Features

  Langenselbold / DPA Black Beauty is a dream horse; he’s obedient, his stable never needs cleaning out, and he never needs food, a vet or a blacksmith. He never bucks or bolts, and his rider never needs to worry about falling out of the saddle. “When I ride him I can just concentrate on myself,” enthuses German dressage rider ...

  Coca / DPA In earlier times, the water here used to sing. “Not anymore,” says Silvia Shiguangi from Ecuador’s Huaorani tribe. Bananas and cassava no longer grow well and the fish catch has sunk dramatically. “We used to live from what the forest gave us,” says the young mother, who left her village in the Yasuni National Park, home ...

  Freiburg / DPA Gardeners love to try out plants far from their native range, but can you believe that someone wants to grow tea near the Alps? “We’re having a tinker,” say farmer Erwin Wagner and gardener Werner Hanser. It’s three years since they began their experiment, and as the winter approaches, they’re bringing the Chinese tea plants, all ...

  Frankfurt / DPA Joerg Mewes is down at the paper-recycling collection with another 20 banana boxes of old books. As far as Mewes is concerned, these are mass-market titles of the past which are now unsellable and just take up space in his bookshop. It’s best to just get rid of them. For pulp. It’s getting harder and harder ...

  Bloomberg Protein, protein, protein. We can’t seem to get enough. Have a strawberry-banana protein smoothie for breakfast, a cookies ‘n’ cream protein bar for lunch, some chili nacho cheese protein chips for a snack, and a high-protein frozen pizza for dinner. And don’t forget your kids. There are protein products made just for them, too. For many consumers, “protein” ...

  Sapa / AFP At the top of Vietnam’s Fansipan Mountain, throngs of giddy tourists wielding selfie sticks jostle for a photo op on the once-remote peak in the Sapa region, famed for its breathtaking views across undulating rice terraces. Getting to the top traditionally takes a two-day trek but these days most visitors opt for a 20-minute ride by ...

  Ariha / AFP With the deftness of decades of experience, Abu Mohammad wove thick green thread with a wooden loom in northwest Syria, creating a vibrant geometric pattern renowned among Arabic textiles. It was the last day before the weaver in his 50s would be forced to close the workshop, leaving the last five remaining looms in his hometown ...

  Rissani / AFP On the edge of the southwestern town of Rissani, Abdelrahman Ahmidani sighs as he reflects on the state of the Moroccan oasis, endangered by drought and climate change. “Whoever lives here,” he says, “is condemned to a life of poverty.” In Rissani, the sinuous mountain oasis of Tafilalet gradually disappears into the Sahara desert, after snaking ...

  Hamburg / DPA He’s the last man in Europe to hold down a dream job of journalism: exploring the world’s wildernesses, writing about it and getting paid a generous full-time salary for his pains. Following in the footsteps of Henry Morton Stanley of Africa fame and Tintin the fictitious boy reporter is Lars Abromeit, a German whose unique editorial ...

  Emirates Business Canon has announced the XC15 — a compact, 4K (UHD) and Full HD video camcorder with stills capability, aimed at content creators such as news gatherers and independent or documentary filmmakers. Following in the footsteps of the popular XC10, the XC15 combines the best elements from its predecessor with new features and functionality, including a microphone adapter ...