ALEX HOBAN

  • Battleship Island - Japan's Rotting Metropolis

    An hour or so’s sail from the port of Nagasaki, an abandoned island silently crumbles.

  • Abandoned Estonian Prisons Are a Little Slice of Hell

    Back in 1820, Russian Tzar Nicholas I built a massive prison on the Baltic coast just outside of Tallinn, Estonia, which was so good at making prisoners cower remorsefully before the might of the hegemony, that it remained in commission right up until...

  • They Weren't Joking, North Korea Tested Another Nuclear Bomb

    While you were sleeping, North Korea was causing a small earthquake on the Korean peninsula. After a gradual buildup over the past few weeks that's seen domestic media in the socialist state saturated with missile-themed iconography, and timed just a...

  • I Dare North Korea to Nuke America

    It's never nice when underage dictators point their nuclear arsenal at you willy-nilly, but try not to panic too much. I don't think North Korea is going to blow up America just yet, or that deep down Kim Jong Un even wants to.

  • North Korea Is Open for Business (Sort Of)

    Yesterday Kim Jong Un, now the world's youngest leader, broke the silent tradition of his reclusive father and made a New Year's speech to the people of North Korea, filling them in on his plans for a totally awesome 2013. It was the first time the...

  • Pompeii in the Caribbean

    The Montserrat volcano lay dormant for centuries, but finally exploded in 1995, decimating the island. Subsequent eruptions have left two-thirds of the country uninhabitable.