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Bangkok, Thailand | An ancient world of swords, warriors and folklore roars to life on the darkened street, offering a momentary escape from the modern-day bustle of Bangkok's unstoppable development.
McLean, United States | When a person's immune system is impaired by a genetic disease, a bone-marrow transplant can be a powerful therapeutic tool, but with a major downside: during the first few months the recipient's defenses against viruses are severely weakened. The slightest infection can lead to a hospital trip.
Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan |Kyrgyzstan hoped for a fillip for its tourism after the distinctive headgear traditionally worn by its men, the ak-kalpak, won UNESCO intangible heritage status.
Inclusion on the prestigious global list "has some very positive aspects for us -- including for tourism, to attract tourism to our country," said deputy culture and tourism minister, Maksat Uulu Damir.
"This gives the international community a chance to get to know our mountainous country."
UNESCO annually announces a list of cultural artifacts that encapsulate the spirit and heritage of their countries. Those added this month included traditional Thai massage.
The embroidered high hat is already so revered in its Central Asian homeland that it has its own national day.
Usually made from felt, the four-panelled hat symbolises "the peaks of the magnificent Kyrgyz mountains, forever snow-capped," former presidential advisor and regular ak-kalpak wearer Topchubek Turgunaliyev told AFP.
A locally made ak-kalpak costs from $20, although cheaper synthetic versions made in China are also sold at bazaars.
Ak-kalpak day has been celebrated on March 5 since 2016 when crowds carried a 3-metre-high ak-kalpak hat around the centre of the capital Bishkek.
The hat is also set to be protected by domestic law.
A parliamentary committee has approved a bill raising the status of the ak-kalpak, putting it on a par with the national anthem and flag.
During a parliamentary debate, one lawmaker proposed punishing any act of disrespect to the hat with a fine of 1,000 soms, or around $15.
The bill, which lawmakers are expected to approve, followed a scandal in 2017 when a dog taking part in a show was photographed wearing the hat.
In April, a Kyrgyz-born mixed martial arts fighter Valentina "The Bullet" Shevchenko also offended some when she briefly put on the hat, traditionally only worn by men, during a visit to the country.
There have also been calls in the parliament to bestow the same status on the elechek, a women's turban made from a long piece of white cloth that wraps underneath the chin.
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Bastogne, Belgium |
Seventy-five years after the snow bound hills of the Ardennes saw the bloody turning point of World War II, surviving veterans gathered for perhaps the last time.
On Monday, they were honoured by a king, a grand duke, two presidents, two prime ministers and a US defence chief at solemn ceremonies in both Belgium and Luxembourg.
The Battle of the Bulge was the last German offensive of the war, and the Siege of Bastogne was the scene of a heroic and now famous defence by American paratroopers.
"Outnumbered nearly five-to-one, lacking cold-weather gear, and short on food, ammunition, and medical supplies, the American paratroopers refused to give up," US defence secretary Mark Esper said.
"Many of these men perished amid the thundering forests of the Ardennes," said Esper, himself a more recent combat veteran of the 101st Airborne, which in 1944 held the line bravely.
"And since the battlefield fell silent long ago, most of the veterans of that era have passed. However, we are blessed to have with us today a group of heroes who still walk among us."
Today, Belgium, the United States and Germany are allies, and Germany's President Frank-Walter Steinmeier took part at a memorial at Mardasson in chill fog and driving rain.
"It is with sadness that I bow my head to all these dead ... victims of the hate and fury that was born in my country," said Steinmeier, accepting German responsibility for unleashing the war.
Veterans, historians and military enthusiasts marked the now legendary close-quarters battle of Bastogne with a spectacular series of weekend re-enactments ahead of Monday's ceremonies.
Bastogne's rescue in late December 1944 by General George "Old Blood and Guts" Patton helped seal his reputation as an American military giant.
But the out-gunned paratroopers of the 101st Airborne -- who held the pocket for a week against advancing German armour -- also claim a share of the glory.
Esper was an officer of these "Screaming Eagles" in the 1991 Gulf War, but on Monday he paid tribute to his comrades from an era that is passing from memory into history.
