Having a few extra minutes, I visited the site to see what the connection between a mobile phone, the pomegranate and coffee. What I saw was a site for a device that purports to market a new mobile phone/swiss army tool. It makes coffee (hence my initial thinking the newspaper add was for a coffee machine), it has built in harmonica and electric shaver and other tools (see very cheesy and not funny videos on the site). It’s only when you click on the ‘Release Date’ that this site’s true intentions are revealed.

While the La Nina weather pattern is delivering rain to farmers after the worst drought in a century, it’s cutting profits for cafe owners, travel agents and insurers. Insurance Australia Group Ltd., the nation’s largest home insurer, last week posted a sixth straight profit decline after hail storms cost it A$105 million ($97 million). The yearly `Symphony in the Park,’ which usually attracts 80,000 people, had 700 this year as the orchestra played behind a tarpaulin during a downpour.

In Iran, where men and women are segregated, and homosexuality is punishable by death, the government plans to spend 6 billion rials ($647,000) this year to help pay for sex- change operations. The policies aren’t as contradictory as they seem, because in traditional societies there is more pressure to conform to standard gender roles, says Mahdis Kamkar, a Tehran psychologist who works with transsexuals.

Iran authorized such operations in 1984 under a decree issued by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The government considers transsexuals to be people who are “trapped” in a body of the wrong sex, says Mohammad Mehdi Kariminia, a cleric who wrote a thesis on the rights and duties of transsexuals.

“It’s extremely enlightened thinking, and it’s most welcome,” says Bernard Reed, who founded the Gender Identity Research and Education Society in Surrey, England, which promotes transgender issues in the U.K. “Would you see President Bush or Tony Blair making such a statement?”

via Bloomberg

Though only 410 feet up, there’s no gas cooking because of safety concerns. All the decor had to be light so as not to weigh on the 118-year-old iron structure. And because space is tight, food is washed and prepared in an underground kitchen

Like much of the developing world, Vietnam is caught between one era of pushcarts and foot-pedals, and a generation growing accustomed to SUVs and mobile phones. As the one-party, communist state embraces capitalism and foreign trade, Vietnam’s gross domestic product growth is poised to hit 8.5 percent this year–the fastest in Asia, next to China. Although progress since the doi moi free-market reforms in 1986 came in fits and starts, growth has exceeded 7 percent annually for the past decade.

Vietnam has come a long way since the “American War” more than three decades ago, when it was among the poorest nations in the world. Most Vietnamese were born after the former North and South Vietnam merged, with more than two-thirds of the population younger than 30, and half under 25.

Vietnam’s 17 million Internet users make up 20 percent of its population, and surveys show more young people using the Internet than even tech-savvy India. Literacy is a strong 94 percent.

Read the full piece to get a phenomological sense of how IT and the internet are pervading into this once (and in many ways still is) damaged country.

The tournament began with fireworks and ended with former (Toronto Maple) Leaf John Anderson’s American team, led by Chicago draft pick Nathan Davis, beating Israel for the gold medal. Canada defeated France for the bronze. And in a country where the national pastimes are politics, survival, religion and conflict, sport was somehow the victor.

This is a warm article that speaks of contrasts: contrasts in culture, surroundings and even the eye of the media towards Israel. It is well worth your attention.

A few months back, the BBC reported that Delhi was going to get tough on street food, setting and enforcing sanitation standards apparently to spruce up for the 2010 Commonwealth Games.

But when I recently strolled Delhi’s famous Chandni Chowk neighborhood—where humans, dogs, and cows dodge cars, rickshaws, and mule carts—street food was as plentiful as ever. One gol gappa seller offered a small mountain of puri (crunchy little oval-shaped fried breads) piled high on a large metal plate, with pani (a watery mint chutney) in a dented metal vessel underneath. He placed the puri in a small banana-leaf bowl, deftly poked a hole in one, filled it with mashed potatoes and chickpeas, and ladled pani over it along with some tamarind chutney.

But in Chandni Chowk, most of the cooking is not street cooking; it takes place in storefronts and is brought to street stands to sell. Walking in the congested streets and narrow alleys is difficult enough; setting up a kitchen with cooking oil and gas tanks would be virtually impossible.

Read on…

After a perfunctory presentation of flowers to the giant, bronze statue of Kim Il-sung in central Pyongyang, we checked into the Sosan Hotel, a 30-story faux-brick building surrounded by sports fields on the city’s edge. The hotel, with its immense chandeliers and dark hallways, is a microcosm of the nation.

After I complained about the absence of hot water, one of our North Korean handlers shot back that I was experiencing a result of the crippling energy shortage caused by U.S. sanctions. Heady stuff, considering I just wanted a hot shower.

The tour itself followed a well-worn path of tourist destinations, in a comfortable, Japanese-made bus. First was the heavily guarded border with South Korea at Panmunjom, where soldiers on both sides stare at each other across an unfenced concrete strip. The North Korean tale is rather similar to the South’s, which I’d heard on a tour from the other side a few years ago: The other side started it, and they’ll invade again given half a chance.

Despite having only about 300,000 cars, North Korea takes traffic control seriously. It is unique in having four-color traffic lights (the fourth-—for turning right—is blue) and in Pyongyang, a corps of female traffic directors—reportedly hand-picked by Kim Jong Il for their beauty—step in during the power outages.

And

At times, Pyongyang operates an “alternate suspension of electricity supply” system, meaning that buildings are blacked out only on one side of each street. Children plan their TV-watching accordingly, rushing across the street to catch the end of a show when the power switches. It’s less fun for the elderly, who rarely leave their apartments for fear of being trapped in an elevator with no power. Officially these power (and gas) shortages don’t exist; people in Pyongyang walk to work because it’s healthy. That’s why Sunday is officially a “walking day” with curtailed public transportation, and a “walking campaign” urges students and citizens to pursue bipedal locomotion for “health reasons.”

The building is a large glittering of organic walls. What is interesting about this center as a national art gallery is that it will not have a permanent collection, or even stockpile art. Instead, the NAC will have a rotating program of temporary and visiting exhibitions.

For more information on the design of the NAC checkout Arcspace’s overview, which has loads of great pictures, and Kisho Kurokawa and Associates’ website.

There are two reasons why Pinot from New Zealand can be especially wonderful. One is the marginality of the climate—the best wine tends to be made from grapes that are grown in places where they only just get ripe. Of course, this leaves little margin for error; a slightly-cooler-than-average year can be devastating. A couple of New Zealand’s top Pinot areas will have very small harvests this year because of frost problems.

The other reason for the upswing in Kiwi Pinot is the maturing of its winemakers. For years, New Zealand produced textbook wines; they were technically pure and clinically accurate, but never really interesting. That’s changed now—the winemakers have grown more worldly, more confident, and they’re employing techniques that make the wines more complex and interesting, such as using stems and indigenous yeast fermentations.

For my taste, some of the best Pinot Noirs come from British Columbia’s Okanagen Valley winery Nk’Mip.