China's top official in Tibet vowed on Wednesday to evaluate Buddhist monks and nuns for their "patriotism" and install national flags in monasteries to strengthen ideological control in the region.

The ruling Communist party will deepen "assessment activities" to ensure "model harmonious monasteries" as well as "patriotic, law-abiding monks and nuns", the region's party chief Chen Quanguo wrote in the People's Daily newspaper.

Cuba is far from seeing a McDonald's or Starbucks open any time soon, but the diplomatic thaw with the United States is bringing more American visitors to the sweltering island.

While the U.S. embargo against Havana still forbids regular tourism to Americans, a growing number have flocked to the Caribbean destination under easier-to-get special permits.

Karen Emiliano was a boy called Jonas when she gave up studying 23 years ago, bullied for saying she felt she was a girl.

At the age of 13, she left home and headed for Sao Paulo, where she became a prostitute.

Thieves have raided some 300 deposit boxes in London's diamond quarter, accessing the vault through a lift shaft and using heavy cutting equipment, the police and media reports said on Tuesday.

The daring heist apparently took place over the long Easter weekend and police said in a statement that they were only called to the address in Hatton Garden in central London at 8:10am (0710 GMT) Tuesday.

The observatory of New York's new World Trade Center will open May 29 to the public, building managers said Tuesday.

The observatory is on floors 100, 101 and 102 in the gleaming glass tower that was built on the site of buildings destroyed in the September 11, 2001 attacks in Manhattan.

Samples from mummies in a Hungarian crypt have revealed that multiple tuberculosis strains derived from a single Roman ancestor that circulated in 18th-century Europe, scientists said Tuesday.

Their findings, published in the journal Nature Communications, drew on a remarkable, if gruesome, source.

Chinese tycoon Liu Yiqian splashed out nearly HK$114 million ($14.71 million) on an ancient vase at auction in Hong Kong Tuesday -- his latest expensive purchase of a rare artefact originally from the mainland.

The simple octagonal piece, an 800-year-old Southern Song Dynasty work tinted a milky blue, broke the guide price of $7.7 million at the sale by Sotheby's.

Oil paintings by impressionist master Claude Monet are expected to be stars of the spring auction season in New York, where Sotheby's believes they could fetch as much as $110 million.

One of the paintings is part of the famous "Nymphéas" (Water Lilies) series the French artist painted at Giverny. Forecast to sell for an estimated $30-45 million, this work has been held by a collector since 1955, and has not been seen in public since 1945.

Japan on Tuesday rebuffed neighbouring countries' protests over newly-approved textbooks after complaints about references to disputed territory and their bitter shared history.

The education ministry announced on Monday that all 18 new social studies textbooks for use in junior high schools assert Japanese ownership of two separate island groups at the centre of disputes with China and South Korea.

Replicas of a sculpture of a knotted pistol that was designed in honor of the late musician John Lennon are being displayed this month in Monterrey, a northern industrial city that knows about gun violence.

The 13 pieces in a variety of colors and designs were made by individuals and organizations. They include a soccer ball motif by the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football, as well as a 1960s-style pop art design by Lennon's fellow Beatle Paul McCartney.