Azkaban, un posto come un altro dove vivere

Eh sì, erano veramente altri tempi, forse oggi li invidiamo un po’ visto lo spessore dei politici attuali…

The presidency of JFK, 50 years ago via The Big Picture

Semplicemente fantastico questo film del fotografo Joachim Ladefoged sul mondo del bodybuilding. Mai vista una cosa del genere, mai visto un punto di osservazione così diverso dai soliti stereotipi.

Link via VII The Magazine

Con un mese di anticipo i Koreani hanno pensato bene di festeggiare la fine dell’anno con qualche colpetto di artiglieria.

Reportage via The Big Picture

Sicuramente un gran movimento, in tutti i sensi.

Link via The Big Picture

In the recent U.S. elections it is evident that the sputtering U.S. and world economy played a major role in the outcome. It has been two years since the crash and there is little improvement for most citizens. The slow recovery of the US economy with 15 million people still out of work and the unemployment rate still at 9.6 percent is alarming. It is taking an emotional toll on people and the end seems no where in sight. In this story Ashley Gilbertson takes us on an emotive ride between Wall Street and the streets of New York City. Through his lens we see and feel the withering economic pulse.

Link via VII The Magazine

Haiti 10 mesi dopo? Nonostante il fiume di parole, emozioni e soldi le cose non sembrano poi migliorate di molto.

Ah sì, c’è il colera…

Link via The Big Picture

Rescuers scoured the slopes of Indonesia’s most volatile volcano for survivors Wednesday after it was rocked by an eruption which killed at least 30 people, including an old man who refused to abandon his ceremonial post as caretaker of the mountain’s spirits.

Authorities warned the thousands who fled Mount Merapi’s wrath not to return during Wednesday’s lull in volcanic activity, but some villagers were desperate to check on crops and possessions left behind. In several areas, everything – from the thinnest tree branch to couches and chairs inside homes – was caked with ash that looked like powdery snow.

The latest blast Tuesday night eased pressure that had been building up behind a lava dome perched on the crater. But experts warned the dome could still collapse, causing an avalanche of the blistering gas and debris trapped beneath it.

“It’s a little calmer today,” said Surono, the chief of Center for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation. “No hot clouds, no rumbling. But a lot of energy is pent up back there. There’s no telling what’s next.”

Mount Merapi, which translates as “Fire Mountain,” has erupted many times over the last 200 years, often with deadly results. In 1994, 60 people were killed, while in 1930, more than a dozen villages were incinerated, leaving up to 1,300 dead.

Link via PLOG

A cholera outbreak that has killed more than 250 people in rural Haiti is stabilizing, health officials said Monday, as aid groups and the government race to prevent it from spreading to the capital’s squalid camps of earthquake survivors.
The outbreak was expected to continue spreading, but aid groups and the government said a drop in the death rate and the number of new cases suggested it could progress more gradually than feared.
“The situation is beginning to stabilize. Since yesterday we have registered only six new deaths,” Health Ministry Director Gabriel Timothee said at a news conference.
Officials said no cases have originated in the capital, Port-au-Prince, where authorities fear abysmal hygiene, poor sanitation and widespread poverty could rapidly spread the disease through the sprawling tent slums erected after the Jan. 12 earthquake. (AP)

Link, via PLOG

Intervista ad Ed Kashi sul suo lavoro ormai pluriennale sulla situazione ormai divenuta esplosiva nel delta del Niger.

Link

On Monday, October 4th, a large reservoir filled with toxic red sludge in western Hungary ruptured, releasing approximately 700,000 cubic meters (185 million gallons) of stinking caustic mud, which killed many animals, at least four people, and injured over 120 – many with chemical burns. The 12-foot-high flood of sludge inundated several towns, sweeping cars off the road as it flowed into the nearby Marcal River. Emergency workers rushed to pour 1,000 tons of plaster into the Marcal River in an attempt to bind the sludge and keep it from flowing on to the Danube some 45 miles away. The red sludge in the reservoir is a byproduct of refining bauxite into alumina, which took place at an alumina plant run by the Hungarian Alumina Production and Trading Company. A criminal probe has just been opened by Hungarian authorities.

Link al reportage, via The Big Bicture

Link al reportage, via PLOG