Features

  Bloomberg Last week, Unesco designated 21 new World Heritage Sites. They join a group of 1,052 protected places around the world that are awarded status for their “outstanding universal value” from either a cultural or natural standpoint. These include such iconic spots as the Giza pyramids in Egypt and the entire city of Venice. Not all this year’s inductees ...

  DPA If you’re a parent, you know the importance of having college and wedding funds. Now, if you want to be on the cutting edge of financial planning, you’ll also want to invest in a travel fund. “We’re looking at a generation of parents who have been lucky enough to travel themselves, and they want to have that for ...

  DPA The air above the field is shimmering in the summer heat. Locusts are buzzing in the trees. Gina Meyers doesn’t seem to notice while, beads of sweat forming on her forehead, she scrapes together a small pile of stones on a metal table using her credit card. “I don’t really know what I am doing here,” says the ...

  DPA His hair is thinning and flecked with grey. His belly is beginning to show a little beneath a brown T-shirt sporting the slogan “Life begins.” But when Jens Mueller, a German graffiti artist known as Tasso, picks up a spray can and sets to work on a canvas none of it matters. “I can live from my pictures,” ...

  AFP Deep in the heart of a medieval monastery in Nepal’s remote Upper Mustang region, the battle to restore sacred murals and preserve traditional Tibetan Buddhist culture is in full swing. Tsewang Jigme is among the artists toiling to safeguard the unique cultural heritage of this former Buddhist kingdom high on the Tibetan plateau, which escaped the ravages of ...

  Bloomberg The open office plan that everybody loves to hate is here to stay. The ideal seating plan still involves sitting almost on top of your co-workers, according to new research from Harvard Business School in collaboration with Cornerstone OnDemand. What changes, however, is who exactly sits next to whom. For two years, researchers followed the seating arrangements and ...

  DPA The day doesn’t start too badly for fisherman Celmo Mantovani. His patch, the Copacabana, is at its best at 5.30 in the morning, the rising sun streaks the sky with red and gold, and the Sugarloaf mountain rears up black against it. Mantovani and a couple of colleagues push their 23-year-old boat, the El Shaday, into the water ...

  AFP Thomas Kurz strokes the hood of his Plymouth Road Runner almost affectionately with a cloth. “It’s a 1970 model,” he says, alluding to the fact that this highly polished muscle-car with 335 horsepower under the hood is exactly as old as its owner. Kurz is a trained vehicle mechanic who specializes in US classics. Late last year, he ...

  DPA Sitting in a Mexican prison’s library, murder convict David Guzman tattooed a skull on a leather patch for a designer handbag to be sold in a luxury shop. Guzman, 34, took drugs and stole at a young age, falling into a “nefarious” world that landed him in prison, but five years into his murder sentence, he appeared at ...

  AFP Having to wear ski jackets in Riyadh is unheard of, but a new snow park in the Saudi capital has made them a must despite outside temperatures exceeding 45 Celsius. People are now donning thermal coats and cosy boots as they sit on sledges to scoot down the slopes of “Snow City”. Stretching over 5,000 square metres (53,800 ...