Thailand’s Full Moon Party is debauched, depraved, and increasingly deadly. If only it were fun.

Koh Phangan’s Full Moon Party long ago lost its original innocence, devolving into a mess of drunken foreigners cramming onto a once-beautiful beach to celebrate nothing more than the party itself. But in recent years, things have gotten much worse. There have been rapes, fatal accidents, suicides, and gang-related murders. 

It wasn’t always like this. [...] Later came Ecstasy and electro, Lonely Planet, and what friends back in England called gap-year “wow-yeahs”—Trustafarian types who couldn’t stop muttering about “the experience.”

 http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/roads/2014/06/thailand_s_full_moon_party_on_koh_phangan_is_debauched_depraved_and_increasingly.html

A former apartheid leader is seeking redemption—by washing the feet of those he wronged. But... (The New Republic)

A person like Adriaan Vlok poses a threat. Someone who would willingly debase himself and suggest Afrikaners still have something to apologize for is working at cross-purposes to much of the Afrikaner community’s goal at this moment in history: to resist more sweeping change. And thus, when the news of his foot-washing episode went public after Chikane talked about it in a sermon, Vlok became not an Afrikaner hero but an object of withering hate and contempt. One white op-ed writer called Vlok “ridiculous”; another, a “quivering dog.” An Afrikaner friend of mine pronounced him a “traitor.”

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/118135/adriaan-vlok-ex-apartheid-leader-washes-feet-and-seeks-redemption

-un ex-leader Afrikaner cerca la sua redenzione - lavando i piedi di coloro che un tempo aveva tentato di uccidere-

The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food (New York Times)

What I found, over four years of research and reporting, was a conscious effort — taking place in labs and marketing meetings and grocery-store aisles — to get people hooked on foods that are convenient and inexpensive. What follows is a series of small case studies of a handful of characters whose work then, and perspective now, sheds light on how the foods are created and sold to people who, while not powerless, are extremely vulnerable to the intensity of these companies’ industrial formulations and selling campaigns.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/the-extraordinary-science-of-junk-food.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

-la straordinaria scienza del cibo spazzatura-

In Lagos selling the african dream (Roads and Kingdoms)

Ten years ago motivational speaking barely existed here, but practitioners say demand is growing. Nigeria’s economy averaged seven percent annual growth in the last decade, but roughly 60 percent of the country’s people still live in poverty. In Lagos, a city of hustlers, there is a feeling that dreaming bigger and working harder will help bridge the gap between potential and performance, and motivational speaking is becoming big business.

http://roadsandkingdoms.com/2014/in-lagos-selling-the-african-dream/

-a Lagos, vendendo il sogno africano-

Why India's sanitation crisis kills women (BBC)

The two girls were going to the fields to defecate when they went missing on Tuesday night.

Nearly half-a-billion Indians - or 48% of the population - lack access to basic sanitation and defecate in the open.

The situation is worse in villages where, according to the WHO and Unicef, some 65% defecate in the open. And women appear to bear the brunt as they are mostly attacked and assaulted when they step out early in the morning or late in the evening.

Women in one slum said when they went out in the open to defecate, local boys stared at them, made threats, threw bricks and stabbed them. Others said they faced "lewd remarks, physical gestures and rape when they relieved themselves in the bushes"

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-27635363

-perché la crisi sanitaria indiana uccide le donne-