Small transportation boats, known as bumboats, leave trails of light as they travel across Marina Bay past the skyline of Singapore in this photo taken in 2004. Singapore holds a Jubilee weekend from 7 to 10 August to celebrate the 50th anniversary of its independence. Fifty years ago, hundreds of small boats lined the Singapore river in the city centre. Today, most small boats are gone, except a handful of neon-lit tourist ferries. Maritime trade is still the backbone of the city-state but after decades of rapid growth Singapore, which at less than half the size of London is among the world’s most densely populated nations, is also a popular tourist destination and a thriving global financial hub. (Photo by Edgar Su/Reuters)

In this May 4, 2014 photo, a miner holds an amalgam of mercury and gold he mined after working a 28-hour shift at an illegal gold mining process, in La Pampa, in Peru's Madre de Dios region. Thousands of artisanal gold miners sweat through the long shifts and endure, for a few grams of gold, the perils of collapsing earth, limb-crushing machinery and the toxic mercury used to bind gold flecks. (Photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo)

A South African police officer speaks to residents of the densely populated Alexandra township east of Johannesburg Friday, March 27, 2020. (Photo by Jerome Delay/AP Photo)

Some are in it just for the money, others to help buy a meal. Then there are those who trade for fun or to spend time among friends. Millions of investors – pensioners, security guards, high-school students – dominate China's stock markets, conducting about 80 percent of all trades. Retirees gather in brokerage houses dotted around China also to enjoy some company and savour the air conditioning on hot days. Some start as young as 13, trading from home with an eye on future careers in finance. Winning isn't guaranteed. This year, among the most turbulent in China's financial history, its stock markets more than doubled in the six months to May, only to crash amid concerns that growth in the country, which makes everything from cars to steel, is slowing faster than previously thought. (Photo by Aly Song/Reuters)

Men push a car stucking in the mud on a motorway in Nimba County, Liberia, 28 July 2019. Most highway roads in the rural parts of the country are unpaved. The government of President George Weah has promised to build roads to connect all big cites of Liberia. (Photo by Ahmed Jallanzo/EPA/EFE)

Chinese relative of a missing passenger on Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 reacts as she weeps outside the main gate of the Lama Temple on March 8, 2015 in Beijing, China. Foreign and local media were prevented by Chinese police from covering the relatives visit to the temple where they tried to pray .There were 239 people on board the flight when it disappeared March 8, 2014 en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. After one year and an exhaustive search, investigators still have no clue as to the whereabouts of the missing airliner. (Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

A young evacuee of Japanese ancestry waits with the family baggage before leaving by bus for an assembly center in California, in this April 1942 handout photo. February 19, 2017 marks the 75th anniversary of FDR signing executive order 9066, authorizing the internment of Japanese Americans during World War Two. (Photo by Courtesy Clem Albers/Department of the Interior/War Relocation Authority/National Archives/Reuters)