Some 300 girls and women in India still practise open defecation. Over half the country’s population, 800 million people, do not have access to a toilet that meets basic standards. (Photo by Poulomi Basu/WaterAid)

Kyaiktiyo, Burma, 1978. The Golden Rock at Shwe Pyi Daw (the Golden Country), the Buddhist holy place. Hiroji Kubota writes: “I was desperate to keep a distance from America for a while; luckily, I found Burma and its gentle and compassionate people. In the spring of 1978, on the top of the hill where I took this photo, I had two Leica bodies: the one with Tri-X and the other with Kodachrome 64. Soon after, I realised that the colour one looked very colourful and was more powerful. That was my decisive moment, to become a colour photographer”. (Photo by Hiroji Kubota/Magnum Photos)

William Gibson is not one of the authors that spits out novels like a machine – in his long and fruitful career he has only published 11 novels andof short stories and articles in the tens each. Still his impact on modern literature was huge – the “noir prophet” of the cyberpunk subgenre (that he was one of the pioneers of) has predicted the rise of reality television, virtual reality, video games and the internet. He is a Hugo and Nebula award winning science fiction writer, with a special eye for what the future might bring.

“Sektor gaza” (Russian: Сектор газа) was a Russian rock band formed on 5 December 1987 in the city of Voronezh, Russia. Despite only semi-officially existing (due to obscene lyrics), the group remains popular in Russia today. The group name was taken from an eponymous industrial district of Voronezh (itself named for high levels of environmental contamination). Their music style could be defined as Russian punk, integrated with elements of different musical genres such as rock, rap, and Russian folk. On 4 July 2000, group leader Yuri “Hoy” Klinskih complained of strong pains in his stomach and the left side of his chest. He suffered heart failure shortly thereafter. Klinskikh died in Voronezh (Russia)at the age of 35. He is buried in the Levoberezhniy Cemetery. The group ceased to exist.

About the music video: The First Chechen War, also known as the War in Chechnya, was a conflict between the Russian Federation and the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, fought from December 1994 to August 1996. After the initial campaign of 1994 – 1995, culminating in the devastating Battle of Grozny, Russian federal forces attempted to seize control of the mountainous area of Chechnya but were set back by Chechen guerrilla warfare and raids on the flatlands in spite of Russia's overwhelming manpower, weaponry, and air support...

A soldier eats ice cream as she visits a zoo in Pyongyang, North Korea, September 12, 2018. (Photo by Danish Siddiqui/Reuters)

Two young dancers take pictures while waiting for the start of the Koenji Awa-Odori dance festival, in the Koenji neighborhood of Tokyo. Saturday, August 24, 2019, Started in the 1950s, the Koenji Awa-Odori has grown to be one of Tokyo's largest and most popular summer festivals an estimated 10,000 dancers participating in the dance festival. Hundreds of thousands of spectators gather in the neighborhood to watch the two-day summer spectacle. The event is held on the last weekend of August each year. (Photo by Jae C. Hong/AP Photo)

Christian Balderosdasco, 31, is being pulled up a mud pit after diving for 3 hours to look for gold on March 22, 2017 in Paracale, Philippines. Apart from tunneling and sifting sand, locals dive down murky swamps with the aid of a compressor with air flowing in a small tube for breathing, as they blindly swim under the mud for up to four hours to look for tiny rocks containing gold particles. For decades, local residents at Paracale town work in hazardous conditions scavenging under the earth and diving into tunnels filled with mud using only makeshift tools to mine for gold, often placing their health and lives at risk. (Photo by Jes Aznar/Getty Images)

Pod of dolphins surf effortlessly through the waves in the wild traveling at speeds up to 20 mph. (Photo by Greg Huglin)