parallelozero reportage monthly
#02.2013
Editorial Brazil
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At the end of the river
Kenya
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Mexico
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World
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Italy
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Tibet
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Moldova
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Multimedia
101
Contacts
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Young Africans growing up
Bien fuerte
Ships and the sea
The island of memory
Living under China’s rule
White orphans
Motel America
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EDITORIAL Before we saw the story introduced by this issue’s cover photograph, we could have hardly believed that, of all places, Nairobi is ranking among the first cities in the world where child obesity is a widespread problem. Kenyan stereotypes tell us about a country plagued by poverty, unemployment, Aids and crime. The picture is not far from the truth, as often happens with stereotypes, but there is also another reality which speaks of a growing prosperity, and the subsequent demand for whatever it can buy, including the much-coveted junk food which is spoiling the kids of Nairobi’s new middle class. This is what happens when you look beyond the obvious, as Alessandro Gandolfi did while he was doing research for his story in Kenya. And this is what happened to Giancarlo Radice when he travelled to Tibet to document how Tibetans cope with Chinese rule. He was convinced he would meet people who struggle to keep their own cultural identity safe, and who never gave up the hope of seeing their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, finally return to their motherland: and that’s exactly what he found. But to his surprise he also found out that more and more Tibetans end up buying goods produced in the country they consider their enemy, and they have no problem in saying that, thanks to their new Chinese refrigerator or TV set, their lifestyle has dramatically improved.
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Luigi Baldelli was also in for a surprise, although a sad one, when he went to Moldova to photograph the villages whose population has been slowly drained by the European job market. He found himself in small ghost towns almost exclusively populated by kids, many of them forced to live on their own: the migrants’ sons and daughters, whom their parents where forced to abandon in order to provide them with a brighter future. Or, rather, simply with a future. These are just three of the stories that you will find in the second issue of P’Zero. Our photographers will also take you on a journey on the oceans to explore the delicate relationship between sailor and sea, inside the impenetrable world of Mexico’s criminal gangs, on a magical southern Italian island whose inhabitants seem to be prisoners of their own history, in remote Brazilian villages where the need for electricity is jeopardizing the future, and inside some motel rooms in the U.S., where something is happening that tells us more than we would like to know about the world we have created for ourselves. Come with us.
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AT THE END OF THE RIVER
INSIDE THE UTOPIA BRAZIL
AT THE END OF THE RIVER By Sergio Ramazzotti In the heart of the impenetrable kingdom of Kim Jong Un, the absolute dictator of the most totalitarian state on the planet. Completely isolated from the rest of the world, North Korea is anchored to a rigid pseudo-socialist ideal and founded on the most maniacal cult of personality which the human mind has ever been able
BRAZIL
AT THE END OF THE RIVER By Dario Bosio The Brazilian economic growth is in contrast with the global recession. As the country’s wealth is rising, new infrastructures are needed to support the expansion. The Belo Monte dam, on the Xingu River, is one of them. The dam, which will be the world's third largest and will flood an area of approximately 500 square kilometers, will have serious consequences on the environment and the communities living on the shores of the Xingu. Apart from affecting several indigenous territories, the dam will flood one third of the city of Altamira, which is already suffering from an increasing crime rate due to the massive immigration caused by the job opportunities offered by the dam. The tension on the Xingu is rising, as the Amazon people try to cope with the so-called progress and resist against the project.
