Nairobi / DPA Sewing machines clatter and fumes from charcoal-burning irons fill the narrow aisles hung about with lengths of fabric in the Gikomba Market in Nairobi, one of the largest second-hand clothing markets in Africa. It is 7 am, and traders are already heaving large wooden carts fully laden with second-hand clothes pressed into plastic-covered packs weighing some …

  Gross Pampau / DPA Amateur palaeontologist Wolfgang Hoepfner painstakingly removed all the dirt surrounding some fossilized bones, gradually revealing the skeleton of a 6-metre baleen whale, 11 million years after it had died in the North Sea. “For a palaeontologist like me, it was almost like winning the lottery,” he later explained with pride. Fossil hunting is a hobby …

  ABU DHABI / Reuters Billionaire Mohamed Alabbar, one of Dubai’s most prominent businessmen, plans a phone messaging service for the Middle East that aims to compete with services such as WhatsApp. Alabbar, who made his fortune as the chairman of Dubai’s largest listed property developer, Emaar Properties, has been moving into other areas, in particular technology. Asked on the …