Lifestyle

Sunlit Greece seeks to lure Europeans amid winter energy crisis

With most of Europe struggling with soaring energy costs, Greece has launched an initiative to put its mild winters to good use and attract sun-seeking travellers all year round.. With northern European countries facing much longer and bitterly cold winters, "energy-wise there are many more needs than here in the south where the winter is mild" and shorter, he added.

Restoring French West Africa's capital to its original splendour

An intricately detailed balcony, a coat of fresh paint and large bay windows opening onto the street: this house, in Saint-Louis, northern Senegal, has regained its former glory. . With its grid street plan, large, airy houses and metal bridge linking it to the mainland, the island of Saint-Louis -- which sits in the Senegal River delta -- still offers glimpses of a former era, when it was enriched by the trade of slaves, gum arabic and animal skins.

The Russians helping Ukrainian refugees in Bulgaria

When Ukrainian Elena Bondarenko fled to Bulgaria after Russia invaded, she never imagined she would be taken in by a Russian there.. Of the some 932,000, who fled to Bulgaria since the invasion, only some 51,000 remain with less than 10,000 put up by the state, according to official data.

France bets on tech and transparency to beat Chinese caviar

At the fish farm near Bordeaux, Christophe Baudoin is running an ultrasound device over the belly of a large sturgeon to check its eggs.. Farming only started in France in the 1990s, and since it takes up to a decade to raise a sturgeon, progress is painstaking. 

New Zealand team smash wind-powered land speed record

A New Zealand-based sailing team said on Monday it had smashed the wind-powered land speed world record, clocking 222.4 kilometres (138.19 miles) per hour in Australia.. Onboard computers recorded a speed that far surpassed the previous wind-powered land record of 202.9 kilometres per hour set by British engineer Richard Jenkins in 2009.

Blind surfer Matt Formston: conquering the world's biggest waves

Matt Formston proudly shows off a photo of him surfing a liquid mountain off the Portuguese coast, where some of the biggest waves on the planet crash to shore.. "For a blind surfer to go to the biggest waves on the planet at Nazare, and then to surf waves from 10 to 12 meters...

Top China expert says Covid 'spreading rapidly' after rules easing

One of China's top health experts has warned of a surge in Covid-19 cases, state media said Sunday, in the wake of the government's decision to abandon its hardline coronavirus strategy.. Top epidemiologist Zhong Nanshan told state media in an interview published Sunday that the Omicron strain of the virus prevalent in China was highly transmissible and could lead to a surge in cases.

Cash crops: Dutch use bitcoin mining to grow tulips

Tulips and bitcoin have both been associated with financial bubbles in their time, but in a giant greenhouse near Amsterdam the Dutch are trying to make them work together.. This saw prices for a single bulb rise to more than 100 times the average annual income at the time before the bubble burst in 1637, causing banks to fail and people to lose their life savings.

'Everything increasing except wages': inflation batters Ethiopia

"Everything is increasing except our wages," Ethiopian porter Zerihun told AFP, summing up the financial crisis facing the Horn of Africa nation as it reels from skyrocketing inflation and an economic slowdown.. The slowdown in trade with the north has also seen fewer trucks turning up at Merkato, meaning less work for porters like Zerihun and Sintayeh.

Black chefs carve out a place in Brazilian cuisine

From a tiny restaurant on a dead-end street come the enticing aromas of chicken, pork and shrimp as an award-winning chef slowly steams dim sum -- the finger food typical of Cantonese cuisine.. Reis had worked in several restaurants but never made it all the way to chef.