Mara Budgen

Head International Editor

All articles - 12
The photos of the last surviving Chinese women with bound feet

The photos of the last surviving Chinese women with bound feet

Jo Farrell, award-winning photographer and cultural anthropologist, has been documenting the last surviving Chinese women with bound feet since 2007. Her project, Living History, was borne out of the desire to record the dying tradition and has culminated in the publication of a book featuring photographs of and interviews with women with “lotus feet”. Women

Top 12 weird animal sexual habits

Top 12 weird animal sexual habits

Brace yourselves because you’re in for a bumpy ride. From free love to rape, from females with penises to pregnant males, here are 12 animals whose mating habits defy all preconceptions you may have had about animal reproduction. We stand in awe at the bizarre and ingenious ways nature has dealt with the central question

The Bajau Laut, the last nomads of the sea

The Bajau Laut, the last nomads of the sea

The Bajau Laut are an indigenous group that lives in and around the seas of the Coral Triangle, an area between Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines that is considered the epicentre of global marine biodiversity. Traditionally, the Bajau Laut live as “sea nomads”, on boats called lepa lepa, coming to land only to bury the

First gay marriage of EU prime minister takes place in Luxembourg

First gay marriage of EU prime minister takes place in Luxembourg

Xavier Bettel, the Prime Minister of Luxembourg, has become the first acting European Union government leader to marry someone of the same sex. On the 15th of May he wedded the architect Gauthier Destenay in Luxembourg City, the country’s capital. Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel also attended the ceremony.   “Luxembourg can set an example”,

State-sanctioned sexual violence used as a weapon in Egypt

State-sanctioned sexual violence used as a weapon in Egypt

Sexual violence is used by Egyptian security forces to repress opposition, alleges a report by the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH). Whilst such tactics are not new to the country, arbitrary arrests and detentions have multiplied since the current military regime came to power in 2013, especially to suppress the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, the

The thrill is gone. Who was B.B. King

The thrill is gone. Who was B.B. King

He called it Lucille. Just like that girl who caused a fight in a bar in Twist, Arkansas, in 1949, where the then 24 year-old Riley B. King was playing. Amongst the chaos between her two contenders, a barrel of petrol caught fire: King saved his cherished six chord Gibson, challenging the flames. From that

Vertical Farms, the greenhouses teaching healthy eating

Vertical Farms, the greenhouses teaching healthy eating

By 2050 more the 80% of the world’s population will live in ever-expanding cities. To feed 9 billion people without consuming excessive expanses of soil, Professor Dickson Despommier of Columbia University in the City of New York devised the concept of vertical farming.     Vertical farms are buildings which, instead of being used as

Women, guardians of biodiversity in Nepal. The photos in a WWF feature

Women, guardians of biodiversity in Nepal. The photos in a WWF feature

In the Nepalese part of the Terai Arc, a narrow subtropical corridor connecting India and Nepal, women head a project of forest conservation and social development. Since 2001, they have been safeguarding biodiversity in an area of incalculable natural value, guaranteeing the “ecological, economic and socio-cultural integrity of the region”. The Terai Arc Landscape (TAL)