Seiichiro Nishimoto, CEO of Shelter Co., poses wearing a gas mask at a model room for the company's nuclear shelters in the basement of his house in Osaka, Japan on April 26, 2017. With nearby North Korea increasing its show of power day by day with missile launches and nuclear tests, people in Japan are preparing for the worst by building private nuclear shelters, Reuters reports. (Photo by Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters)

From Britain to China to Mali, new maps showing travel times to the nearest urban centre reveal huge differences between countries. Using Open Street Map and Google, a University of Oxford team have created a visual breakdown that suggests major inequalities when it comes to commuting. Here: China. The dataset used for China was unique as it relied solely on Open Street Map, due to restrictions on accessing Google data. The population is densely concentrated in the east and accessibility is increased, whereas rural provinces in the west remain remote. (Photo by Daniel Weiss/Jennifer Rozier/Malaria Atlas Project/University of Oxford)

Twenty-four-year-old Maryam Aghayee makes hyper-realistic baby dolls acting as surrogates for some Iranian families who are apprehensive of having more children. “It has been about three or four months since I started this work”, says Maryam in Tehran, Iran on October 7, 2020. “After making my second doll, many orders have been coming in. The second doll was much more realistic than the previous one. After making my second doll, I said that from now on I can take customer orders. I did not intend to start a business from the beginning because it was a hobby, but after the second doll, the demand for these kinds of dolls increased, customers want to have such dolls”. (Photo by Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters)

In this photo taken Friday, September 4, 2015, tourists Sarah and John Scott from Worcester, England, take a step back as a male silverback mountain gorilla from the family of mountain gorillas named Amahoro, which means “peace” in the Rwandan language, unexpectedly steps out from the bush to cross their path in the dense forest on the slopes of Mount Bisoke volcano in Volcanoes National Park, northern Rwanda. Deep in Rwanda's steep-sloped forest, increasing numbers of tourists are heading to see the mountain gorillas, a subspecies whose total population is an estimated 900 and who also live in neighboring Uganda and Congo, fueling an industry seen as key to the welfare of the critically endangered species as well as Rwanda's economy. (Photo by Ben Curtis/AP Photo)

Mount Cumbre Vieja erupts spewing a column of smoke and ash as seen from Los Llanos de Aridane on the Canary island of La Palma on September 19, 2021. The Cumbre Vieja volcano erupted on Spain's Canary Islands today spewing out lava, ash and a huge column of smoke after days of increased seismic activity, sparking evacuations of people living nearby, authorities said. Cumbre Vieja straddles a ridge in the south of La Palma island and has erupted twice in the 20th century, first in 1949 then again in 1971. (Photo by Desiree Martin/AFP Photo)

Members of the Michiana Rocketry prep a 10-foot, 450 pound porta-potty, mounted on rocket motors for launching, Saturday, December 6, 2014, from a field in Three Oaks, Mich. It made an arc and almost landed on a spectator’s pickup truck, 2,000 feet away. A group of Michiana Rocketry club members planned the project for more than two years. The club is trying to increase awareness of rocketry as a hobby and prove it’s possible to turn a porta-potty into a rocket and launch it successfully. About 30 people worked on the rocket, from engineers to sales people who lined up sponsors. (Photo by Don Campbell/AP Photo/The Herald-Palladium)

Chicken, fish and eggs lie next to coca paste worth $14,000 Colombian pesos at a local store in Guyabero Region, Guaviare, Colombia, May 24, 2016. As the government nears a historic peace deal with the rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the nation's authorities are struggling to tame an increase in farming of coca, the raw material used to make cocaine. In the Guyabero Region, where many people work on coca plantations, locals barter coca paste to buy groceries at the local shop. (Photo by John Vizcaino/Reuters)

Opposition supporters carry stones and chant slogans demanding lower taxes and a reduced cost of living in Nairobi, Kenya, on March 20, 2023. Kenya's opposition leader Raila Odinga called on his supporters to participate in countrywide protests on March 20, 2023 to demand that President William Ruto lowers the cost of living while questioning last year's presidential elections results. Kenyans face economic hardship following the government's recent tax measures and increased food and fuel prices. (Photo by Luis Tato/AFP Photo)