On a visit to Brisbane I caught up with the 60th annual World Press Photo exhibition at the Powerhouse in New Farm. The exhibition profiles the world’s top press photographers who captured an event or issue of great journalistic importance in the last year with 80,000 images from 5000 photographers from 125 countries.
The World Press Photo of the Year award was given to Turkish photographer Burhan Ozbilici. Ozbilici’s picture captures Mevlüt Mert Altıntaş, a 22-year-old off-duty police officer, who assassinated Russian ambassador to Turkey, Andrey Karlov, at an art exhibition in Ankara in December 2016. Shouting out “Don’t forget Aleppo, don’t forget Syria”, Altıntaş wounded three other people before being killed by officers in a shootout. The image also won first prize in the Spot News Stories category.
If the Ozbilici shot was the best of the year this one wasn’t far behind. Jonathan Backman’s photo captures the almost Zen-like arrest of Iesha Evans, 27, at Baton Rouge. Her elegant flowing dress and stately demeanour is contrasted to the heavily armoured and almost fearful cops. Evans (who was later released without charge) was protesting against the fatal police shooting of Alton Sterling at a time when black males were nine times more likely than other Americans to be killed by police.
The war in eastern Ukraine has trundled on for three years mostly outside media view, yet intractably caught up in the rising geopolitical power of Vladimir Putin. This photo by Russian Rossiya Segodoya shows a local man surveying the damage to a building in the city of Luhansk, held by the rebel group Luhansk People’s Republic since 2014.
Iran has been run on theocratic lines since the Islamic revolution of 1979 though is gradually opening to the world via internet and satellite television. Photographer Hossein Fatemi wants to show the world some of the less well known features of Iranian society such as this memorial site near the border for victims of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
The tide of human immigrants has risen across the world thanks to the globe’s many deadly conflicts. Hundreds of thousands are taking difficult and dangerous journeys to come to western Europe which is still mostly peaceful and the standard of living high. However residents of those countries are becoming increasingly resentful of these waves of undocumented arrivals. This photo by Romania’s Vadim Ghirda shows refugees trying to cross a river from Greece to Macedonia after the latter country erected a fence to keep them out.
Libya is another country with a forgotten war. Since the fall of Gaddafi the country has been split into rule by rival groups with a second civil war which started in 2014 still unresolved. The vacuum is allowing Islamic State gain more influence across the country. The Government of National Accord is recognised by the UN but does not have control of the east. This photo by Italian Alessio Romenzi shows a GNA attempt to take the coastal city of Sirte, an IS stronghold on par with Raqqa (Syria) and formerly Mosul (Iraq).
But of all the world’s conflicts, Syria seems the most complex, brutal, intractable and devastating in our times. This photo by Syrian Abd Doumany shows a child in pain in a makeshift hospital in the town of Douma, held by rebels. Situated 10km north of Damascus, the town has been the centre of a siege and major fighting since the war started in 2011. Children, as always, are the first casualties.
The rise of terrorism across the world has led to a corresponding rise in authoritarian regimes. One of the worst is that of president Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines whose so-called anti-drug offensive is an excuse to commit legalised murder on a large scale, with over 7000 extra-judicial killings in the last six months of 2016, many just caught in crossfire. This photo by Australian Daniel Berahulak shows the mourning family of Jimboy Bolasa shot dead by unidentified gunmen.
The giant panda is coming back from the verge of extinction thanks to Chinese conservation efforts. Most pandas live in the bamboo-rich forests above the Sichuan Basin and China has stepped in to save the bamboo habitat. American photographer Ami Vitale captured this image of a keeper releasing a young panda into the wild. The keeper wears a panda suit in the hope of keeping the bear as free as possible from human contact. 
Identity politics appears on the rise everywhere. Identity is as old as politics but in an individualistic era, the idea that one’s identity is political is potent, especially for minority groups. Italian Giovanni Caprioti took this photo of members of gay friendly Toronto rugby union team Muddy York preparing for a drag performance fundraiser for the club.
Beyond identity lies the problem of our environment and the combined impact of seven billion people on the planet. Mumbai is one of the world’s fastest growing cities, fast approaching 20 million people. In the nearby Sanjay Gandhi national park is a colony of 35 leopards. The leopards are attracted to the garbage dumps of nearby slums where they prey on stray dogs. Human contact is also increasing with damage on both sides though the numbers are hopelessly lopsided against the leopard. Nayan Khanolkar took this photograph at the residential Aarey Milk Colony.
Woolly Days 