Premium summer big reads: The 26-year-long search for Africa's most wanted man

The New Zealand Herald is bringing back some of the best stories of 2020 from our premium syndicators, including The New York Times, Financial Times and The Times of London.

Today we look at the long search for Africa's most wanted man, the rise and fall of WeWork, the classic film Now and Then 25 years on, things you didn't know about chocolate and Russia' Covid-19 fight.

The hunt for Africa's most wanted man

Félicien Kabuga, a Rwandan businessman, spent 26 years on the run after being accused of organising, financing and directing the Rwandan genocide.

This year, after an astonishing swoop on Kabuga in a quiet Paris suburb in May, the result of co-operation between law enforcement agencies from at least nine countries, he was arrested.

So how did Africa's most wanted man evade capture for so long?

The Financial Times reports.

A photo display of genocide victims at the Kigali Memorial Centre. 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed in 100 days. Photo / Getty Images

WeWork: How the ultimate unicorn lost its billions

Ten days before the end of 2018, WeWork's new $94.7m Gulfstream took off from a small airport north of New York and set a course for Kauai, Hawaii's garden island. On board was Adam Neumann, the company's messianic co-founder.

It was less than a decade since the 6ft 5in Israeli had sketched out a plan with his friend Miguel McKelvey for turning dull offices into empowering communities for restless entrepreneurs. But WeWork had already overtaken JPMorgan Chase as New York's largest commercial tenant and controlled more square feet in London than anyone but the UK government.

At 39, Neumann was already worth billions.

Yet within a year the Gulfstream would be up for sale, Neumann would be out of a job and WeWork would come within two weeks of running out of money.

Adam Neumann planned to revolutionise the office — and the world. The Financial Times looks at what went wrong.

dam Neumann at the WeWork Global Creator awards in Los Angeles, January 2019. Photo / Getty Images

Now and Then at 25: Girlhood finally taken seriously

When Now and Then was released in 1995, it had the makings of a hit: an A-list cast, a coming-of-age narrative about an unbreakable sisterhood, a nostalgic filter and an underlying mystery. At the time, it was sidelined, panned by critics and largely forgotten. That hasn't stopped it from gaining a cult following in the 25 years since, becoming a touchstone for girls yearning to be seen.

The New York Times looks back at the 90s classic.

From left, Gaby Hoffmann, Ashleigh Aston Moore, Thora Birch and Christina Ricci, who play friends at a transitional time in their lives in Now and Then. Photo / Supplied

Everything you need to know about chocolate

You probably think you already know everything you need to know about chocolate.

For instance: The higher the percentage of cacao, the more bitter the chocolate, right? The term "single origin" on the label indicates that the chocolate expresses a particular terroir.

Wrong.

Melissa Clark of The New York Times provides answers to some basic questions you may not even know you had.

There are more than a dozen different cultivars of cacao used to make chocolate, each with its own distinct flavour and aroma. Photo / Erin Lubin, The New York Times

'Cocktails and masks don't really go together'

When Nest, a cramped Moscow cocktail lounge, reopened for business in late June after more than two months of lockdown, it offered free masks and antiseptic lotion at the entrance to help calm any fears drinkers might have about sitting just inches from each other around tiny round tables.

It needn't have bothered.

Following a path taken by many people in Florida, Texas and other parts of the United States in early summer, Moscow and most of Russia threw caution to the wind.

The New York Times looks at how young Russians were willing to risk a coronavirus surge in order to party again.

The Nest cocktail bar in Moscow was crowded on a recent Friday evening. No masks in sight. Photo / Sergey Ponomarev, The New York Times