60km from Valencia. Every year approximately 40,000 tomato enthusiasts make their way from all corners of the world to fight with tomatoes during this festival.

Devotees with faces covered in coloured powder seen being splashed with water during the Holi celebrations.

A terrified teenager pleads to a police officer to avoid being hit.

A woman seen taking part in the demonstration.

Young people having fun in the mud at the Przystanek Woodstock - Europe's largest open air festival in Kostrzyn, Poland

A band continues to play as water hits them during the protests.

A riot police officer seen amongst rising smoke from a teargas grenade.

Tensions rise as Gaddifi prisoners are rounded up.

Mohammed Othman holds his camera before being shot twice, allegedly by Israeli security forces.

Kuma Garadayat: Women and children run away with their belongings from a fire in Kuma Garadayat, a village located in North Darfur controlled by members of SLA-Free Will faction, a signatory of the Darfur Peace Agreement (DPA). UN Agency Images.

A displaced boat in the city of kesennuma.

Afghanistan: UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador, Angelina Jolie, meets with 35 year old Khanum Gul, a mother of 8 and her youngest son, Samir at their makeshift home at Tamil Mill Bus site in Kabul city.

A protester shouts at a Tunisian policeman over a barbed wire blockade.

Schoolgirls surround an abandoned police van to protect it from rioting students on a day when students marched through London in a national day of protest against tuition fees and education cuts.

Pakistan floods began in July 2010 following heavy monsoon rains in 4 regions of Pakistan, Flooding has caused around 2,000 deaths and left millions homeless. Karachi, Pakistan. 20/09/2010

A young boy raises his arms in front of a burning roadblock as demonstrators protest at the lack of electricity in Kirkuk. Iraq.

A pedestrian in a respirator walking in a smog from forest fires near the giant portrait of famous russian poet Sergey Yesenin in his birthplace - Konstantinovo village, Ryazan region, Russia. 10/08/2010

Miners wait for the sulphur smoke to clear, like tear gas, inhaling it can cause damage to your eyes and lungs, so they cannot work when its present. Kawah Ijen is a volcano in East Java, workers here extract sulphur day and night.

Smoke billows from a burning truck as red shirt protesters clash with Thai military forces in Din Deang district of Bangkok, Thailand.

Crew members from Marine Vessel Braxton Perry recover a deflection boom after three days of controlled burns in the Gulf of Mexico. ( Justin Stumberg)

Madam JoJo’s hosts the 5th Annual TrannyShack Pageant in London's Soho district. Competitors ranged from men who had undergone complete gender reassignment surgery to just males in dresses. London, UK. 10/02/2010. Even in the 21st century, living as a transvestite or transsexual is still considered a taboo. One participant, who wishes to remain anonymous, said: “I have been dressing in drag for nearly 52 years. None of my friends and family knows about this; they are quite narrow-minded...My aunt once saw me perform at a club 20 years ago and still to this day asks if it was me – I keep denying it.” The reason for many transvestites and transexuals to first dress and live like a woman – and many do so permanently - is that they feel they were born into the wrong body. They only feel complete, confidant and ‘normal’ when they are playing the full part of a woman.

US Marines on patrol while providing security in the southern town of Delaram, in the silent battle to secure the Afghan population. Delaram, Afghanistan. 19/02/2010.

A plantation area burns near a hydroelectric diesel company, due to the fire the electrical crisis in the region has been raised to severe. Tanjungpinang, Indonesia 07/02/2010. The fire was quickly burnt plantations, residents around the plantation panicked and ran out to save themselves from the flames and thick smoke. One of the residents' houses in the middle of the plantation sites has been saved. They quickly took out the furniture items in the house, and other residents who helped the team of firefighters to extinguish the fire with makeshift tools.

Haitian people walking in rubble and still looking for companions or friends disappeared.

Russians in Moscow immersing themselves in a large wooden vat filled with water as part of the celebrations being held for the Christian festival of the Epiphany. Moscow, Russia. 19/01/2010. Epiphany bathing in Moscow 19/01/10

A Young Haitian teenage barber practices with only a thin double edge razor blade and small plastic comb, having taught himself a trade. Saintard, Haiti. 05/12/2009. Young Haitian boy has taught himself to be a barber at an early age. Just before the earthquake I met a young barber in Saintard Haiti at the orphanage ran by Phillis Newby with the Church of God. The images show the skill and resourcefulness of the Haitian people.

Photographic essay about dismantling ships, the workers and the lives revolved around this final destination of the expired ships. This industry provides the major portion of the country’s steel needs and more than 3 million people are involved with the industry. Chittagong, Bangladesh. 31/10/2009. “I couldn’t able to join the work due to my fever from last three days. Besides, I have to pay 350 taka around 5 dollars weekly for my meal and have to buy medicine by myself. The owner of shipyard only pays when someone is seriously injured during work in ship breaking yard. How could I save some money to send my family lives away from here if I fell sick” says Noor Hossain a worker from Dinajpur working in a ship breaking yard at Sitakund,Chittagong. The ship breaking industry at Sitakund started its operation in 1960. Due to lower labour costs and less stringent environmental regulations Chittagong ship breaking yard booms in a very short time. Destroying thousands of tree in coastal area, constant harmful oily substance from ship, Dangerous vapors and fumes from burning materials makes this coastal belt a highly polluted area. In the yard worker’s wages depend on the number of hours works and skill level. They have no entitlement to overtime, sick or annual leave. A laborer usually works for 12-14 hours a day and their wages range from 100-250 taka (1.5 to 3.5 dollars). The working conditions are very dangerous. Health and safety regulations for the workers are very poor. Protective equipment is most times absent or inadequate. Huge casualties occurs causing loss of lives every year. Over the last twenty years, more than 500 workers have been killed and 600 seriously injured according to local news media. Scrap Ships provide more than 80% of the country’s steel needs. Besides this around three million people directly or indirectly involved and employed in the industry, among them 40 percent of the work force comprise of child labor. Despite this treacherous conditions, people from all over Bangladesh particularly poverty prong northern district come to this industry to manage their livelihood.

