Thousands of worshippers flocked Tuesday to a controversial "holy pig" festival in Taiwan which sees the carcases of giant overfed swine on display, a custom deplored by animal rights campaigners.

The annual ritual, slammed by activists as inhumane, marks the birthday of the Taoist god Zushi and is held in a square outside the temple in his name in the northern district of Sanhsia.

British lawmakers rejected a bid to explicitly outlaw abortion based on the gender of the foetus on Monday.

Cultural preferences for boys is thought to lead to mothers aborting female fetuses in India and China, and the attempt to strengthen the law against the practice reflects concerns it could be taking place in some immigrant communities in Britain.

Communist Cuba's revolution has held sway for so long -- 56 years -- that those who remember no other system are nearing retirement age with a mixture of fond memories, and just a few regrets.

"We were part of a generation that changed everything, romantic, contradictory, and maybe one of a kind," journalist and author Manuel Juan Somoza, 69, told Agence France Presse.

The U.S. Supreme Court will make a rare foray into popular clothing Wednesday to weigh in on accusations that Abercrombie & Fitch illegally rejected a Muslim job applicant because of her hijab.

Abercrombie argued that its store policy forbids sales staff -- whom it calls "models" -- from wearing "caps" of any sort, and that Samantha Elauf, then 17, should have made clear in her 2008 interview that she could not comply due to her religion.

“Nothing was left of his house in the Shuja'iyya neighborhood; nothing but this window.”

“A playground on the stage of death: A Palestinian boy found some time to ride a bicycle near the police station that was destroyed by Israel in Rafah.”

A statue of Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi is to be unveiled opposite the Houses of Parliament in London next month, the British government announced Sunday.

The bronze statue will sit alongside figures such as World War II prime minister Winston Churchill and anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela in Parliament Square.

Japan's crown prince has warned of the need to remember World War II "correctly", in a rare foray into an ideological debate as nationalist politicians seek to downplay the country's historic crimes.

In an unusual intervention in the discussion, Naruhito's mild-mannered broadside was being interpreted in some circles as a rebuke to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a key figure in the right-wing drive to minimize the institutionalized system of wartime sex slavery.

The world's oldest psychiatric institution, the Bethlem Royal Hospital outside London, this week opened a new museum and art gallery charting the evolution in the treatment of mental disorders.

The original hospital was founded in 1247 in what is now central London and the name spawned the English word "bedlam" meaning chaos and madness.

Far from home on Chile's Easter Island for Carnival festivities, one middle-aged American woman throws caution to the wind. Stripped down to a thong, she lets a local reveler paint her chest.

"If someone had told me I would end up walking down the street almost naked, I would never have believed it," the woman, who only gave her first name Susan, told AFP.

Carnivals and fireworks are Hong Kong's trademark Chinese Lunar New Year celebrations -- but tens of thousands of people also travel to a remote village to hurl oranges at a tree in hopes of making their wishes come true.

In a tradition stretching back more than a century, visitors to the "wishing tree" in Lam Tsuen -- a village near the city's northern border -- come from all over the city and mainland China to take part.