Features

  Ouagadougou / AFP With the logo of his internet TV station on his black T-shirt, Inoussa Maiga energetically plucks corn stalks in northern Burkina Faso for a programme on farming in Africa. Maiga, 30, launched Agribusiness TV in May in the Burkinabe capital Ouagadougou, determined to change poor opinions about agricultural work held by African youth and to help ...

  New York / DPA Ashrita Furman started out with 27,000 star jumps — an exhausting exercise used by military fitness instructors — moved on to somersaults along a 20-kilometre route, and then to underwater pogo stick jumping. Furman, now 61, has set 621 records to the standards of the Guinness World Records, and 206 of them are still standing, ...

  Bangkok / AFP A line of prisoners emerges from Bangkok’s sewers covered in a thick film of slime and hauling buckets of sludge — frontline troops in the battle against a rising tide of plastic waste. Located just 50 centimetres above sea level and criss-crossed with canals, Thailand’s throbbing capital has long had to fight off floods and an ...

  New York / DPA Dating back at least to the 1980s as a minority pursuit in the United States, the Sneakerhead subculture has now broadened out to a mass market that extends well beyond brands like Air Jordan and Converse Chuck Taylor. Streetwear — particularly the trade in limited collections — has emerged from the underground to become a ...

  Sirjan / AFP The recent discovery of the tomb of Suleiman the Magnificent, considered the greatest Ottoman ruler, has raised hopes of a tourism boom in one of Hungary’s most impoverished areas. From hammam baths and crumbling minarets to battle site memorials and ruins of mosques, traces of the country’s 150-year-long stretch (1541-1699) in the Ottoman Empire are not ...

  Kabul / AFP Its scarred lion Marjan was for years a symbol of Afghan survival. Now, more than a decade after his death, Afghanistan remains battered by war but Kabul zoo is buzzing again — a haven for women, children and young lovers in a capital city that has little public space for anyone but men. The carnival of ...

  Sirjan / AFP The pistachio trees at the village in southern Iran are long dead, bleached white by the sun — the underground water reserves sucked dry by decades of over-farming and waste. The last farmers left with their families 10 years ago, and the village has the look of an abandoned Martian colony. The dome-roofed, mud-walled homes are ...

  Banjar Jembrana / AFP Wearing crowns and colourful horn coverings, the buffaloes haul wooden carts at high speed past paddy fields on Bali, with the racers aboard cracking whips in a bid to push their beasts on to victory. Hundreds of spectators cheer from the sidelines, hoping their team will come out on top in the annual festival on ...

  Cairo / AFP On a Friday morning in Cairo, Ahmed Shazly stopped a few cars to allow some 3,000 joggers to cross a near-deserted road in the normally gridlocked metropolis. Streets that during the week are snarled with exhaust-spewing cars turn almost silent on weekend mornings — Fridays and Saturdays in Egypt — as most shops and businesses are ...

  Berlin / DPA Legend has it that polo originates in Persia and dates back to around 370 BC. Alexander the Great, whose armies swept through some 40 years later, is said to have become an instant fan. By the mid 19th century the sport had taken hold among Europe’s upper classes, with British army officers among the most passionate ...