- 'Nuts!' -
The Belgian town of Bastogne, close to the Luxembourg border in the Ardennes hills, is the focus of the commemoration, as it was of the fighting.
On December 16, 1944, German forces -- which had been falling back before the Allied advance from France since June's D-Day landings -- counter-attacked.
Their goal was to seize the port of Antwerp to deny it to Allied resupply ships, and five of their roads north converged on the small Belgian town.
By December 20, the battle-hardened but lightly armed US paratroopers were surrounded and a German Panzer general demanded their surrender.
"Nuts!" was the one-word reply from the US commander, and the ensuing week-long siege lasted until Patton's Third Army came to the rescue.
On Monday, Philippe, King of the Belgians, and Belgium's prime minister Sophie Wilmes were joined at the Mardasson Memorial by Esper and Steinmeier, and senior envoys from Britain, Canada and France.
The king praised the courage and "determination of our liberators" and recalled the need to always oppose the racist ideology embodied by Nazism.
In the afternoon, the convoy crossed the border to the Luxembourg Military Cemetery and Memorial in Hamm, Patton's last resting place, received by the duchy's Grand Duke Henri and Prime Minister Xavier Bettel.
General Patton died in a road accident during the 1945 occupation of a defeated Germany, but was buried in the Ardennes with comrades from his famous victory.
His granddaughter Helen Patton has spent the days leading up to the memorial greeting veterans on battlefield visits.
The then 59-year-old Patton reached the summit of his glory when he relieved Bastogne and the survivors of the 18,000 encircled men.
- Artillery barrage -
The overall Battle of the Bulge would rage across the Ardennes for six weeks -- drawing in 600,000 American and 25,000 British troops against 400,000 Germans -- until the Allies prevailed in January 1945.
Between 15,000 and 20,000 German troops died, against between 10,000 and 19,000 Americans.
And 3,000 Belgian civilians perished under artillery bombardments or in massacres carried out by the Waffen-SS in villages like Houffalize.
The Bastogne fighting has been recounted by veterans interviewed for the book and television series "Band of Brothers" and entered US military folklore.
But 75 years on, the number of former combatants and witnesses who can attend ceremonies is declining, and Belgium's War Heritage Institute has invited as many as they still can.
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© Agence France-Presse
Los Angeles, United States |Superman's very first movie cape was sold for nearly $200,000 Monday alongside a collection of rare Hollywood memorabilia, the auction house said.
The prop from Christopher Reeve's "Superman", which went for $193,750, headlined Monday's sale of about 400 cinephile items at Julien's Auctions in Los Angeles.
Only six capes in total were used while shooting the film, which came out in 1978.
Multiple costumes from "Star Trek" also found buyers. These included the uniform worn by Patrick Stewart for his role as Captain Jean-Luc Picard, which sold for $28,800.
Leonard Nimoy's Romulan costume from "Star Trek: The Next Generation" sold for $20,000.
Dan Akroyd's jumpsuit from "Ghostbusters II" also went up for auction and was sold for $32,000, according to Julien's Auctions, which specializes in Hollywood collections and memorabilia.
Although it was originally announced as an auction headline item, the pipe of Bilbo Baggins, played by Ian Holm in the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, was not sold at the auction.
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© Agence France-Presse
Berlin, Germany |A few notes scribbled in his notebook are all that German composer Ludwig van Beethoven left of his Tenth Symphony before his death in 1827.
Now, a team of musicologists and programmers is racing to complete a version of the piece using artificial intelligence, ahead of the 250th anniversary of his birth next year.
"The progress has been impressive, even if the computer still has a lot to learn," said Christine Siegert, head of archives at Beethoven House in the composer's hometown of Bonn.
Siegert said she was "convinced" that Beethoven would have approved since he too was an innovator at the time, citing his compositions for the panharmonicon -- a type of organ that reproduces the sounds of wind and percussion instruments.
And she insisted the work would not affect his legacy because it would never be regarded as part of his oeuvre.
The final result of the project will be performed by a full orchestra on April 28 next year in Bonn, a centrepiece of celebrations for a composer who defined the romantic era of classical music.
