Features

  Ravensburg / DPA Once upon a time, we lived in a world where not even a public library reference desk could get you up-to-date biographical data about famous living people like politicians and tycoons. A century ago, before the internet had even been dreamed of, a German came up with the bright idea of compiling all that information from ...

  Copenhagen / AFP It may be past its sell-by date, but for many Danes it’s a tasty proposition: A supermarket in Copenhagen selling surplus food has proved to be so popular it recently opened a second store. After launching in the gritty inner city district of Amager earlier this year, the “Wefood” project earlier this month drew a long ...

  Frankfurt / DPA It’s too soon to sound the all clear, but international conservation organizati-ons have recorded a modest rise in the number of mountain gorillas in the volca- nic mountains of central Africa. Estimates put the number in Congo, Rwanda and Uganda at 800. This means that they are still highly endangered, but the population has risen from ...

  DPA Andreas Fraedrich has so many enormous golden-ball cacti that he could provide seating for a whole army of unloved older women — the thorny plants are jocularly known as “mother-in-law’s cushion.” The German also has a huge collection of other plants: queens of the night, ponytail palms, lemon and fig trees, yuccas, lantana, agave, weeping figs and rubber ...

  Donauwoerth / DPA For generations of little girls, the name Kaethe Kruse has been synonymous with a childhood dream — about one day possessing a genuine Kruse doll from Germany, perhaps the most famous doll in the world. It was a dream that always had some major obstacle. For example, that the dolls were too expensive for the girls’ ...

Yamoussoukro / AFP Plucked out of poverty, 1,000 children in Ivory Coast are being given a unique chance to learn golf, and 10-year-old Jessica likes the idea. “I love golf and my dream is to become an international golfer and work for the World Bank,” says the girl, who comes from the poor and often dangerous Dioulabougou district of Yamoussoukro, ...

  Jinyuan / AFP When he dons his flowing robes and vivid makeup, Wu Yunhong is transformed from a labourer who toils on Chinese mountains under a beating sun into an evil general commanding an army of warriors. Wu was raised in the Jinyuan Opera Company, co-founded by his grandfather in 1984. He started performing when he was only eight ...

  Hochheim am Main / AFP For 15-year-old Mustafa, the trickiest part about learning German is knowing when to use the articles der, die or das. “And the umlaut,” his classmate Majd reminds him, sending both Syrian teens groaning in mock frustration at the vowel alteration, one of the quirks of German grammar. But they’re not really complaining. Having escaped ...

  Cairo / AFP At a club in downtown Cairo, Ahmed Saleh pumps electronic beats from his laptop as Abdullah Miniawy chants to a cheering crowd, the duo part of a wave of new talent on Egypt’s underground music scene. Emerging artists are creating an eclectic selection of hip-hop, dubstep, electronic and rock music, with some influenced by traditional Egyptian ...

  Accra, Ghana / AFP Parkins Takyi-Aidoo bobs and weaves around a ragged punch bag, dancing on concrete in a rehearsal for the knockout blow that one day could secure him fame and glory. The Ghanaian is just 13 years old but by training in the Bukom neighbourhood of Accra — a hotbed for fighters — he probably has a ...