Lima, Peru | The lowly vulture is a dirty scavenger to many, but Peruvian environmental authorities have recast the birds as superheroes and outfitted them with high-tech gear in a bid to crack down on illegal garbage dumps.
Wearing GPS trackers and mini video cameras, 10 vultures with mythological names have been dispatched to lead authorities to the illegal dumps whose runoff pollutes the rivers and Pacific coastline of the Peruvian capital Lima.
In a public service announcement that looks like a Hollywood action movie preview, a "vulture" describes the campaign as a life-and-death battle between the teeming city's human population and the ominous menace of disease-carrying trash.
"Fourteen thousand years have passed since this struggle began," he says in a gravelly voice.
"On one hand, pestilence and disease are hidden among the filth. On the other hand, humanity is placidly ignoring the danger that threatens."
Lima is known for the flocks of vultures that feed at its four landfills and the countless illegal dumps where an estimated 20 percent of its trash ends up.
They are often seen as pests by the city's nearly 10 million inhabitants, who according to officials throw away 2.1 million tonnes of garbage a year.
But Captain Phoenix, Captain Aella and the other vultures drafted into the environment ministry's program are now the protagonists in a creative social media campaign, which aims to raise awareness about the problem and get Lima residents to report illegal dumps and throw away less trash.
"Vultures are our allies in the reduction of organic waste," program coordinator Javier Hernandez told AFP.
"In their search for food, what they're really doing is identifying places where there is organic matter and garbage. We're using that... to get the GPS coordinates and monitor these sites."
The 10 vultures, which have all been certified disease-free, are specially trained to fly back to their keepers after each outing. Video footage they take along the way will be posted online.
The campaign website and video with English subtitles are at www.gallinazoavisa.pe.
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil | Outside, workers are sweating in the tropical heat as they rush to finish building Rio de Janeiro's Olympic venues.
But inside the Brazilian city's newest bar, you need a parka and gloves to keep your fingers from freezing to your drink.
Using 130 tonnes of ice, a supermarket chain has built Rio's first "ice bar" in the upscale beachside neighborhood of Barra da Tijuca, complete with ice sculptures of the Christ the Redeemer statue and Sugarloaf mountain, two icons of the city.
Brazilians are known for saying they like their beer "stupidly cold," but the bar takes that to a whole new level: the temperature dips as low as -10 degrees Celsius (14 Fahrenheit).
The thermometer outside meanwhile registers temperatures in the 40s (over 100 Fahrenheit).
Similar bars have already been launched in other parts of the world, but never in the tropical swelter of Rio.
"This is an idea we brought over from London... from European cities, mainly. The big difference, the funny part, is doing it in a city like Rio," said Jose Rafael Vazquez, director general of the supermarket chain behind the bar, Prezunic.
Admission is by invitation only. To get an invite, shoppers have to buy about $15 worth of the beer that sponsors the bar.
Patrons get a parka and gloves when they arrive, then proceed to an intermediary room heated to 17 degrees.
After getting acclimated for five minutes, they enter the frosty realm of the purple- and blue-hewed bar, where the chairs, couches and tables are all made of ice.
Just 20 clients at a time can enter the bar, which is near the 2016 Olympic park, and they can only stay for 20 minutes.
Prezunic says it is expecting 20,000 visitors in two months.
Washington, United States | Those billion-dollar tech startups known as "unicorns," which feasted on record capital inflows for much of last year, are facing tougher challenges for funding, a survey showed.
Venture-backed startups globally saw a 30 percent drop in funding in the fourth quarter to $27.2 billion, according to the survey by KPMG and research firm CB Insights.
The number of funding rounds fell 13 percent from the previous quarter to 1,742.
Some of the exuberance has worn off after the feverish pace of funding in the first nine months of 2015, according to the report.
"Although it ended with a bit of a whimper, 2015 was a gargantuan year for venture capital-backed companies. In aggregate, they raised the most money since 2000," said Anand Sanwal, chief executive of CB Insights.
For the year, the report found $128 billion in venture funding for startups, up 44 percent from 2014. The number of funding rounds was more than 7,800.
