Laos, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia, bordered by Burma and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south, and Thailand to the west. Its population was estimated to be around 6.5 million in 2012. A third (33%) of the country's population lives below the international poverty line which means living on less than U.S. $1.25 per day.

Dried and shrivelled corpses, some fully clothed and some in coffins, line the wall of a vault of the Pantheon Cemetery on the summit of Cerro del Trozado in Mexico. They were removed from the crypts because of non-payment of cemetery fees. The hot dry air stopped the bodies from rotting. Most of them were placed here between the turn of the century and WW I. (Photo by Three Lions/Getty Images). Circa 1955

The Dubai Miracle Garden is unique in that it was essentially built on a desert. Head landscaper Akar says that the grounds are a great example of how it is possible to “green the desert” by reusing waste water. Designers took additional precautions to protect the beautiful garden arrangements from the environment. For instance, the garden’s perimeter is lined with trees that are used as windbreakers. Unlike most of the gardens around the world, the Dubai Miracle Garden closes during the summer due to severe weather conditions.

Ana Paula Santos sunbathes in a bikini top fashioned from electrical tape at the Sabrina Bronze rooftop salon which offers crisp tan lines in the Turano favela of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, January 27, 2022. Santos said she uses the rooftop partially because she prefers its privacy compared to the public beach. (Photo by Silvia Izquierdo/AP Photo)

“The Reward”. “A spot that a friend and I found that takes a bit of effort to get to. Needs the right swell and wind direction to come together for the backwash to really happen. We had been many times with OK results, but this morning everything lined up perfectly and I was rewarded with this split-second moment in time under some amazing morning light”. (Photo by Scott Harrison/2019 UK Surf Photo of the Year)

In this March 30, 2020, photo, Zandile Mlotshwa, 21, cashier at Spar supermarket in the Norwood suburb of Johannesburg, counts her cash at the end of her shift. From South Africa to Italy to the U.S., grocery workers – many in low-wage jobs – are manning the front lines amid worldwide lockdowns, their work deemed essential to keep food and critical goods flowing. (Photo by Jerome Delay/AP Photo)

First year cadets of the Vladivostok branch of Russian Internal Affairs Ministry's Far Eastern Law Institute march in formation during a ceremony to take oath of allegiance at a monument to Internal Affairs Ministry officers who lost their lives in line of duty in Vladivostok, Russia on September 24, 2021. 27 cadets took oath of allegiance during the ceremony. (Photo by Yuri Smityuk/TASS)

Antonina, 9, looks through a shrapnel-broken window after an online lesson on the first school day at her home in the village of Pokrovske, on September 1, 2022, amid Russian invasion of Ukraine. In Pokrovske, a tiny village of 24 people in the Mykolayev region of southern Ukraine, nine-year-old Antonina Sidorenko started school to the steady sound of cannons in this town near the front line. (Photo by Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP Photo)