“Dubai is sometimes called the “City of Gold” because of its stunning growth from a sleepy Gulf port to a world-famous business crossroads in the space of a single generation. Its nickname has a literal meaning for traders in the precious metal. The city is building itself up as a center for the gold trade, between sources in Africa and consumers in the rising economies of China and India”. – Kamran Jebreili via Associated Press

Photo: A gold press operator collects 10 gram gold blanks to press them with the logo of the Emirates Gold company in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Gold prices remained relatively steady in 2012, close to $1,700 an ounce. (Photo by Kamran Jebreili/AP Photo)

A worker at the Jabal Saraj cement factory poses for a photograph in Jabal Saraj, north of Kabul, Afghanistan April 19, 2016. In an area desperately short of industry and jobs, local workers hope that the relaunch of the plant in Jabal Saraj, built by Czech engineers in 1957 and closed down by the Taliban in 1995, can show that Afghanistan's shattered industry can climb back to its feet after decades of war and destruction. But the outdated state-owned plant some 75 kilometres outside Kabul also shows how far it has to go before that promise can be achieved and there are serious questions over whether it has a viable future unless a new, modern facility is built to replace it. (Photo by Ahmad Masood/Reuters)

Mickey McCooper, born 1972 as Michel Valentino in Stuttgart-Germany, is a photo-artist, filmmaker, painter, and media-entrepreneur. He is well known for the broad range of subject matter he is able to interpret, he is widely recognized for his unusual people portraiture, his editorial photography, his photo illustrations, photographic design and his extraordinary repertoire of art photography, painings and drawings.

Photo: Space Invaders, 2011. (Photo by Mickey McCooper)

Passengers from a passing train watch as rescue workers search a train which crashed in Karachi, Pakistan, November 3, 2016. At least 17 people have been killed and dozens more injured after two trains carrying hundreds of passengers collided in Pakistan's southern port city of Karachi, officials said. (Photo by Akhtar Soomro/Reuters)

Ko Min, 26, manually extracts oil from one of three 300 feet deep wells he works on in the Minhla township of the Magwe district October 27, 2013. Everyday, Ko Min makes around $30 extracting crude oil from three small wells after he bought rights to use them for close to $1000 from a farmer who owns the land. In Myanmar, an impoverished country rich with natural resources, people from poor communities find ways to supplement their income by exploiting such resources, such as the Minhla township, traditionally rich with oil, often using primitive and dangerous methods. (Photo by Damir Sagolj/Reuters)

Anything not recycled in industry is sold on stalls along the neighbouring highway in Sitakunda Beach, Bangladesh, February 2012. A look inside Bangladesh’s ship breaking yards reveal the brutal conditions workers are subjected to everyday. (Photo by Jan Møller Hansen/Barcroft Images)

A woman scales fish by the side of a lake as she prepares for the upcoming Chinese Lunar New Year in Suqian, Jiangsu province, China, January 27, 2016. (Photo by Reuters/China Daily)

A woman browses through kimonos for sale at Boroichi flea market in Tokyo December 15, 2014. In the 16th century, Boroichi was a place for farmers to buy and sell rags, known as boro, for mending clothes and weaving sandals. Now in its 436th year, the original spirit lingers, with about 700 stands hawking fabric, used clothes and piles of rags. Others sell kitchen tools, pottery, seaweed and spices. About 200,000 people flock to the market, which is only open for four mid-winter days a year – two in December and two in January. (Photo by Thomas Peter/Reuters)