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An Arara warrior relaxes on his hammock with his son after lunch in the indigenous village of the Big Bend of the Xingu. The tribe is among the most affected by the construction of the dam
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A stilt house in the favela known as Invas達o dos Padres. The stilts, which prevent the houses from being flooded during the rainy season, will be useless in the future due to the increased capacity of the Xingu caused by the dam
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Eugenia, 23, is waiting for a call from her boyfriend in the favela of Invas達o dos Padres. Her ex husband is in jail charged with homicide
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Two workers in the construction site. At its peak, the building consortium will give a job to 40,000 people, but will dismiss everyone by completion in 2019
Pyongyang, the usual propaganda footage on national tv in my hotel room
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A kid is playing with a slingshot in the favela of Invas達o dos Padres
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The main working area of Belo Monte, where the powerhouse will be built. The turbines will generate up to 11,000 mW at full capacity. The Belo Monte dam complex will be the third largest in the world
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Seu Leoncio, 73, is the Arara village’s cacique. He is the only one in the village who still remembers the first contact with the white people. He fears that the dam will be the last step of a process that long ago started killing the indigenous culture 12
A young boy from the Xipaya tribe in his house in the Invas達o dos Padres favela, in Altamira. His family moved there because they were displaced by the hydroelectric dam of Tucurui. Most likely the indigenous people living next to Belo Monte are facing the same fate
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A man is being checked by military police in the favela of Invas達o dos Padres
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A revolver which has been confiscated by the military police in Altamira
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An Arara indigenous woman with her kids in the village of Volta Grande
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Monsonic clouds over the city of Altamira, which will be the most affected by the construction of the Belo Monte dam
Pyongyang, a bird flies at the base of 70-mt-high bronze statue of Kim Il Sung on Mansudae Hill
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YOUNG AFRICANS GROWING UP
KENYA
LOVE GIVERS
YOUNG AFRICANS GROWING UP
By Simone Cerio
This is a journey. A physical and mental journey. Sexual assistance is a technique of psychophysical approach to disabled people, based on massages, kisses, visual contacts and erotic stimulation. It is commonly believed that disabled people have no sexual needs and their isolation causes them
KENYA
YOUNG AFRICANS GROWING UP By Alessandro Gandolfi "Africans have become sedentary. We spend our days in the car or in the office, we eat fast-food and our children put on weight watching television". Professor Vincent Onywera from Kenyatta University in Nairobi is studying a problem that is becoming dramatic: escalating obesity, particularly among very young people. While outside the capital the real problem is malnutrition, in Nairobi things go the opposite way: middle class people, whose life style is similar to that of Westerners, eat junk food and do not practice enough sports. The Ministry of Health has recognized that this is a problem and in schools menus are now under control while vending machines are forbidden. However, figures are unmistakable: one person out of two in Nairobi is overweight.
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A student being photographed in front of a case with an embalmed lion at Nairobi’s National Museum of Kenya
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Nairobi’s central business district at sunset
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An instructor gives swimming lessons to Jonathan, 6 (right), and his brother George, 9, in the swimming pool of the Nairobi Club
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A woman in the garden in 23 front of the Aga Khan Hospital
Polo, 4, watches television in his aunt’s living room
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Sweets for sale in a shopping centre
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Virginia Muthoni, 28, has her waist measured by dietician Lyudmyla Shchukina
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A child with his mother and aunt in a fast food
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Kids take food at a birthday party in the Brookside neighborhood
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A man eats hamburger and French fries in a bar of the central business district
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Two young women in a hairdresser’s waiting room
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BIEN FUERTE
MEXICO
BIEN FUERTE
GAZA IS WONDERBy Alessandro Gandolfi
MEXICO
BIEN FUERTE By Tom King Monterrey, in north-east Mexico, is a patchwork of street gangs. During the first eight months of 2012, members of two groups, Los Pokos Lokos and Los Quimicos, allowed photographer Tom King into their world, the world in which only the “bien fuerte�, the strongest ones, can survive. The work started in the context of drug-related violence, which in 2011 reached unprecedented levels in the city. Nevertheless, the aim was never to concentrate on the violence directly, but to explore social and economic circumstances. Mexico has a large youth population, alongside a significant rate of inequality among classes, while government figures say that 90 percent of homicide victims are male, 40 percent are aged between 15 and 29, and almost all are working class.
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Chava, a member of Los Pokos, with his freshly tattooed chest. Tattoos in Mexico are a definite sign of rebellion. Many companies refuse employment to persons who have visible tattoos
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A member of Los Pokos holds marijuana in his hand. The drug, illegal in Mexico, is widely used. Supply is controlled by the cartels. Young men are often arrested by police simply for having the smell of it on their fingers
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Jacko of Los Pokos at home in one of the working class areas of Monterrey
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A 7,62-caliber machine gun bullet found lying in the street by a member of Los Pokos
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Dante plays basketball in his neighborhood. One of his gang’s members has been shot and killed here one year earlier
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Chicken ready to be barbecued for a birthday celebration. Barbecuing meat is traditionally a male role
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Flaquito of Los Pokos outside his home with his pregnant wife-to-be
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Two cousins from Los Pokos funfighting. Fights like this are seen as training for the more serious fighting between rival gangs
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Dante of Los Pokos sits in his porch
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Members of Los Quimicos preparing for the dance of Guadalupe. These young men see the Virgin as their protector
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Arte of Los Pokos at home in Monterrey
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Manuel's coffin on the day of his funeral. Manuel, a member of Los Quimicos, consumed solvents, but was not involved in the drug trade. Yet he was kidnapped and murdered by one of Monterrey's cartels
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Kaly of Los Pokos has his eyebrows shaved off by two members of his gang
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SHIPS AND THE SEA
FACES OF PIAZZA WORLD
SHIPS AND THE SEA
By Mario Noto
Italy, Piazza Armerina: like one of Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities, a non-place. A town which, because of its name, most Italians still mistake for a square (that's what Piazza means). A village in
WORLD
SHIPS AND THE SEA By Maria Vittoria Trovato From one continent to another, in the Atlantic ocean on a cargo, the Caribbean Sea on a cruise ship, the Mediterranean on a oil rig, the Baltic Sea on an icebreaker, Sicily on a ship stuck by the economic crisis. For years, photographer Maria Vittoria Trovato chased a humanity that lives on water, a species at ease. The seaworld has no seasons or rest. Captains, shipmates, sailors, welders and workers have all taken to the sea going after a dream, struggling against hunger, following their fathers' path. Different men and women, each with his or her own hopes and ambitions and needs: but they all become the same when the land is no longer in sight.
