Features

  Mount Lavinia / AFP Tourists have flocked back to Sri Lanka’s palm-fringed beaches since a bloody civil war ended in 2009, but environmentalists warn unchecked development means some areas are now so polluted, swimming there is a health hazard. Sewage from thriving hotels and guesthouses pours, often untreated, out into the water polluting the sea and shore. Even the ...

  Montevideo / AFP Alvaro Brusti had never worked in his life before he wound up behind bars for armed robbery. Now after five years inside, the 34-year-old is running his own company, in an unusual scheme at a Uruguayan jail. The Punta de Rieles prison east of the capital Montevideo looks like many other penitentiaries from the outside, with ...

  Pantai Cahaya Bulan / AFP Shafie Jusoh loves traditional Malaysian kites so much that he can’t get a good night’s rest unless he’s been working on them daily. “I need to make kites everyday, if not I can’t sleep,” the 69-year-old said. He began making them when he was a young boy, skipping classes to entertain his flights of ...

  Bremen / DPA At the age of 78, Roswitha Wahl can do the splits, swing herself onto the parallel bars with ease and do a handstand. Indeed, in the German senior gymnastics championships, the trained nurse regularly comes top in her age group and has “a whole sack of medals.” She started doing gymnastics as a small child and ...

  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 ...