"It's completely new territory," said Dirk Kaftan, conductor of the Beethoven Orchestra, which will perform the piece.
"We musicians are in two minds about it."
Beethoven, Germany's most famous musical figure, is loved in his homeland and critics of the project are concerned about protecting Beethoven's legacy.
The "national duty" to prepare for the anniversary was even written into a right-left coalition agreement to form a govenment six years ago.
The year of celebrations officially begins on December 16 -- believed to be his 249th birthday.
But a press preview on Friday at the Beethoven House Museum in his native Bonn following a renovation offered insights into his genius, including the notebooks he used to communicate after going deaf in 1801 -- 26 years before his death.
- 'Scope for improvement' -
Beethoven began working on the Tenth Symphony alongside his Ninth, which includes the world-famous "Ode To Joy".
But he quickly gave up on the Tenth, leaving only a few notes and drafts by the time he died aged 57.
In the project, machine-learning software has been fed all of Beethoven's work and is now composing possible continuations of the symphony in the composer's style.
Deutsche Telekom, which is sponsoring the project, hopes to use the findings to develop technology such as voice recognition.
The team said the first results a few months ago were seen as too mechanical and repetitive but the latest AI compositions have been more promising.
Barry Cooper, a British composer and musicologist who himself wrote a hypothetical first movement for the Tenth Symphony in 1988, was more doubtful.
"I listened to a short excerpt that has been created. It did not sound remotely like a convincing reconstruction of what Beethoven intended," said Cooper, a professor at the University of Manchester and the author of several works on Beethoven.
"There is, however, scope for improvement with further work."
Cooper warned that "in any performance of Beethoven's music, there is a risk of distorting his intentions" but this was particularly the case for the Tenth Symphony as the German composer had left only fragmentary material.
Similar AI experiments based on works by Bach, Mahler and Schubert have been less than impressive.
A project earlier this year to complete Schubert's Eighth Symphony was seen by some reviewers as being closer to an American film soundtrack than the Austrian composer's work.
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© Agence France-Presse
Qiandaohu, China | The caviar on the menu of Michelin-starred restaurants may come from an unexpected place: China.
The country has endured embarrassing food scandals in recent years, but its sturgeon eggs have gained the respect of caviar connoisseurs around the world.
It has also become pricier for US buyers as Chinese caviar is among the slew of products hit with 25 percent tariffs in the US-China trade war.
The bulk of China's production comes from a picturesque lake ringed by mountains in eastern Zhejiang province where industry leader Kaluga Queen breeds the giant fish.
The brand was created in 2005 by experts who worked for the ministry of agriculture and it now produces more than a third of the world's caviar, making China the global leader.
The company's sturgeon farm is a 20-minute boat ride away from the shore in Qiandaohu, or Thousands Islands Lake.
Qiao Yuwen, a breeder, stood at the edge of the pools where the animals live until they are between the ages of seven and 15.
The biggest sturgeons can grow to be four meters (13 feet) long and weigh 300 kilos (660 pounds).
"They're like our babies. We see them from when they're very young, so it's hard when they are sent to be slaughtered," Qiao said.
"But there's also, of course, the satisfaction of having contributed to making an exceptional product," he said before throwing pellets containing shrimp, peas and vitamins to the fish.
- 'Price of a Ferrari' -
For a long time, Iran and Russia fished sturgeon in the wild in the Caspian Sea.
But the fish population was nearly decimated by overfishing and poaching after the Soviet Union, which had regulated fishing, fell in 1991.
Sturgeon fishing in the Caspian Sea was banned in 2008 while sturgeon farms have sprung up everywhere, with Italy, France and China among the world leaders in the industry.
Kaluga Queen has 300 employees looking after some 200,000 sturgeons.
Once they reach sexual maturity, females are fished out and taken to a laboratory where they are stunned before their bellies are sliced open to extract the black eggs.
The roe is then washed, sorted, salted and placed in boxes.
Kaluga Queen produced 86 tonnes of caviar last year, most of it destined for exports, with half going to the European Union, 20 percent to the United States and 10 percent to Russia.
Depending on the species, the price per kilo varies between 10,000 and 180,000 yuan ($1,420 to $25,600).
