A painting donated to Britain's National Trust by the estate of a wealthy supporter has been identified as a Rembrandt self-portrait worth 20 million pounds ($30 million), the heritage body said Monday.
The painting was given to the trust in 2010 by the estate of Edna, Lady Samuel of Wych Cross, whose property-developer husband was a major collector of Dutch and Flemish art. It hangs in Buckland Abbey in southwest England, the former home of 16th-century seafarer Francis Drake.
Full StoryMany Brazilians cast their country as racial democracy where people of different groups long have intermarried, resulting in a large mixed-race population. But you need only turn on the TV, open the newspaper or stroll down the street to see clear evidence of segregation.
In Brazil, whites are at the top of the social pyramid, dominating professions of wealth, prestige and power. Dark-skinned people are at the bottom of the heap, left to clean up after others and take care of their children and the elderly.
Full StoryForget what you think you know about America's stiff and stodgy capital city.
Beyond the staid suits and ties of Washington's politicians, lobbyists and lawyers lies the "other DC" -- an underground cultural scene of graffiti, go-go and hardcore punk music that took off in the 1980s and still pulsates today.
Full StoryThe soaring half domes of the Martyr Monument stand out against the drabness of eastern Baghdad, not far from where Saddam Hussein's feared eldest son was said to torture underperforming athletes.
Saddam built the split teardrop-shaped sculpture in the middle of a manmade lake in the early 1980s to commemorate Iraqis killed in the Iran-Iraq War. The names of hundreds of thousands of fallen Iraqi soldiers are inscribed in simple Arabic script around the base.
Full StorySri Lanka denied entry to a British tourist sporting a Buddha tattoo on his arm because he showed disrespect to Buddhism, a newspaper report said Saturday.
The unnamed Briton was turned back at Bandaranaike International Airport late Friday, according to the daily Lankadeepa Sinhalese.
Full StoryThe head of Tunisia's ruling Islamist party Ennahda insisted Friday that his group was opposed to female circumcision, after one of its MPs caused a storm by reportedly saying the operation was "aesthetic."
"We do not approve of female circumcision, a practice supported neither by Ennahda nor by religion, and which is not a part of our culture," Rached Ghannouchi told a news conference in Tunis.
Full StoryA British auction house says it has unearthed the violin played by the bandmaster of the Titanic as the oceanliner sank.
Survivors of the Titanic have said they remember the band, led by Wallace Hartley, playing on deck even as passengers boarded lifeboats after the ship hit an iceberg.
Full StoryAuthor Tan Twan Eng became the first Malaysian author to win Asia's top literary prize on Thursday for his novel set during the aftermath of the Japanese occupation of Malaya.
Tan won the $30,000 Man Asian Literary Prize with "The Garden of Evening Mists", beating four other shortlisted books.
Full StoryPope Francis has warned that the troubled Catholic Church risks becoming little more than a charity with no spiritual foundations if it fails to undergo renewal.
The 76-year-old Argentinian told the cardinals who elected him as Latin America's first pope that the Church could "end up a compassionate NGO".
Full StoryJapan moved one step closer to adopting a long-delayed treaty on child abductions on Friday when the cabinet of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe gave its approval, a government spokesman said.
Japan is the only member of the Group of Eight major industrialized nations that has not joined the 1980 Hague Convention, which requires children be returned to their usual country of residence if they are snatched during the collapse of an international marriage.
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