Features

  Havana / DPA Carlos Caro is proud of his seed-planter: “Necessity is the mother of invention,” he says. Caro, a farmer in Cuba, assembled his machine completely out of old mechanical parts he gathered assiduously. The seeding device consists of old pipes and four inverted gas cylinders mounted on a chassis. Gravity does the rest — the weight of …

  Ilan / AFP Under a shady starfruit tree Taiwanese beekeeper Jiang Hwan-bin tends his hives, pumping out pure honey for a rapidly growing market of health-conscious consumers. Jiang’s family has been keeping bees for 80 years and he now manages 500 hives in the northwest county of Hsinchu. In total his family run around 2,000 across northern Taiwan. A …

  Islamabad / AFP In the corner of a pristine park in an upmarket district of Islamabad, an open-air classroom run by an aging rescue-worker offers a beacon of hope to the city’s poorest. For the past 30 years, “Master” Muhammad Ayub, whose day job includes defusing bombs and putting out fires, has cycled from his office to the makeshift …

  Port Louis / AFP As the horses round the last bend, the crowd starts shouting, their cries crescendoing into deafening cheers as the jockeys bear down on the finish line. “The Deacon” noses across the line in first place and a man leaps in the air, frantically waving his arms, clutching in his hand the winning betting slip. Horse …

  Johannesburg / AFP Demand for homegrown contemporary music is sweeping Africa and driving a creative boom in an industry otherwise battered by falling CD sales and rampant piracy. A recent study of the entertainment sector by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) accountants showed rapid earnings growth in many African countries, fuelled largely by live performances by local artists. “Consumers are increasingly wanting …

  Dubai / Emirates Business Panasonic Marketing Middle East and Africa (PMMAF) showcased its latest mobile business computing solutions at GITEX 2016, including the world’s first rugged detachable laptop CF 20, as well as the light weight and slim CF-MX4, which features a sleek and business rugged body. Designed to meet the evolving needs of enterprise customers in the region, …

  Emirates Business The discovery of premium Koishimaru silk, that promises silky, moisturized & beautiful skin, has garnered worldwide recognition & appreciation for Sensai. Known as a high-end luxury brand, SENSAI continues to introduce an enviable variety of skincare products & has leveraged its ‘super prestige’ stance with an exclusive anti-ageing range – ‘Wrinkle repair cream & Wrinkle repair eye …

  Yangon / AFP With turquoise columns propping up a pink and yellow portico, Myanmar’s art deco style Thwin cinema is a rare relic from a golden age of movie-making that dazzled audiences more than half a century ago. Myanmar’s film industry, once the most vibrant and prolific in the region, shrivelled under a military regime that smothered the arts …

  Rumangabo / AFP A powerful combination of love and guns is helping rebuild an endangered gorilla community in the jungles of war-torn eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Threatened with extinction, some of the world’s last remaining mountain gorillas live on either side of the border between Rwanda and DR Congo, as well as in Uganda. On the Rwandan side, …

  Amsterdam / AFP Seals peep from Amsterdam’s famous canals, while rare bats huddle in the eaves of houses, next to nesting birds. Wildlife — of the animal kind — is on the rise in the teeming Dutch capital. More than 10,000 different animal species roam the city’s nooks and crannies, sharing space already packed with around 800,000 Amsterdamers and …