Wired.

• Position: TALKING PICTURES - Brief article - Photograph

It wouldn't be a wired (and electrified) world without the wires themselves--as problematic as they sometimes prove to be.

Top left: Pedestrian safety: a monkey uses power lines to cross above a street in Delhi, India.

Above: By a wheel and a prayer: the pilot was rescued successfully and the plane lowered to the ground by a crane. (Boeing Field, Seattle, Washington)

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Above: A flock of migrating swallows descended on power lines in south-central Sri Lanka. Thousands were electrocuted.

Below: A man fishes near utility poles on the site of a coastal village in Samut Prakan province, Thailand. Villagers were forced to relocate by rising sea level and coastal...