Pieter Brueghel II's painting "The Fight Between Carnival and Lent" sold at a London auction for almost £7 million on Tuesday, an auction record for the Flemish renaissance artist.

The painting, which depicts the traditional ceremonial battle between the figures of Carnival and Lent -- common in 16th century Netherlands -- was snapped up for £6,873,250 ($10.6 million, 7.9 million euros) at a Christie's sale of Old Master and British paintings.

It's the ultimate belt-tightening handbook: No Meat? Push an eggplant through the grinder instead. Chew your food long enough for your stomach to feel full. And don't forget to sweep crumbs off your table and into a jar.

These are some of the tips Greeks used to survive the World War II occupation that have been collected in "Starvation Recipes" — a cookbook that has become a surprise hit as millions of Greeks struggle to make ends meet in a new era of hardship brought on by economic crisis.

The Royal Mint has come up with a novel way to wish Charles Dickens a happy 200th birthday — a new coin with a portrait of the author made up of the titles of some of his most famous fictional works.

The two-pound ($3.20) uncirculated collectible coin will be available via the Royal Mint's website for a price of 8.50 pounds ($13) starting this week, officials said.

British poet Ted Hughes is being honored with a place in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey, joining a line of great British writers going back to Chaucer.

A stone bearing his name will be unveiled Tuesday evening on the floor of Poets' Corner, next to one honoring Hughes' mentor and publisher, T.S. Eliot.

Scottish artist Martin Boyce, whose works include a modernist reworking of a library table and artificial trees, on Monday won Britain's Turner Prize at a ceremony in Gateshead, north-east England.

On picking up the £25,000 ($39,100, 29,200 euros) award at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, 44-year-old Boyce paid tribute to his parents and highlighted the importance of teachers in light of the government's spending cuts.

Japan on Tuesday returned to South Korea more than 1,000 volumes of historical documents it seized during its colonial rule of the peninsula in a gesture aimed at improving prickly relations.

A traditional troupe greeted the arrival of the 1,200 volumes at Incheon airport west of Seoul. After a ceremony attended by South Korean and Japanese officials, the books were to be transported to a state museum in Seoul.

Clarence Pfundheller was standing in front of his locker on the USS Maryland when a fellow sailor told him they were being bombed by Japanese planes.

"We never did call him a liar but he could stretch the truth pretty good," Pfundheller said. "But once you seen him, you knew he wasn't lying."

After dangerous, dusty assignments in Iraq and Afghanistan, photographer Michael Kamber has chosen a tough area of New York City as the new backdrop for his interest in war.

The award-winning journalist recently opened a gallery in the Bronx, the first in the borough, and he hopes that his gesture will both help photographers and build bridges with a neighborhood that, while not at war, certainly knows the harder side of life.

Sam Lau picks up his sword and waves it in a series of terrifying slashes as he runs towards a student, who retreats laughing nervously. All around them, kung fu students grapple fiercely.

The pupils have come to Lau's Hong Kong studio -- some from as far away as Italy -- to hone their moves in the kung fu style called wing chun, which is on the rise again decades after the death of its most famous follower, Bruce Lee.

For 700 years Catholic faithful expressed their devotion to the Virgin Mary by creating an elaborate wardrobe for the mother and child, on display in a new exhibit in the French city of Lyon.

Playfully entitled "Fashion Icon", the show explores how from the 12th to the 19th centuries, clothes were cut to adorn the Virgin, sometimes becoming objects of worship in their own right.