Story from Photographer:
“The metalworker mega-union IG Metall is fighting not only for a 6% raise, but the option to allow their members to select a 28 hour workweek for a period of up to two years. Job security for older workers is also on the table. Due to a breakdown in talks, IG Metall staged 24-hour warning strikes as part of their “yellow phase”, promising a harsher “red phase” to follow. I covered the warning strike at the international headquarters of MAN Truck and Bus in Munich, where some 3,000 workers (according to union estimates) demonstrated.
Since IG Metall represents some 3.9 million workers in Germany, the country’s economy would take a massive hit if the union calls for general strikes. Already Porsche and Bosch have been hit with actions, among other multi-nationals”.
2018 starts off with what may be the most colorful feature-rich Pictures Of the Month to date. And we couldn’t do it without the help of all of the photographers and editors at ZUMA Press.
The Mayon volcano, which rises 8,077 feet on the island of Luzon, is the Philippines most active volcano, according to USGS. The Philippines, which has about 22 active volcanoes, lies in the “Ring of Fire,” a line of seismic faults surrounding the Pacific Ocean where earthquakes and volcanic activity are common. The Philippines raised the alert level at its most active volcano, Mount Mayon, after fresh activity. Mayon has been spewing lava and a cloud of ash since 13 January, forcing more than 56,000 residents to flee their homes in the central province of Albay and finding shelter in 46 evacuation camps. Authorities raised the alert level to four on a scale of five because a hazardous and violent eruption is expected within days. An 5 mile exclusion zone has been put in place around the volcano. More than 30,000 ash masks and about 5,000 sacks of rice, along with medicine, water and other supplies, were being sent to evacuation centers. Food packs, water, medicine and other relief goods remain adequate but may run out by mid-February if the eruption continues and new supplies fail to come on time, officials said. During eruptions pyroclastic flows, which are fast moving rivers of lava and molten rock race down Mayon’s flanks from its summit, often devastating villages in its path. The most violent eruption, in 1814, left more than 1,200 people dead.
In Nicaragua and El Salvador, age-adjusted mortality rates from kidney disease are among the highest in the world. According to researchers, in these countries, the prevalence of kidney disease in affected communities is with age-specific rates among younger men up to 15 times higher than in the United States. At least 20,000 people are estimated to have died of chronic kidney disease (CKD) in Central America in the last 20 years alone, and many are sugar cane workers along the Pacific coast. Thousands of farmers have suffered from a disease that destroys their kidneys. Their eyes can become yellow, their bodies swollen and their muscles continuously cramping as their kidneys become irreversibly damaged leading to death. In the municipality of Chichigalpa, often called the ‘Isle of Widows,’ the disease is responsible for almost half of male deaths in the last decade. Many sick men facilitate their deaths by continuing to work in secret to help support their families. Sadly the town is fast becoming a land of widows. The epidemic of kidney disease among young Central American agricultural workers may be the result heat stress and volume depletion, according to new research published recently in the National Kidney Foundation’s American Journal of Kidney Diseases.
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