Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said Wednesday his government would remain opposed to gay marriage during the current parliament, but suggested the issue could be put to a popular vote after the next election.

Despite growing public support for same-sex marriage, with a poll last year finding those in favor of equal rights had reached a record high of 72 percent, Australia has not yet legalized marriage equality.

Hundreds of staff at London's National Gallery on Tuesday began an indefinite strike, the latest in a series of walkouts to protest at the outsourcing of some services to the private sector.

Members of the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union have staged 56 days of action since February after plans were revealed for privatising certain services, which the gallery said would allow it to "operate more flexibly and deliver an enhanced service".

Driving through parts of northeastern Syria, Vian Khouzy points proudly to dozens of new road signs printed in Kurdish. "It's a dream come true," he says.

The 33-year old works as a taxi driver in areas controlled by the autonomous Kurdish administration in northern and northeastern Syria. 

From New York to Sao Paulo, epicureans have been revelling in a new generation of exciting wines from one of the least expected places -- Slovenia, a vintner's paradise in full renaissance.

The small nation has in fact a flourishing viticultural tradition stretching back some 2,400 years to the Celtic era, long before the Romans introduced winemaking to France and Germany.

Recently married, Namrata Raut returned to her family home in rural western India to paint hundreds of Ganesha idols ahead of a major Hindu festival celebrating the elephant-headed deity.

Pen, in Maharashtra state, is renowned for its exquisitely designed and beautifully colored statues of the auspicious god, which are sold around the world providing the lifeblood of this small community. 

A replica of the French frigate that transported General Lafayette to America in 1780 to rally U.S. rebels battling for independence was due back in France on Monday after a four-month Atlantic voyage.

The Hermione was due to land with its 80-strong crew at Brest in northwestern France, accompanied by a fleet of 25 traditional boats and a modern navy frigate.

Former communist Albania's most secretive military base, the strategic Sazan island on the Adriatic Sea, has opened its derelict bunkers and tunnels, hoping to turn it into a top tourist draw.

Situated at the entrance of Vlora bay in southwestern Albania and at a strategic point on the Otranto canal that separates the Adriatic and Ionian seas, the tiny island of only a dozen square kilometers (4.5 square miles) was through centuries coveted by various armies: Roman, Ottoman, Greek, Italian and even German.

Fresh out of jail and sporting tattoos on his neck and knuckles, 53-year-old Shaun Perkins sits in one of London's oldest gay pubs looking bewildered.

"When you're in prison, they put you in a cell and it's like time stands still," he said, dressed in a leather jacket and jeans.

Long dead but little forgotten, U.S. soldiers who disappeared across the globe during World War II are being reunited with their loved ones in a dogged push to find and bring home their bodies.

From the forests of Germany to the jungles of Papua New Guinea, U.S. experts employed by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency -- among them historians, archeologists and forensic experts -- are the main sleuths.

Lurid allegations against the head of China's Shaolin temple -- renowned as the birthplace of kung fu -- must be investigated by the government, state media said Monday, after former monks accused him of philandering and corruption.

The abbot, Shi Yongxin, has long been known as the "CEO monk" for transforming the ancient Buddhist temple into a global commercial enterprise.