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Budapest Protest Photos Robert McPherson/Metaphor Images January 23, 2012

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Robert McPherson/Metaphor Images is in Budapest for Norway’s Aftenposten covering a story on pro government demonstrations. Tens of thousands of Hungarians joined a protest to support Prime Minister Viktor Orban as the European Union pressed the country’s government to change laws that have blocked talks on an international bailout.

Robert McPherson Photo: Demonstators in Budapest
Robert McPherson Photo: Demonstrators in Budapest

Demonstrators marched through the center of Budapest to parliament yesterday in an event organized by a group including Zsolt Bayer, a journalist with Magyar Hirlap newspaper and a founding member of Orban’s Fidesz party. The Interior Ministry said almost 400,000 people attended, while news website Index estimated the turnout at more than 100,000.

“We say yes to Europe but no to what Europe is doing to Hungary and the Hungarian government,” Bayer said in a video message posted on the Internet before the rally. Organizers marching at the front of the crowd carried a banner saying “We won’t become a colony,” a slogan Bayer repeated outside Hungary’s neo-gothic parliament.

Orban is trying to revive bailout negotiations with the bloc and the International Monetary Fund after discussions broke down in December over his refusal to change laws that both institutions said may weaken monetary-policy independence. Orban offered to change disputed legislation after the EU threatened a lawsuit against Hungary for encroaching on the central bank’s independence and political meddling with the judiciary and the data-protection authority.

The demonstration was the largest mass event of its kind since the collapse of communism more than 20 years ago, news website Nol.hu said.

News: Bloomberg Budapest

Robert McPherson Photo Demonstrators in Budapest
Robert McPherson Photo Demonstrators in Budapest

Robert McPherson’s KIBERA story published in foto evidence January 11, 2012

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Kibera Photo Robert McPherson
Kibera Photo Robert McPherson/Metaphor Images

http://www.fotoevidence.com/injust/275

EVERYDAY LIFE IN THE SLUM

Submitted by Robert McPherson

Text and photos by Robert J. McPherson


The world’s slums are growing exponentially. As cities grow and people move for economic reasons and a better life and urbanization outstrips governmental attempts to control population movement so the slums on the peripherals of the world’s largest cities expand.

Kibera in Nairobi (Kenya) can’t be found on a map, yet about one out of every five Nairobians call this area home. Kibera is home to 60 percent of Nairobi’s population but does not receive public services, including public waste collection. In some parts, shelter has literally been built on trash and children play on the waste. The waste includes excrement which fills the muddy streets and contaminates the water, and is a serious hazard.

Today over 1 billion people live in slums around the world. In Kibera approximately 800 000 people are squeezed into less than a square mile, and make it one of the biggest slums in the world. United Nations defines slums as poor, overcrowded communities lacking adequate access to safe water and sanitation, public services, basic infrastructure, and quality housing. Significantly, over 90 percent of people living in slums today come from developing countries.