Pakistani Waseem Akram, 27, dances during a private party in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. By day, Akram sells mobile phone accessories from an alleyway shop in an old neighborhood of this Pakistani city, Thursday, January 15, 2015. Across conservative Pakistan, where Islamic extremists launch near-daily attacks and many follow a strict interpretation of their Muslim faith, male cross-dressers and the transgendered face a challenge of balancing two identities. Some left their villages for the anonymity of a big city, fearing the reactions of their families while still concealing their identity from neighbors and co-workers. (Photo by Muhammed Muheisen/AP Photo)

Grand banqueting halls, opulent lobbies and vast ballrooms; you could easily be forgiven for thinking this was a collection of photographs was documenting some of Europe’s grandest hotels. However, a closer look will reveal the majestic rooms to be engulfed in swathes of dust and moss; hotels that once hosted royals and high society abandoned to the elements. This is the latest result of urban exploration photography, going beyond “no entry” signs to capture images of dilapidated buildings across Europe. IT worker Thomas Windisch, from Graz in Austria, indulged his passion for photography by traveling across the continent, visiting over 100 abandoned hotels along the way. Here: inside a hotel in Austria. (Photo by Thomas Windisch/Caters News)

South Korean workers are seen from a crane as they work on the 123rd floor during the framing completion ceremony of the 'Lotte World Tower' in Seoul, South Kora, 22 December 2015. The building's exterior was completed in a final height of 550 meters, and 123 floors. The ceremony came five years and two months after the construction of the building began and its opening will likely take place at the end of next year when the interior work is set to be completed, the South Korean Yonhap news agency reported. The building is the highest in South Korea and the fifth highest in the world, according to Yonhap. (Photo by Jeon Heon-Kyun/EPA)

Lush green rice terraces sprawl over 2,200 hectares of mountainside ready to be harvested. These stunning images, captured by photographer Saravut Whanset, show the incredible terraces throughout the course of the day, including at sunrise and sunset. Workers tend to the fields, with each terrace between 1 and 1.5 metres wide, while wooden huts stand on stilts on the mountainside. The beautiful panoramic pictures were taken in Mu Cang Chai, Vietnam, with the fields located at the foot of the Hoang Lien Son mountain range, 1,000 metres above sea level. (Photo by Saravut Whanset/Solent News and Photo Agency)

A health worker shows an empty syringe after inoculating a woman with AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine during the first day of a nationwide three-day vaccination drive at a school in Quezon city, Philippines on Monday, November 29, 2021. There has been no reported infection so far caused by the new variant in the Philippines, a Southeast Asian pandemic hotspot where COVID-19 cases have considerably dropped to below 1,000 each day in recent days, but the emergence of the Omicron variant has set off a new alarm. (Photo by Aaron Favila/AP Photo)

A dhobi, or a washerman washes cloths on the banks of the River Gomti in Lucknow, India, Saturday, September 12, 2020. Dhobis are traditional laundry workers who wash clothes by hand and dry them in the sun, an occupation which has been in existence for generations. Most cities in India have a Dhobi Ghat, or washermen's area, where the city's pile of clothes is laundered. This practice is still popular in India, despite of modern technology. Around 1,000 families work in Lucknow's Dhobi Ghat. However, in light of the novel coronavirus, their wages have decreased drastically. With each family earning around US$100-200 per month. (Photo by Rajesh Kumar Singh/AP Photo)

Aisha, 15, (L) (who asked to withhold her last name), a Syrian refugee from Raqqa, waits with a fellow refugee while harvesting cannabis in the Bekaa valley, Lebanon October 19, 2015. Syrian refugees work to harvest and process spiky-leafed cannabis plants in neighbouring Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley. Often farmers of cotton and wheat back home in Raqqa province – now the de facto capital of Islamic State – the conflict in Syria drove them to seek safety in a region where Syrian migrant workers used to spend a few months a year before returning home. (Photo by Alia Haju/Reuters)

“Solar Impulse is a European long-range solar powered plane project being undertaken by Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg. The project eventually hopes to succeed in the first circling of the earth with a piloted fixed-wing aircraft using only solar power. The first aircraft, bearing the Swiss aircraft registration code of HB-SIA, is a single-seater, capable of taking off under its own power, and intended to remain airborne up to 36 hours. This aircraft first flew an entire diurnal solar cycle, including nearly 9 hours of night flying, in a 26-hour flight on 7–8 July 2010”. – Wikipedia


Photo: Workers prepare the Solar Impulse airplane HB-SIA for a first runway test on November 19, 2009 in Dubendorf, Switzerland. Solar Impulse chairman Bertrand Piccard, psychatrist and aeronaut, who made the first non-stop round-the-world balloon flight, and CEO and former fighter pilot Andrй Borschberg plan a round-the-world flight, driven only by solar energy, for 2012. (Photo by Johannes Simon/Getty Images)