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FAVIGNANA, THE ISLAND OF MEMORY
ITALY
WOMEN OF THE AMAZON
FAVIGNANA, THE ISLAND OF MEMORY
By Paulo Siqueira
Prostitution is a big word, to describe what goes on on the straights of the great Amazon River of Brazil in a region privy to years of conquest and exploitation. The life of the river people or “Ribeirinhas”as they are
ITALY
FAVIGNANA, THE ISLAND OF MEMORY By Bruno Zanzottera An ancient Paleolithic site, the island of Favignana hosted many people over the centuries. In 1874 the island was bought by the Florio family, which reinforced here the so-called “tonnara”, an Arab tuna-fishing technique. The “mattanza” (the ritual killing of tuna) and the quarries of calcarenite, a much appreciated kind of limestone, have influenced the history of the island, which still survives in the tales told by the local “tonnaroti” (tuna fishermen) and “piarrutura” (stonemasons). Others just refuse to cope with a future of immigration and of a tourism-based economy. Instead, they keep fishing for that peculiar fish that made Favignana's fortune in the past.
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Clemente Ventrone, a “tonnaroto” who has been working for almost fifty years in a “tonnara” on the island
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The rocks and the ancient limestone quarries in Cala Rossa
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A fisherman relaxing onboard his fishing boat
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Fishermen work at night between Favignana and nearby island of Marettimo
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Giuseppe Gandolfo, one of the last shepherds who live on the island, with son Matteo
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The small fishing village of Punta Longa
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Marco Ponzio, originally from Sicily, where he used to work with his father as a stonemason
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Relaxing onboard a fishing boat after a long night at sea
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Fish is sorted on board a fishing vessel before being sold at the Trapani port
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Orazio, owner and captain of a fishing boat in Favignana, during a fishing trip
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INTO THE SILENCE TIBET
LIVING UNDER CHINA’S RULE
HERMITS OF THE THIRD MILLENNIUM By Carlo Bevilacqua
A new utopia? A distant reality? Forget it. Hermitage might seem a paradox in our self-celebrating society but it is a growing and fascinating phenomenon, instead. Modern hermits don’t indulge in the search for isolation for social or
TIBET
LIVING UNDER CHINA’S RULE By Giancarlo Radice After the anti-Chinese riots of 2008-2009, the Tibetan society is going through a phase of deep changes. In Kham, as was called the eastern region of the "greater Tibet" before the invasion of Mao's army (now part of China's Sichuan province), the political and military control by Beijng is less oppressive than in Lhasa and central Tibet, while among the population the awareness of their own cultural identity has been growing. Tibetans seem to live simultaneously in two separate realities. On the one side they are fighting for wider political autonomy and religious freedom. On the other side, they are learning to be part of the "new world" that China brings with it, which means better roads, subsidized housing, low-wage jobs and an invasion of material goods.
