"I believe that as soon as people want peace in the world they can have it. The only trouble is they are not aware they can get it."

John Lennon, 1969

"I dedicate this light tower to John Lennon my love for you is forever"

Yoko Ono
Videy Island, Reykjavik, Iceland
October 9th 2007

On October 9th 2007, Yoko Ono unveiled the IMAGINE PEACE TOWER on Videy Island, Reykjavik, Iceland.

Dedicated to the memory of her late husband John Lennon on what would have been his 67th birthday, the IMAGINE PEACE TOWER now shines as a beacon for World Peace.

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more & send your wishes >>

Fubon, a British design studio with a cool homesite!

·How Harry died on the 18th hole.
·When Jesus got lost in the Arizona desert.
·The many lives of Virginia Russell.
·Sex after life with Viagra.

If the world were controlled by the elderly, what would it look like? The answer: Leisure World, the largest gated retirement village in the world. For COLORS 43 we sent a team of writers and photographers to southern California to have a look.

From Holocaust survivors to synchronized swimmers, Leisure World is home to 18,000 old people. The average resident is 77.5 years old; 42 percent of the community is over 80. And only 35 percent of Leisure World's population is male (women live seven years longer than men, on average). It is almost exclusively white. We saw one black resident.

Leisure World-or seizure world as it is jokingly referred to by outsiders-is guarded by an army of elderly police officers. The gates and walls serve to keep out door-to-door salesmen and other unwelcome outsiders, as well as unwanted family members. "I wouldn't want to live with my children," 69-year-old Gloria Day said, as she reclined next to one of Leisure World's five swimming pools. "It's okay when they live with you, but living with them-no thanks!"

With children and grandchildren out of the way, Leisure Worlders are free to get on with the more important things in life, like table tennis, ballroom dancing, golf and sex. While they sleep, an invisible army of Mexican immigrants tend to their gardens.

But Leisure World is not a reality most old people can afford. So for the second half of COLORS 43 we commissioned our correspondents to interview and photograph residents of old age homes around the world. From China to Australia to Indonesia, COLORS has documented the reality of growing old in 2001.

In a world dominated by youth culture, COLORS brings old age to the newsstands. Available in April.

For further information: www.colorsmagazine.com

Shutka–the name means "trash" –is Europe's largest settlement of Rom, a people also known as Gypsies, nomads, and dirty thieving tinkers.

For COLORS 42 we spent three weeks there getting to know a few of the 50,000 inhabitants, including Papa Alfonso, the 81-year-old nyphomaniac; Edo Arseni the maxillofacial surgeon; Savim, the junior boxing champion; and Ramandan, the self-proclaimed Putska (Romanes for homosexual).

From the Turbo Folk Hip (the Gyspy equivilent to hip-hop) booming in the Macedonian discos to the 24-hour Roma TV station, we found a community firmly rooted in the modern world. Most people spoke several European languages, including German and Italian. Teenagers displayed their Nike swooshes with pride and listened to the Backstreet Boys.

With a Romani mayor, a Romani lawyer and total freedom to speak the Romanes language, Shutka should be a promised land for Gypsies. But walk down the unpaved streets, use the outside toilets, step over the trash on the streets, and you'll see it's still a dump.

Discrimination and poverty unite most of the 20 million Roma worldwide. In Shutka, as in most Gypsy communities, the Roma are still a race apart—all shades from white to brown, they consistently call themselves "black." They isolate themselves as they are isolated by others. The result: A fierce sense of identity and abnormal levels of illiteracy and poverty.

The COLORS team of correspondents and photographers also gathered testimonials from Gypsies around the world–from the original Rom of India to the Travelers of England, the Kale of Spain, and the Dom of Egypt and Israel.

COLORS 42: The Gypsy issue is available at newsstands from 17th February 2001.

For further information: www.colorsmagazine.com

A Benetton communication campaign, a book, an exhibition by the
Natural History Museum of London in 2005

London, 7th October 2004. Arron, 11 months, male, was born in Cameroon; Fizi, two years, female, is from Congo. Bonny, a five year-old male, is Indonesian; Shanga, a two year-old female, was born in captivity in Germany. With Pumbu, Tatango, Jackson, James and dozens of other orphans, they share similar experiences of violence and pain. But the eyes of each of them tell a personal story of suffering and express a unique identity. They are the primates -gorillas, chimpanzees, orang-utans and bonobos- who feature in United Colors of Benetton's new communication project, by James Mollison for Fabrica. A very close "face to face" with the living beings who share our planet and over 96 percent of our DNA.

James Mollison has taken close-up pictures of the orphans, who were confiscated from illegal traders and form the population of at least seven sanctuaries in Africa and Asia. Many of them saw their mother killed before their eyes. Together, and each captioned with his or her name and biography, they testify to the importance of saving the various species of great apes, because even if just one should become extinct, we would lose a significant part of the "bridge" leading back to the origins of humankind.

"If we don't do anything to save them, in ten to 15 years the great apes could disappear from the majority of the areas where they now live", says Jane Goodall, renowned primatologist, conservationist and United Nations Messenger of Peace, who has given her support to Benetton's communication campaign. "There were about two million chimps in Africa one hundred years ago, now there are little more than 150,000. They are dying out as a result of the expanding human population, deforestation, the destruction of their habitat, hunting and traps. The situation of mountain gorillas and orang-utans is even worse. The number of wild apes is falling while the number of orphans in sanctuaries is rising."

With this initiative Benetton has chosen to extend its reflection on diversity as a wealth of our planet, from the human races to our nearest cousins.With anthropological rigor, the portraits by James Mollison invite us to reflect on the fundamental issues of humankind, mirrored in the enigmatic gaze of the species closest to us in the evolutionary chain.

The entire project is being presented today at the Natural History Museum with the participation of Jane Goodall. Together with the campaign, which will be seen on billboards in major cities around the world from 15th October 2004, the book "James and Other Apes" will be published by the British publisher Boot.An exhibition featuring James Mollison's photographs will be presented by the Natural History Museum from May to September 2005.

On December 9th 2000 Colors41 hits the newsstands with a new look. Readers will be surprised with the new content and the new way of confronting it, too.

The new issue is dedicated to refugees in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. But, instead of having a general overview of the problem we decided to focus our attention on a single refugee camp–Lukole, in Tanzania–where the editorial staff of Colors spent three weeks in August. That's why every person photographed has a name and a story: because Colors photographers and writers were there to talk to them.

As Eric Ngarbo, a Tanzanian boy from a local town described it, "Lukole is like a city in the middle of nowhere." The camp is built on, and of, a vast basin of red dust in northern Tanzania near the Rwandan and Burundian borders. Home to 120,000 Hutu exiles for seven years, Lukole has no electricity, no permanent structures and no secondary schools. During long days, hunger and boredom hang in the air. A young man counts the number of paces from one end of the camp to the other. The only time he is alone is when he shits.

All sorts of people live there. Some are the wives and children of rebel soldiers, removed to a safe haven while the men fight. Some are sent by rebel armies to recruit young men. But most are there because armed men invaded their villages with the intent of killing everyone. Most fled for their lives with only the clothes on their backs.

Despite the desperate situation, we found that people still find ways of carrying on with their lives, keeping their culture alive and looking good. In the camp there is a market, a cinema, a football league and a street full of bars. And most of all, every face tells a story of dignity and beauty.

The new look, created by acclaimed designer Fernando Gutiérrez who joins Colors as Creative Director beginning with this issue, helps to express this dignity and beauty.

For further information: www.colorsmagazine.com