Ethnic Kazakhs in Western Mongolia hold the 10th annual Eagle Hunters Festival in Bayan Ulgii province. The event celebrates Kazakh culture with an emphasis on the centuries-old practice of hunting wolves and foxes with golden eagles. Ulgii, Mongolia. 03/10/2009. Each October, Kazakhs in Western Mongolia hold a festival to celebrate their unique cultural heritage, focusing on eagle hunting. This year was the festival's 10th anniversary and was the biggest yet, including 75 participating eagle hunters and attracting tourists from as far away as Brazil, Indonesia, and the U.S. Organizers of the annual event credited it with increasing local interest in eagle hunting, especially among the younger generation, and say that there are now over 200 eagle hunters in the region.

The largest migration in human history: rural workers going to the cities.

Around 20 million people are leaving the port city Chittagong by trains, to celebrate Eid with their loved ones in neighbouring states, cities and countries.

A guard looks over captured Somali men, who are possible pirates, on the beach in a graduation training exercise.

Every July, thousands of Haitians head to Saut d'Eau, a waterfall located 60 km north of Port au Prince, the most important pilgrimage voodoo religion of this Caribbean country. Haiti. 14/07/09.

Women take part in demonstrations against election results in Iran.

A calling itself the Imad Mughniyeh unit of the Brigades of the Liberators of the Galilee, drink tea, hold rifles and make statements on Palestine's relationship with Israel.

Alang is a census town in Bhavnagar district in Gujarat, It is the leading centre of the worldwide ship breaking and recycling industry.

Early 2008, our country Kenya was rocked by post election chaos due to disputed Presidential results. I was covering the South Rift Valley where ethnic clashes were going on. This one day, a police chopper was hovering over Laikipia West to assess the destruction of thousands of houses in the area where over 25 people were killed. But finally it had to land at Rumuruti town, 300km North of Nairobi. I was standing with the rest of the crowd which was pitching camp in the dusty field as they waited for government security personnel to tour the area. Many had not seen a helicopter land before and I captured one of the boys who was really excited about the landing jumbo.

Stung Meanchey Municipal waste dump is home to roughly 2000 people living in makeshift huts. They earn their living working as rubbish pickers on site. Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

You’d be forgiven for not immediately thinking of North Koreans as people enjoying unlimited leisure time. A vicious famine decimated up to a fifth of the population in the Nineties and they live in an dictatorship moulded around the figure of Kim Jung Il. Yet on a recent, state-managed and highly-restricted tour to the secretive Stalinist state, a Demotix photographer was exposed to repeated set-pieces of people enjoying their free time with a number of different activities: karaoke singing on the beach, impromptu serenades by the river in the capital city Pyongyang, and enjoying a night out at the May Day Stadium to view the world’s largest propaganda spectacle, the Arirang Games. As the global recession brings about the kind of conditions Marx had envisaged when agitating for his Communist Revolution, here are images proving that living in the world’s last Stalinist stronghold is more fun than it appears... -A train conductor stands in one of Pyongyang’s lavish metro stations, in front of a Communist mural depicting happy workers

Drug addicts smoke heroin on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Peshawar, Pakistan. 10/02/2009.

Images of 3 Palestinian babies who were killed after an Israeli attack on the house of the al Samouni family in the al Zeitoun area of eastern Gaza city. Almost 20 others of the same family were also killed when an F16 israeli warplane shelled their 4 floors house with 3 missiles , only about 5 other members survived. Also the image of a boy being carried into the al Shifa hospital on the same afternoon.

When Ayatollah Khomeini founded the first Islamic Republic of the modern era on April 1st 1979, few expected it to last beyond a few months. Ethnic insurrections, a full-scale invasion by Iraq and an unlikely ruling elite of clerics versed in medieval texts had Iranian political refugees who fled to Europe toasting amongst themselves to a return in time for the Persian New Year. The Islamic Republic of Iran, they thought, could not last for more than a few months. But against all odds, and in the face of an urban guerilla campaign whose assassinations and bombing spectaculars eliminated some of the Islamic Republic's most promising technocrats, the clerics hung onto power. After Khomeini's death in 1989, Presidents Rafsanjani and Khatami ushered in economic and social reform. A new generation of lay-politicians emerged personifie by current president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. 2009 is the Islamic Republic of Iran's thirtieth anniversary. With Tehran's influence surging throughout the Middle East, Iason Athanasiadis presents a photofeature of life inside Iran culled from three years of living there between 2004 and 2007. What is the legacy of the Iranian Revolution? How did it change Iranian society? And how will the current generation of Iranians – the first to have grown up in the post-Shah reality – shape their country?

Palestinian stone-throwers pull a burning tyre during a protest against Israel's offensive in Gaza at Qalandiya checkpoint near Ramallah

A Chechen refugee aims his gun at nowhere in particular, whilst others mount horses beneath a stormy sky.

An Iranian model presents a traditional gown during a fashion show organized by Iranian designers in Tehran, Iran. The fashion show featured traditional Iranian veils and conservative dresses with rich colors and striking styles.

Men climb over one another during the day as overcrowding in the prison system in Brazil gets larger, prompting riots.