JP/18/18capt1

Photo caption A JP/Apriadi Gunawan

Several workers construct a section of road at an exclusive tourist resort project, part of which is in a protected forest (visible in the background). The tourist resort, located in Merek, Karo, North Sumatra, has sparked strong opposition from those who say it is destroying the environment.

Photo caption B AP/Samir Mizban

An Iraq boy walks past stagnant water in the Sadr City section of Baghdad, Iraq. Known for centuries as one of the most beautiful cities in the world, Baghdad's landscape has been marred by massive concrete blast walls, barbed wire, steel barricades, sandbags and crumbling buildings pockmarked by bullet holes or damaged by explosions.

Photo caption C lepas AP/Karel Prinsloo

An elephant and her calf cross a river in Samburu National Park, Kenya. Poachers are killing between 6,000 and 12,000 elephants a year to supply illegal ivory markets in Sudan, among the largest in the world, to meet growing Chinese demand, experts say. Most of the elephants are killed in southern Sudan, Congo and the Central African Republic, with some ivory coming from Kenya and Chad.

Photo caption D lepas AP/Apichart Weerawong

A boat is left on drying ground at Lam Takong reservoir, Nakhon Ratchasima province, northeastern Thailand. More than nine million people in 66 of Thailand's 76 provinces have been affected by a drought that has destroyed 2 million hectares of farmland and cost more than US$ 192 million in losses.