• South Sudan catches gold fever

    Adriane Ohanesian / Reuters

    A Toposa boy walks along the Singaita River where gold has been found in Namorinyang, South Sudan.

    Adriane Ohanesian / Reuters

    A Toposa woman looks for gold in the Singaita River in Namorinyang, South Sudan.

    Adriane Ohanesian / Reuters

    A man digs a hole in search of gold in Napotpot, South Sudan.

    Adriane Ohanesian / Reuters

    A Toposa boy takes a rest after digging for gold in Napotpot, South Sudan.

    Adriane Ohanesian / Reuters

    A trader weighs his gold in a shop in Kapoeta, South Sudan.

    Adriane Ohanesian / Reuters

    A Toposa girl pans for gold in the Singaita River in Namorinyang, South Sudan.

    Adriane Ohanesian / Reuters

    Jackson Locheto from Kenya uses a gold detector in Nanakanak, South Sudan.

    In South Sudan ordinary people have been extracting gold from artisanal mines and taking part in as-yet unregulated trade in the precious metal.

    Reuters reports, dozens of Toposa tribesmen and women, festooned with plastic necklaces, brass piercings and beaded amulets, hack away at the red soil with metal poles and shovels, digging small craters in a boozy revelry.

    "Everything is luck," said Leer Likuam on the edge of a shallow trench through a translator. On an average day he might dig up six grams, worth around 1,200 South Sudanese pounds ($270), he said. "Some days you're lucky."

    Once he found a 200-gram gold nugget bigger than his thumb, boasts Likuam.

    On the international market, Likuam's prize lump would fetch $11,000, an enormous sum in a country where the average teacher earns just 360 South Sudanese pounds, about $90, per month.

    But now the government hopes to pass mining legislation that will formalize the industry, let them tax precious metal and mineral exports and sell concessions to large-scale investors. Read the complete article.

    All images were captured by Reuters photographer Adriane Ohanesian in September and October 2012, but made available to NBC News today.

    Adriane Ohanesian / Reuters

    A shirt hangs in the window of a Sarko alcohol shop in Kapoeta, South Sudan.

    Adriane Ohanesian / Reuters

    A bowl holding small flakes of gold sits in the middle of Singaita River in Namorinyang, South Sudan.

    Adriane Ohanesian / Reuters

    A view of the Singaita River which flows down from the Lauro mountains and through Kapoeta, South Sudan.

  • 1.6 million Egyptian children work, activists worry number will grow

    Khalil Hamra / AP

    An Egyptian child stands in front of a tire repair shop where he works in Cairo, Egypt. Photo taken on Oct. 2.

    Khalil Hamra / AP

    An Egyptian girl fills water containers at a pottery workshop in old Cairo. Photo taken on Oct. 18.

    The Egyptian government estimates that 1.6 million minors work - almost 10 percent of the population aged 17 or under. Other experts put the number at nearly twice that.

    Some child labor activists worry that protections for children could be loosened further under the new constitution still being written. Earlier this month, the Egyptian Coalition for Children's Rights warned that early drafts of the document did not include as firm prohibitions on child labor as past constitutions.

    Khalil Hamra / AP

    An Egyptian child helps his father to load a donkey cart with hay in a farm at the outskirts of Qalyobiya, 27 miles north of Cairo, Egypt. Photo captured on Oct. 17.

    Khalil Hamra / AP

    An Egyptian child loads a cart with cement bricks in a brick factory at the outskirts of Qalyobiya, 27 miles north of Cairo.

    Khalil Hamra / AP

    An Egyptian child carries a clay roof tile in a pottery workshop in old Cairo. Photo captured on Oct. 18.

    Khalil Hamra / AP

    An Egyptian child takes a tea break during his work at a mechanics workshop in Cairo, Egypt. Photo captured Oct. 4.

  • Garment factory fire victims mourned in Karachi

    Asif Hassan / AFP - Getty Images

    A Pakistani man mourns as he waits in the EDHI Morgue to identify his relative who was killed in a garment factory fire in Karachi.

    Athar Hussain / Reuters

    Relatives and residents carry the coffin of a woman, who was killed in a fire at a garment factory, for burial during her funeral in Karachi on Sept. 13.

    Fareed Khan / AP

    People comfort a woman who lost a family member in a garment factory fire, during a funeral in Karachi, Pakistan on Sept. 13.

    Shakil / AP

    Maryam Aslam weeps while enquiring about her missing brother who worked in a garment factory, in Karachi. Pakistani officials say the death toll from devastating factory fires that broke out in two major cities has killed hundreds.

    Two separate blazes in Pakistan broke out Tuesday night, one at a garment factory in the southern port city of Karachi and another at a shoe manufacturer in the eastern city of Lahore. 

    Pakistan registered murder charges against factory bosses and government officials over the deaths of the more than 289 people in the country's worst industrial disaster, police said.

    EPA

    People survey the undamaged area of a garment factory which was hit by a fire in Karachi on Sept. 13. The devastating fire on Sept. 11 in Pakistan's commercial hub of Karachi killed at least 280 people, as the deadly blaze raised fresh concerns about workplace safety.

    Asif Hassan / AFP - Getty Images

    The hand of dead Pakistani garment factory worker is seen at a hospital following a fire in a garment factory in which at least 280 people died in Karachi. More than 310 people have perished in fires that gutted factories in Pakistan's two largest cities, in tragedies that prompted calls for an overhaul of poor industrial safety standards, officials said.

    Asif Hassan / AFP - Getty Images

    A Pakistani man weeps for his relative who was killed in a garment factory fire in Karachi on September 13, 2012.

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