More than 13,000 people turned out in Paris on Thursday for the 27th edition of 'Diner en blanc' ('Dinner in white') -- a pop-up picnic where attendees dress to the nines entirely in white.

The diners were armed with white tables and chairs, and packed out public areas of the Tuileries Garden and the Palais Royal, locations that were made public at the last minute in an event that has become an international phenomenon.

The slapping sound of colliding flesh reverberates through a basement in Mongolia's capital, as Tsogt-Erdeniin Mendsaikhan hones fighting skills in pursuit of his dream -- sumo wrestling in Japan.

Gone now are the barracks, the sadistic guards and the barbed wire. Just one remaining watchtower and a plaque show that this marshy nature reserve on a river island in Bulgaria was once a place of misery.

But now, Belene's few remaining survivors want to create a museum to remind people of the suffering of the thousands of inmates inside communist-era Bulgaria's most notorious forced labour camp.

Scaffolding surrounds the vast clay sculpture-in-progress inside a warehouse on Moscow's outskirts, yet already the statue of Vladimir the Great has caused an outcry as big as the monument itself.

The 24-meter (78-feet) high likeness of the man who brought Christianity to Kievan Rus -- the forerunner of modern Russia and Ukraine -- is set to tower over the capital, the latest potent symbol in a surge of patriotism taking hold in Russia.

For 1,300 years, Japanese paper from the tiny town of Ogawa has fulfilled myriad needs -- from the material for Buddhist scriptures to balloon bombs sent to attack the United States.

Now, as Japan prepares to mark the 70th anniversary of its defeat in World War II this summer, a new and altogether more peaceful use has been found for it -- clothes.

A program that teaches university-age women how to avoid rape has shown some success in reducing the numbers of women in Canada who are sexually assaulted, said a study Wednesday.

Previous research has suggested that as many as one in four young women are raped or are victims of attempted rape while attending college.

It's a little-known fact about Napoleon Bonaparte: the French emperor thought about emigrating to the United States after his defeat at Waterloo.

That bid for a fresh start in the New World came together in June 1815 in the wake of Napoleon's loss at Waterloo to the British-Prussian forces and his subsequent abdication. But it came to naught within three weeks when the triumphant allies vetoed it.

Pope Francis has approved the creation of an internal Church tribunal empowered to punish bishops who cover up sex abuse by priests, the Vatican said Wednesday.

Under the reform, bishops suspected of protecting pedophile clerics or of failing to respond promptly to allegations of abuse face being charged with "abuse of episcopal office" under canon law, the Church's internal set of rules.

Two Native American tribes, the Hopi and Acoma, are trying to block an auction taking place in Paris this week of artifacts they consider sacred, despite failing in several similar efforts over past years.

Allied with the U.S.-based Holocaust Art Restitution Project (HARP), the Hopi Tribe Council and Pueblo of Acoma said in a joint statement they were asking France's Board of Auction Sales to suspend the event, taking place on Wednesday.

Watercolor paintings and drawings by Adolf Hitler from about 100 years ago are to go up for auction in southern Germany this month, an auction house said Tuesday.

Some of the works, which date from 1904 to 1922, are signed A. Hitler, the catalogue of Nuremberg-based Weidler auctioneers showed on its website.