Features

AFP Stroll around the office or neighborhood six times a day, and earn $1.50 toward your health insurance. Step up activity a bit more and bring the total to $1,400 annually. The catch: you need to wear a special activity tracker that monitors steps taken, “intensity” levels and other physical indicators. That’s the offer in a new insurance product marketed ...

Margaret Zhou / The Diplomat The Mekong Delta is facing its worst drought in recent history, causing food and water shortages for over half a million people. The Chinese government has made headlines amidst the disaster for its decision to release water from upstream dams within China’s borders. Chinese ministry spokesman Lu Kang said in a news briefing that China ...

DPA The last few minutes of Oetzi’s life were brutal: he was hit in the back with an arrow, he fell bleeding, and also suffered a head injury. As the Iceman lay dying, it’s possible he gave a final cry of pain. But despite being one of the most thoroughly examined murder victims in the world, no one knows how ...

AFP A luxury safari is probably not the first thing that comes to mind when potential tourists think of Nigeria but that’s exactly what Yankari Game Reserve is hoping to change. In Africa’s largest economy, suffering from the collapse in global oil prices, tourism is being touted as a panacea to slow growth and a depreciating naira. Leading the charge ...

Justin Fox / bloomberg Read a history that spans times ancient and modern, as I’ve been doing lately, and you encounter a striking shift in the late Middle Ages. Until that point, documentary information is scarce, and narratives must be pieced together from smatterings of written matter and archaeological evidence. Afterward, historians face a growing surfeit of information, and their ...

Bloomberg The corn that is a food staple for much of southern Africa is now so expensive it has become something many can’t afford, after the worst drought in three decades damaged crops from Ethiopia to South Africa. In Malawi, one of a dozen nations affected by the dry spell, Meleniya Mateyu says she has to forage for wild water-lily ...

DPA Bicycle rental services are expanding and becoming easier with the introduction of such conveniences as reservations by smartphone, delivery of a bike to a user’s desired location, and payment via prepaid IC cards. In the past, bike rental services mainly targeted tourists, and most were based in well-known sightseeing areas. In recent years, however, bicycle rentals have become more ...

DPA The coach carrying tourists passes its third tractor, then a cyclist and horse-drawn cart on the six-lane highway running from Havana towards Vinales some 180 kilometres to the west. The driver brakes to give way to four cows crossing the wide strip of asphalt. “What a highway!” grins John Johnson, one of a party of tourists from California and ...

Dubai / EMIRATES BUSINESS Chuck E. Cheese has launched its second UAE destination at Ibn Battuta Mall, Dubai. Launched in the US during the 1970s, the life-sized animated mouse Chuck E. and his friends have been entertaining kids across the world for nearly four decades, thanks to the safe, family-friendly environment that kids and parents just love coming back to. ...

DPA The days of scribbling “I woz here” on Florence’s historic monuments are gone: from now on would-be vandals will be able to graffiti via app instead, with their messages kept for posterity. “Welcome to Giotto’s Campanile!” reads a message on a digital tablet for visitors scaling the Gothic white, green and pink marble tower by the famed Italian architect, ...