Interview with Jost Kobusch, the 21 year old German mountaineer that wanted to climb the Lenin Peak (7134m) solo in winter. How long have you been a mountaineer ?   I started when I was 11, firstly it was on climbing walls, then during family hikes and finally free climbing. I climbed the Mount Kenya (5199m, the highest Kenyan peak, editor's note) when I was 18, then I climbed Mont Blanc (4810m, the highest peak of the Alps and of Europe) solo. During my military service, I joined a...

Since the collapse of the USSR, Russia has had trouble reaffirming its power. Recently, the country, led with an iron fist by Vladimir Putin, seems ready to play a leading role on the international stage. Is the biggest country in the world set, once and for all, on the world stage, or does it still have some progress to achieve in certain fields ? The country’s industry is devastated and late coming compared to other emerging countries, with a delay that keeps increasing. Indeed, on this...

In a labor market deeply affected by the economic crisis, flexibility and adaptability of employees aimed at meeting employers’ demands are the keywords for anyone looking for a "job". With only 8% unemployment, the current United Kingdom seems to have found a solution to all our problems… or has it ? “What is a zero-hour contract ?”, “Is it legal ?”, “What will this kind of contract bring us ?” These are some of the questions that come to one’s mind when one hears about this novelty which has...

On February 9th 2014, the Swiss voted in favour of the initiative “Against Mass Immigration”, launched by the right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP). They plan to limit the number of immigrants coming to live in Switzerland. The European Union bounces back. 50,3% of the Swiss voted in favour of the right-wing party project, thus, the whole country accepted the creation of annual quotas for European immigrants. The consequences, some of them known, others unknown, turned out to be immediate and...

In a day and age characterized by digital revolution, we are facing new challenges, and new issues keep coming up again and again. Why would someone do a job that has been criticized for years ? Why try to give journalism a brand new image when there is nothing left but crumbs from giants ? In other words, why keep hoping ? We keep hoping both because we are young and because we deeply believe in a much better future than the one depicted everyday by politicians and classic media. We believe in...

As a current exchange student in Beijing, it was a while since I wanted to enter North Korea. There is only one way to do so: going through a travel agency called Korytours. Since staying in Pyongyang is too expensive, I chose the option ‘a day in Sinuiju’, a city on the Sino-North Korean border. Together with two travel guides, I visited the town from 10am to 5pm. After an overnight train, I made it to Dandong, a city on Chinese soil. On the other side of the Friendship Bridge, going across...

As a current exchange student in Beijing, it had been a while since I wanted to enter North Korea. There is only one way to do so : going through a travel agency called Korytours. Since staying in Pyongyang is too expensive, I chose the option ‘a day in Sinuiju’, a city on the Sino-North Korean border. Together with two travel guides, I visited the town from 10am to 5pm. After an overnight train, I made it to Dandong, a city on Chinese soil. On the other side of the Friendship Bridge, going...

For Indonesia, the world’s fourth most populous country with almost 250 million people, 2014 is a crucial election year. After the renewal of Parliament during the legislative elections of April 9th, the young democracy will soon be led by a new president. Here is a summary of the controversial Prabowo Subianto : one of the two favourite candidates for the presidential election to be held on July 9th. He is going to see it through. The 62-year-old Prabowo Subianto is sure that his time has...

Last October, Australian daily newspaper The Sydney Morning Herald and the German weekly news magazine Der Spiegel pinpointed the cooperative action of the Australian Signals Directorate surveillance agency (ASD) in the American large-scale surveillance operation revealed by former NSA employee Edward Snowden. The recent revelations pointed to the “Stateroom” collaborative listening device that involves several Australian embassies and consulates in Asia (Jakarta, Hanoi, Beijing, Bangkok or...

The Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are not countries that one would associate with elegance and fashionable extravagance but rather one bearing a history of poverty, disease, malnutrition and heavy conflict throughout the 1990s, taking the lives of thousands upon thousands of civilians. Yet, positioned at the centre of Congo’s chaos, the self-confessed dandies of sub-Saharan Africa, known as the Sapeurs, lead a life that is paradoxical in the context of their...