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Penbushi, the Layithao family in their new house, posing with their new chinese refrigerator and tv set
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Kangding, low income public services are carried out mainly by Tibetans
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Penbushi area. Tashi Chapa, 24, shows two photographs from his family collection: the beloved Dalai Lama and "enemy" Mao Zedong
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Kangding. Modern downtown buildings, shops and a Tara, a Buddhist deity, carved on the hill
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Tagong, a Tibetan woman shopping at the monastery supermarket
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Tagong, landscape beyond the city limits
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Kangding, a Tibetan with his dog on the main street
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Penbushi, the village’s primary school
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Kangding, trendy Tibetan teenagers
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Penbushi. Ngawang Gyauwu, 28, in his family home watching a Dalai Lama speech on his laptop. Dalai Lama speeches are banned in China
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Dege is one of the new villages built by the Chinese government for the Tibetan nomads in order to control them. The village is almost empty: only one family lives there
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Miniak Guwa, the only store in the village
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WHITE ORPHANS
GOD BLESS
MOLDOVA
WHITE ORPHANS
by Francesco Alesi
When St. Patrick set his feet on Irish land to preach Christianity, it is unlikely there were any Irish Travellers in sight. Almost sixteen Centuries later, the Irish Travellers is one of the strongest Catholic communities in the world.
MOLDOVA
WHITE ORPHANS By Luigi Baldelli In Moldova, a country plagued by massive unemployment, one citizen out of four lives abroad and works as a caregiver. What happens to their children then? Some of these young kids are forced to live in abandonment. Their grandparents, relatives or neighbors sometimes look after them, while teenagers are left on their own, with parents coming back only once or twice a year for the holidays. The number of these abandoned kids is not officially estimated yet, however it is widely assumed that they have been more than 100,000 since 2005. Migration breaks families and modifies their lifestyle: for many kids who grew up separated from their parents, primary values are no longer love and caring, but money.
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Varzarestii Noi. Marina, 12, and her sister Ruslana, 5, with their grandparents Vasile and Maria. The little girls have been living with them since their mother left for Italy to work as a caregiver
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Varzarestii Noi. Jon, 16, in front of the house where he lives on his own after his mother left for Italy to work as a caregiver and his father left for Russia to work as a bricklayer
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Sipoteni. Brothers Vasile, 13, and Gheorghe, 11, in front of the house where they live with their aunt. Their mother left for Italy to work as a caregiver
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Varzarestii Noi. The shoes of Marina, 12, and Ruslana, 5. The two kids have been living with their grandparents since their mother left for Italy to work as a caregiver
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Gura Galbena. Adriana, 16, inside the house where she lives with her aunt. Her parents left for Israel. Her mother is now working as a house cleaner while her father found employment as a bricklayer
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Varzarestii Noi. Ruslana, 5, in her bedroom. She has been living with her grandparents since her mother left for Italy to work as a caregiver
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Gura Galbena. Sisters Elena, 14, and Valentina, 13, in the house where they live with their uncle and aunt after their mother left for Italy to work as a caregiver
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Sipoteni. A view of the village
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Croagh Patrick. The faithful during one of the fifteen rounds of the chapel. Croagh Patrick is renowned for its pilgrimage in honour of Saint Patrick, who fasted for forty days in 441 AD on the top of this mountain
Varzarestii Noi. Ruslana, 5, in her bedroom. She has been living with her grandparents since her mother left for Italy to work as a caregiver 97
Varzarestii Noi. Mihai, 12, in the house where he lives along with her aunt and his sister Mihaela, 15, after their mother left for Italy to work as a caregiver
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Varzarestii Noi. Marina, 12, has been living with her grandparents since her mother left for Italy to work as a caregiver
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USA
MOTEL AMERICA
by Bruno Zanzottera
Lize is a 25-year-old Dutch woman with Down syndrome. She has attended regular middle and secondary schools, as well as green schools and catering training courses. She Parallelozero Multimedia has taken part as an athlete in
USA
MOTEL AMERICA By Paulo Siqueira and Nadia Shira Cohen The Motel, an American institution, was invented in 1925 to stimulate business travel along the highways of the nation. Motel culture reached its peak in the 1960's as its popularity among vacationing American families increased. Complete with swimming pools and rooms modeled after Native American tee pees, motels made cross-country road travel for the country's middle class possible, and became a stark symbol of capitalist America. Today, many motels across America are serving as a permanent home for millions of Americans caught in the flux of the Great Recession. Some have lost their jobs and their homes to foreclosure, or just can't generate enough income to afford an apartment. They are one step above homelessness, living on the fringe in an unstable world of linoleum and polyester bed spreads. 101
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No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Publisher: Parallelozero Srl Via Donatello, 19/a Milano - Italy ISBN: 9788898512034 P’zero #02.2013 - All rights reserved - Copyright Parallelozero 2013 www.parallelozero.com