Yet the latter part of the year saw some signs of cooling, with less funding and writedowns in the value of some hot startups, the researchers noted.
Unicorns -- a moniker designed to highlight the relatively rare occurrence of billion-dollar startups -- have been growing as companies found private equity funding without using the conventional path of a stock market initial public offering (IPO).
But some venture capital investors have been warning about a bubble in private funding values, and these fears have been borne out to a degree in late 2015.
"A number of IPOs fell short of recent private valuations, no doubt rattling VC investor confidence," the report said.
"In the US, several mutual funds marked down a number of startup valuations related to 'unicorn' companies -- no doubt prompting more scrutiny of additional VC investment activities."
Mobile payments startup Square made its stock market debut in November, raising $243 million at a market value of $3 billion -- or roughly half the level from its latest private funding round.
Several other startups such as the social network Snapchat and benefits administrator Zenefits have seen their valuations slashed, although the biggest unicorns such as Uber and Airbnb have seen their values continue to rise.
The latest trends have fueled fears of "wounded unicorns" and lower valuations, which could spill over to publicly traded tech firms.
- Unicorn 'births' down -The report cited 72 unicorn "births" in 2015, but only 12 in the fourth quarter. CB Insights in a separate report said there were 150 unicorns worldwide as of Friday with a total valuation of $525 billion.
"An uncertain global economy, a projected slowdown in China, and expected interest rate increases following the recent increase in the US appear to be driving many VC investors to be more cautious," the report said.
The report added that venture investors are paying closer attention to the profit potential of startups, not just how fast they are expanding.
"Up until the third quarter of 2015, we saw as much capital going into companies that were generating negative cash flows as those that were generating positive ones," said Brian Hughes of KPMG's venture capital practice.
"Now, there's been a divergence. In 2016, the fundamentals are really going to start to matter again. Startups that may be operating with negative gross margins, excessive burn rates and inflated valuations will be the most impacted."
The report said tech startups took in some 78 percent of venture funding in the past quarter, a level consistent over the past year.
By region, North America received the largest amount in the quarter ($14.1 billion) but the drop from the past quarter was 32 percent.
Asian startups raised $9.7 billion in the quarter, a drop of more than 31 percent, while European startups took in $3 billion, down 17 percent.
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Paris, France | Former "Baywatch" star Pamela Anderson set feathers flying in the French parliament when she turned up to support a ban on force-feeding ducks and geese to make foie gras.
The 48-year-old one-time Playboy model was invited to parliament by a member of the green EELV party, which wants to introduce a draft law to ban the practice.
Anderson appealed to lawmakers to abolish force-feeding, saying that "foie gras is not a healthy product and does not have a place in a civilised society. These ducks did not have a single day of happiness in their short lives."
The appearance of the Canadian-born actress, now an animal rights activist, caused a rare commotion in the assembly as ushers had to call police to control photographers and cameramen crowding the entrance to the small room hosting her press conference.
However to many lawmakers and foie gras producers, Anderson's presence was a political stunt that has not gone down well.
"Pamela Anderson's visit gets on my nerves and I am fed up with it," said a spokesman for the ruling Socialists Hugues Fourage, in an apparently deliberate pun.
"It is political theatre."
The Hunting, Fishing, Nature and Traditions (CPNT) movement slammed the ecologist deputy who invited her, Laurence Abeille, saying she "preferred turkeys stuffed with silicon to good geese stuffed with maize from (the regions) Landes and Perigord."
Abeille hit back at "particularly shocking, sexist, chauvinist, misogynistic comments."
Anderson "is strongly committed to us continuing to eat well, without inflicting harm on animals".
Anderson's press conference was co-organised by the foundation belonging to Brigitte Bardot -- another star turned animal activist -- which released results of a poll showing that 70 percent of French people are opposed to force-feeding "given that there are alternatives" to produce foie gras.
"Foie gras is not a symbol of festivity, but a symbol of death, and force-feeding is an absolutely outrageous barbarity," Bardot said in a statement from her home in St. Tropez.
Foie gras -- literally fattened liver -- is a traditional French delicacy enjoyed by millions, particularly at Christmas and special occasions.