Sturgeons producing the most expensive caviar can carry as much as two million yuan worth of eggs.
"It's the price of a Ferrari," said Xia Yongtao, the company's vice president.
- 'Very good caviar' -
Kaluga Queen has walked a "long road" to win the trust of customers since the company produced its first jar in 2006, Xia said.
Chinese caviar had to overcome scepticism from foreign clients who were used to headlines about food scandals, from contaminated milk powder to soy sauce containing arsenic and rice tainted with cadmium.
"A few years ago, customers were reluctant when we talked about Chinese caviar," said Raphael Bouchez, president of Kaviari, a Paris-based supplier to renowned restaurants.
Bouchez convinced customers by explaining how Chinese producers raise fish and use methods that respect the environment.
"Chinese caviar, it must be said, is a very good caviar," Bouchez said.
"That said, many of the chefs still do not want it. They prefer to have caviar from France, Uruguay, or elsewhere," he said.
Today, Kaluga Queen has an annual turnover of 220 million yuan and counts among its customers German airline Lufthansa and L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon, a two Michelin stars restaurant in Shanghai.
Distributors supply other restaurants around the world, and one buyer said he had delivered one shipment to Kim Jong Un, according to Xia.
French chef Guy Savoy, whose Paris restaurant has three Michelin stars and is rated the best in the world, uses Chinese caviar with skate wings and scallops.
"The label 'made in China' does not matter," Savoy told AFP. "The important thing is the quality of the breeding. Those supplied to us are of remarkable quality."
Lily Liu, Kaluga Queen's marketing manager, hopes someone else can try her company's caviar.
"We hope that Donald Trump will taste our caviar and say: 'I like it! Let's reduce tariffs and help Chinese caviar conquer America!"
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© Agence France-Presse
Mexico City, Mexico |It's a sunny morning in Mexico City, and police officers drip with sweat as they do push-ups and squats, part of a program for overweight cops in one of the world's most obese countries.
The two dozen officers grimacing through their workout on the pavement of the station house yard -- most with round bellies bulging beneath their drenched T-shirts -- are just a handful of the more than 1,000 across the capital who have enrolled in the program, "Healthy Police."
They get a bonus of 1,000 pesos (about $50) a month to participate -- though judging by the looks on their faces as their instructor shouts encouragement to finish one more set, some of them seem to doubt whether it's worth it.
But those who stick with the program, which was launched three months ago, say it can be life-changing.
"This was all completely new to me... The first month was tough, both mentally and physically," said one, Mauricio Barrera.
"But the program has helped me understand that obesity is an illness," the 26-year-old told AFP.
Barrera, who now looks fit and trim, cracked a grin when he revealed how much weight he has lost since he started: 16 kilos (35 pounds).
"This program is a way to fight the obesity problem we have in Mexico, the sedentary lifestyle," said Javier Ramirez, the buff fitness instructor guiding the beat cops through their routine.
"We want them to be in optimal condition so they can do their jobs effectively."
- Obesity epidemic -
Three-quarters of adults in Mexico are overweight or obese, according to national statistics.
Its obesity rate -- nearly one-third of the adult population -- is second only to the United States in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a 36-member group of developed countries.
Mexico's obesity epidemic is driving high rates of diabetes and heart disease, according to public health experts.
Officials have started looking for ways to combat the problem.
In 2014, the country leveled a tax on soda and other sugary beverages. One study estimates it will save 18,900 lives and more than $983 million over 10 years.
This year, Congress also passed a law requiring manufacturers to put warning labels on junk foods high in sugar, sodium or saturated fat.
- 'Body feels the difference' -
Mexico City's 83,000-member police force is not immune to the problem.
"My health was poor, and I was getting tired at work," said officer Graciela Benitez, 36, taking a break from her crunches.
She has lost around 10 kilos since she started the program, which also includes nutrition counseling sessions to help officers eat a more healthful, balanced diet.
"I used to feel sleepy after lunch. I was tired when I got to work," said Benitez.
"Now, I don't get tired. My body feels the difference."
The authorities are hoping she will serve as an example for more obese police.
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© Agence France-Presse
