Features

  Las Vegas / AFP Hyperloop One startup, intent on zipping people along at near-supersonic speeds in pressurized tubes, announced that the French national rail company had joined its growing list of backers. Hyperloop One said that it raised US$80 million in fresh funding from an array of investors, including GE Ventures and France’s SNCF. “The overwhelming response we’ve had ...

  Miami, United States / AFP The phone rings off the hook these days at some pharmacies in Florida and the calls are long-distance: from Venezuelans desperate for everything from diapers to cancer medication. Venezuela, though sitting atop the world’s largest proven oil reserves, is enduring an acute economic crisis due in part to the global drop in crude prices and ...

  Detroit / AP Louis Cervi was looking to buy a small car for basic transportation with a monthly payment in the mid-$200 range. After six months of looking, Cervi, 41, drove off a dealer lot north of Pittsburgh in a Ford Focus for US$192 a month. The dealership even accepted his 2001 Chevrolet Monte Carlo with a failed transmission as ...

  Chile / AFP Every morning at dawn, a thick mist known as “The Darkness” blows in from the Pacific to the edge of the Atacama Desert, the most arid place in the world. After tantalizing the northern Chilean desert with the promise of moisture, the mist evaporates in the sun, leaving the heat to bake the stark lunar landscape. But ...

  Venetia Mine, South Africa / AFP Proof that diamonds are getting harder to find can be seen in the South African bush, where one of the world’s largest mining companies is spending $2 billion tunnelling beneath a vast open-pit mine. De Beers spent 25 years digging a 450-metre (1,500-foot) deep by one-kilometre wide hole to access diamond-rich rock from the ...

  Washington / AFP The smartphone revolutionised how people live and work, but the technology world is now struggling to see what comes next. As smartphone sales have peaked in most major markets, Apple, Samsung and others are being forced to rethink their business models to keep growing and connecting with consumers. The trend in smartphones appears to follow similar peaks ...

  Horn, Austria / DPA There is nothing very Asian about the quiet little Austrian town of Horn. It is surrounded by rolling hills and forests, and like any respectable central European town, it boasts a medieval church, old buildings with red-tile roofs, and the manor-house of a local noble family. But when you enter the stadium of the Horn football ...

  DPA “A greener world” is the underlying theme at the just-opened world exposition in Turkey’s southern coastal city of Antalya, a place which, with its mass tourism industry and towering concrete hotel complexes, is not exactly known as an environmental paradise. Turkish officials hope this jaded image will be improved when visitors see the EXPO 2016 Antalya International Horticultural ...

  Bangkok / AFP For nearly a century, Thanuan has watched history sweep through the bustling maze of alleyways that make up Bangkok’s Chinatown, one of the city’s few districts yet to be devoured by malls and high-rise condos. But change is coming — and fast. A new metro service will soon plough straight into the heart of the historic quarter, ...

  HAWTHORNE, Calif. / AP Decked out in high-tech goggles, pilot Steve Zoumas dives low and sees the final gate zooming toward him — a 20-foot-tall metal-framed box ringed with neon. Boom! His sight goes black. The crowd lets out a collective “Whoa!” as pieces of his aircraft, which has just smashed into a concrete barrier, go flying. Zoumas is just ...