Force-feeding ducks and geese to make foie gras -- a practice known as "gavage" -- has been banned in several countries but remains legal in France.
However, the European Union ruled in 2011 that birds cannot be kept in individual cages and gave farms until the end of 2015 to comply.
Abeille's campaign was particularly badly received as producers are already battling an outbreak of bird flu.
Japan in December banned imports of French foie gras due to the outbreak of H5N1, which has been detected on 69 farms in southwestern France, where the bulk of French foie gras is produced.
Poultry farmers have been told that they can continue rearing the adult birds they have in production, but not raise any new chicks until their farms have been certified as sanitised.
France, which produces 75 percent of global foie gras, exported nearly 5,000 tonnes of it in 2014.
The thick liver pate is made by using a tube to force-feed corn into ducks and geese, fattening them to around four times their natural body weight.
New York, United States | Alternative rock giants Pearl Jam announced a new tour of North America that will include a headlining slot at leading summer festival Bonnaroo.
The rockers will open the 22-date tour on April 8 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and also play the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival as well as two dates each at a pair of historic baseball stadiums, Fenway Park in Boston and Chicago's Wrigley Field.
Led by singer Eddie Vedder, Pearl Jam rose to stardom in the grunge era of the early 1990s but persevered to become one of the decade's top-selling bands, combining a left-leaning political sensibility with arena rock.
Pearl Jam last toured North America in 2014 and played across Latin America late last year.
Bonnaroo, whose June 9-12 edition will mark its 15th anniversary, has won a loyal following by creating a free-spirited communal atmosphere each year in rural Tennessee.
Announcing its lineup late Tuesday, Bonnaroo said that other headliners would include Dead and Company, the jam band that includes most surviving members of legendary countercultural act the Grateful Dead.
Bonnaroo will also showcase LCD Soundsystem, the influential New York electronic band, who will reunite two months earlier at the Coachella festival in California.
To mark 15 years, Bonnaroo also announced improvements at its venue -- affectionately called "The Farm" by fans -- that include flush toilets.
London, United Kingdom —Web surfers will be able to peek into the gilded interiors of Queen Elizabeth II's home in a new virtual reality tour launched by Google.
Buckingham Palace, the queen's primary residence, has opened its doors to the tech giant for 360-degree photos of some of its richly-decorated rooms.
The tour can be viewed on a computer or in 3D on a mobile phone through the official British Monarchy YouTube channel -- one of several digital initiatives adopted by the royal household in recent years.
Visitors are welcomed by a virtual Master of the Household and then guided by curator Anna Reynolds through lavish chambers including the Throne Room.
At the end of the video, which lasts around 10 minutes, virtual visitors are also shown a secret door through which the queen arrives at receptions.
The programme is intended for schoolchildren and was created under Google's Expedition programme.
Instead of having a virtual guide, teachers dictate the tour and highlight interesting topics for pupils.
"For schoolchildren, Buckingham Palace is one of the most iconic, magical buildings in the world," said Jemima Rellie, director of content at the Royal Collection Trust which worked together with Google.
Jennifer Holland, Expedition's programme manager, launched the tour at an event in London with pupils from a school in east London.
"We asked them, if you could go anywhere in the world where would you want to go and they replied -- Buckingham Palace," she said.
The photos for the tour were taken last week with a 16-camera rig placed in a circle.
The virtual tour will also be available through the official British Monarchy YouTube channel.
Warsaw, Poland | Ninety-year-old Auschwitz survivor Batszewa Dagan said she had donated a pair of miniature shoes that helped her live through the Holocaust to the museum at the site of the former Nazi German death camp.
The Polish-born Israeli received the tiny, handmade good luck charm from a fellow inmate at the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp in southern Poland during World War II, when she was just a teenager.
"(The woman) was sad and she was talking about her daughter, how she missed her, and was thinking if she would ever leave this place," Dagan said in a statement released on the museum website.
"And she made me a surprise. She made these tiny shoes for me. She said, 'Let them carry you to freedom'," she added of the slippers barely a centimetre (half an inch) in length.
