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Africa
2:25 am
Tue July 10, 2012

Mubarak's Dream Remains Just That In Egypt's Desert

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Credit Holly Pickett / Redux
A sign on undeveloped land welcomes visitors to "New Toshka City." Toshka was to be a new settlement along the Upper Nile Valley, complete with enough jobs and infrastructure to support the relocation of 20 million Egyptians from polluted and over-crowded cities.
Credit Holly Pickett / Redux
An empty water canal at Sheikh Zayed, near Toshka. Fifteen years after the project's inception, there are just 21,000 hectares of farmland, no schools or hospitals have been built, and the food produced is mainly for export to benefit private landholders.
Credit Holly Pickett / Redux
Fishing boat captain Adel Mohamed Hussein (right), at Sheikh Zayed Canal, is one of the few Egyptians who has benefited from the Toshka project.
Credit Holly Pickett / Redux
Engineer Mamduh Diab, chief of agricultural affairs for the South Valley Company, stands among grapevines on the company's land.
Credit Holly Pickett / Redux
Wheat grows on South Valley Company's land.
Credit Holly Pickett / Redux
Laborers pull weeds from watermelon fields on South Valley Company land in Toshka.
Credit Holly Pickett / Redux
Water pumped from Lake Nasser cascades down an irrigation canal to crops on South Valley Company land.
Credit Holly Pickett / Redux
Yasmine, 16, prunes green grapes at Saudi-owned KADCO.
Credit Holly Pickett / Redux
An industrial-sized sprinkler waters alfalfa plants at Saudi-owned Kingdom Agricultural Development Company (KADCO).
Credit Holly Pickett / Redux
Khaled Mohamed tills the soil after a wheat harvest at KADCO.
Credit Holly Pickett / Redux
Critics say Egypt lacks the means to transport large quantities of wheat and other produce from Toshka to the rest of the country.
Credit Holly Pickett / Redux
A sign on undeveloped land welcomes visitors to "New Toshka City." Toshka was to be a new settlement along the Upper Nile Valley, complete with enough jobs and infrastructure to support the relocation of 20 million Egyptians from polluted and overcrowded cities.
Credit Holly Pickett / Redux
Mohamed Abdul Fattah is secretary-general for the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party in Aswan, Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood is adamantly opposed to Toshka and other projects that it links to the excesses of former President Hosni Mubarak.
Credit Holly Pickett / Redux
Ibrahim Dahrouk, a crop manager at Saudi-owned Kingdom Agricultural Development Company in Toshka, says the farm provides hundreds of jobs to local residents, including women. The wages of $6 to $9 a day are considered good for the region.
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Originally published on Tue July 10, 2012 7:57 am

In the middle of southern Egypt's windy desert, wheat fields stretch as far as the eye can see on a 24,000-acre farm. It's part of a grandiose project called Toshka that was dreamed up 15 years ago by the government of Hosni Mubarak, Egypt's authoritarian leader who ruled the country for three decades before being ousted last year.

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Theater
2:23 am
Tue July 10, 2012

A One-Man Madhouse, With Murder On His Mind

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Credit Manuel Harlan / Lincoln Center
Alan Cumming plays Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, Banquo and many other characters in a one-man adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy set in a psychiatric ward. The show plays as part of the Lincoln Center Festival in New York through July 14.
Credit Manuel Harlan / Lincoln Center
Macbeth has been an obsession for Cumming since grade school. He made his professional debut in a Glasgow production at age 22.
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Originally published on Thu July 12, 2012 1:25 pm

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Asia
2:17 am
Tue July 10, 2012

China's Post-Olympic Woe: How To Fill An Empty Nest

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Credit Franck Fife / AFP/Getty Images
Fireworks light the night sky above the National Stadium, known as the Bird's Nest, during the closing ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. The stadium is largely empty these days.
Credit Louisa Lim / NPR
The Bird's Nest, with its cavernous arches, has fewer and fewer visitors these days. Few events can fill a stadium built to seat 91,000.
Credit Louisa Lim / NPR
One money-making scheme has been to lease out Segways to tourists: $20 for a 15-minute ride around the Olympic track at the Bird's Nest.
Credit Liu Jin / AFP/Getty Images
A woman goes snow-tubing in January 2010 inside the Bird's Nest, which was transformed temporarily into a winter theme park.
Credit David Gray / Reuters /Landov
The National Aquatics Center, also known as the "Water Cube," was the Olympics venue for swimming events.
Credit Louisa Lim / NPR
The Water Cube has found an Olympic afterlife, with some of the building converted to a water park.
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Originally published on Tue July 10, 2012 10:31 pm

As the opening date for the London Olympics nears, Beijing's acclaimed Olympic venues are saddled with high maintenance costs and are struggling to get by. And the most famous, the Bird's Nest stadium, has been repudiated by its own creator, dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei.

Even the state-run government mouthpiece, the China Daily, worries that Beijing's iconic structures risk becoming "white elephants."

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Business
2:16 am
Tue July 10, 2012

For Manufacturing Jobs, Workers Brush Up On Math

Credit Duane Burleson / AP
Brian Gasiewski removes the external housing for an industrial shock absorber from a CNC, or computer numerical control, machine at Fitzpatrick Manufacturing Co. in Sterling Heights, Mich.
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Originally published on Tue July 10, 2012 6:52 am

Politicians have touted modern manufacturing as the solution for lifting the economy and providing good jobs.

But today's manufacturing work requires strong math skills — not just adding and subtracting, but a good grasp of fractions, decimals and basic trigonometry. And job applicants who want to go into manufacturing often don't have what it takes.

So colleges and nonprofits, especially throughout Illinois, are stepping in to bridge this skills gap by combining manufacturing training with basic reading and math.

Doing Math On The Job

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It's All Politics
2:14 am
Tue July 10, 2012

Democrats Say Anonymous Donors Unfairly Influencing Senate Races

Credit Karen Bleier / AFP/Getty Images
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Originally published on Tue July 10, 2012 11:25 am

In Senate races, Democrats are fighting to preserve their thin majority. Their party campaign committee wants the Federal Election Commission to crack down on some of the Republicans' wealthiest allies — outside money groups that are using anonymous contributions to finance a multimillion-dollar onslaught of attack ads.

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