With a presence in nearly every city and town across Iran, the paramilitary Basij volunteer corps has an ever-increasing influence on life in the Islamic Republic. Authorities created the Basij, which means mobilization in Persian, just after the country's 1979 Islamic Republic. It is part of Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard. Photo: In this Thursday, August 22, 2013 photo, a female member of the Basij paramilitary militia aims a rifle as a trainer looks over her shoulder in Tehran, Iran. (Photo by Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo)

The Belgian photographer Anton Kusters spent two years photographing the Yakuza, Japan’s most notorious gang. He returned with some amazing images that he made into a book called “Odo Yakuza Tokyo”. (Odo means “the way of the cherry blossom” and is the credo of the Yakuza family he followed. Photo: An erotic danser picks up fake 2-dollar bills during a private dance with a Yakuza customer in a strip tease bar in Kabukicho, a bar which is controlled by the ODO family – 2010. (Photo and caption by Anton Kusters)

Movement is the essence and meaning of our life. We feel so much more alive when we are in motion, while people who spend hours motionless tend to have trouble connecting with the outside world. Whether you dive from a high cliff, play your favorite sport, dance at a rave party, or simply walk down a path with autumn leaves rustling under your feet with the love of your life by your side, all those things make your life richer, more beautiful, and more fulfilling. This set of pictures beautifully captures the joy of never-ending motion that enriches our life. (Photo by Brian Snyder/Reuters)

Aymara dolls are seen during the “Alasitas” fair, where people buy miniature versions of goods they hope to acquire in real life, in La Paz, Bolivia, January 24, 2017. Shoppers fill their baskets with miniature versions of things they desire – everything from cars, houses computers – to give to Ekeko the God of abundance, in the hope he will being therm good fortune. (Photo by David Mercado/Reuters)

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry stands inside the historic Shackleton hut near McMurdo Station, Antarctica, Friday, November 11, 2016. Kerry became the highest-ranking American official to visit Antarctica when he landed for a two-day trip on Friday. He's been hearing from scientists about the impact of climate change on the frozen continent. Kerry's aides described the trip as a learning opportunity for the secretary of state. He has been receiving briefings from scientists working to understand the effects of climate change on Antarctica. Kerry has made climate change an intensive focus of American diplomacy during his term, and had previously spent decades working on the issue as a U.S. senator. Trump has called climate change a hoax and said he would “cancel” U.S. involvement in the landmark Paris Agreement on global warming. (Photo by Mark Ralston/Pool Photo via AP Photo)

Daniel J. Wabsey, a 58-year-old war veteran, sits outside his tent at Camp Hope in Las Cruces, New Mexico October 6, 2015. “I've been traveling for 35 or 38 years. Getting inside would take a while to get used to. I just want to be able to eat, sleep and be safe. We all get along and understand in Camp Hope. We've all been there. With common sense you can survive out here”, Wabsey said. Camp Hope describe themselves as an “alternative transitional living project for the homeless”. Around 50 people live at the camp. (Photo by Shannon Stapleton/Reuters)

“The knight and his steed”. This picture was taken in a natural but controlled environment. There are pictures that can not be done in nature or that would imply a very high cost of both time and money, thats why photography workshops are run conducted at strategic locations and bringing EVERYONE who is interested, the basic notions (lighting, camera handling, composition, etc...) or the specimens, and afford them the opportunity to take pictures like this. Although controlled, this shot was not prepared at all, I was performing a workshop with the agalychnis callidryas treefrog from Costa Rica when the frog managed to jump to the branch where this huge titan was sleeping... I had my gear ready so I only had to change a few settings and shoot... the rest is history. (Photo and caption by Nicolas Reusens Boden (Sweden)/2014 Sony World Photography Awards)

People take part in a military exercise for civilians conducted by veterans of the Ukrainian National Guard Azov battalion, amid threat of Russian invasion, in Kyiv, Ukraine on January 30, 2022. According to a survey conducted by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) from December 2021, 50.2 percent of Ukrainians said they would resist in case of a Russian military intervention into their city, town or village. Every third respondent to the poll said they were ready to engage in armed resistance, and 21.7 percent said they were ready to participate in civil resistance actions. (Photo by Gleb Garanich/Reuters)