The woman, whose name and fate are lost to history, was a German Jew who had been deported to Auschwitz while her policeman husband and daughter stayed behind.
"And how did she make them? She found a piece of thin leather, somebody gave her a needle and she also had some thread... And she made these shoes," Dagan added.
The poet and author of numerous publications used to teach children and teenagers about the Holocaust also spent time at other Nazi German camps before moving to Israel after the war.
One million European Jews died between 1940 and 1945 at the Auschwitz camp in the southern city of Oswiecim.
More than 100,000 others including non-Jewish Poles, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war and anti-Nazi resistance fighters also died there, according to the museum.
A record 1.72 million people visited the site in 2015, 70 years after the Soviets liberated the death camp.
Stockholm, Sweden | "Mamma mia"! The four members of Swedish 1970s pop phenomenon ABBA were reunited in Stockholm , but sadly for fans only for the opening of a restaurant.
Questioned by reporters Benny Andersson, the one on the piano, insisted that he didn't think the four of them would be getting back together on stage.
"We are here to party," said his co-composer Bjorn Ulvaeus, the one on the guitar.
Together with singers Agnetha Faltskog, the one with the long blond hair, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad, the brunette, they formed Abba, the pop group which took the world by storm in the 1970s and early 1980s with hits such as "Waterloo" and "Dancing Queen".
The famous quartet who were once married to each other hadn't been seen out together since 2008. On Friday they arrived and left separately and wouldn't be photographed together.
Abba have sold more than 380 million album worldwide since their breakthrough at the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest.
London, United Kingdom | Vegans and strict vegetarians will soon be able to sup a hearty pint of the black stuff, after Guinness revealed it will remove fish guts from the brewing process.
British drinks giant Diageo announced y that its iconic St James's Gate Brewery in Dublin will stop using isinglass -- a gelatinous byproduct of the fishing industry -- in its filtration methods for Guinness.
"We are at the beginning of the project to install the new system," a company spokeswoman told AFP.
"It is a complex project and will take many months to install and test before it goes live and is used in the production of Guinness.
"We hope to have the new system up and running by late 2016 with the liquid on the shelves for consumers to buy soon after."
Diageo has long faced demands from vegans to remove isinglass from its production of Ireland's unofficial national drink.
"Our brewers and engineering teams at St James’s Gate are continually working to drive improvement as well as assuring the quality and craft of the brewing techniques developed here over the last 256 years," Diageo added in a statement.
"Isinglass has been used widely within the brewing industry as a means of filtration for decades.
"However, because of its use we could not label Guinness as suitable for vegetarians and have been looking for an alternative solution for some time.
"We are now pleased to have identified a new process through investment in a state-of-the-art filtration system at St James’s Gate which, once in place, will remove the use of isinglass in the brewing process."
Seoul, South Korea | South Korea's LG Display said it planned to invest close to $9.0 billion in a new plant to produce organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays, anticipating a surge in demand for the ultra high-definition technology.
Total investment in the plant, to be built in Paju near the border with North Korea, is expected to top 10 trillion won ($8.7 billion), the company said.
Expenditure in the first stage has been set at 1.84 trillion won, with production scheduled to begin in the first half of 2018.
LG Display CEO Han Sang-Beom hailed what he called an "historical investment" that would make the plant the "centre of the global OLED industry."
OLED screens deliver a more vivid picture quality, consume less electricity and promise wider profit margins than the liquid crystal display (LCD) in common use.
LG Display is currently the world's largest LCD panel producer but has been signalling a major shift to the more advanced OLED technology for some time.
Citing market research firm IHS, the company said the global OLED panel market was forecast to grow to $29.1 billion in 2022 from $8.7 billion last year.
Much of the growth could be fuelled by reports that Apple plans to adopt OLED screens on its iPhone from 2018.
Apple is LG Display’s biggest customer, accounting for about 25 percent of sales.
South Korean rival Samsung Display Co. currently dominates the market for smartphone OLEDs, mainly supplying the ultra-thin screens to parent Samsung Electronics Co. and to Chinese smartphone makers.
