Northern Ireland braced for one of its biggest Protestant parades in years on Saturday, with police on high alert as pro-British marchers took to the streets of Belfast.

Some 30,000 people were expected to join the march marking the 100th anniversary of the Ulster Covenant, a landmark declaration signed by nearly half a million Protestants who vowed to defend themselves against rule from Dublin.

The road to heaven is paved with more than good intentions for Germany's 24 million Catholics. If they don't pay their religious taxes, they will be denied sacraments, including weddings, baptisms and funerals.

A decree issued last week by the country's bishops cast a spotlight on the longstanding practice in Germany and a handful of other European countries in which governments tax registered believers and then hand over the money to the religious institutions.

Some say that only food and football can unite all Peruvians. But with the nation's prowess on the pitch on the wane it is cooking that has become a passion.

Chicken morsels blended with rice and wrapped in leaves from a fabulously red, spiky Amazon plant called the Lobster Claw.

Harry Potter author JK Rowling spent the day "trying to avoid newspapers" as her first novel for grown-ups hit the bookshops, but she is confident the book is "the best I can do", she told fans.

"The book is what I wanted it to be," she told about 900 fans at London's Southbank Centre on Thursday night after "The Casual Vacancy", a black comedy of village life, was published -- having already sold one million advance copies.

A stage performance by bikini-clad women wearing headpieces styled after traditional Peking Opera has sparked debate in China after photos were made public this week, highlighting divided views on how to preserve the country's traditions.

Organizers of the Miss Bikini International Committee — which was responsible for the show staged in April to promote an upcoming bikini competition — defend the use of Chinese opera elements as a bold artistic attempt.

A Swiss foundation on Thursday unveiled what it said was an earlier version of the "Mona Lisa" painted by Leonardo da Vinci, although some experts said the claim was unlikely.

Before carefully pulling back long velvet white drapes to reveal a radiant painting of what looks like a younger version of the Mona Lisa displayed in the Louvre, the Zurich-based Mona Lisa Foundation said it had evidence the work had indeed been executed by the Italian master.

When Tashi Sangmo was 17 she married a 14-year-old neighbor in a remote Himalayan village in Nepal and, as part of the package, she also agreed to wed his younger brother.

In ancient times, the sons of almost every family in the region of Upper Dolpa would jointly marry one woman but the practice of polyandry is dying out as the region begins to open up to modern life.

A thousand-year-old Buddhist statue taken from Tibet in 1938 by an SS team seeking the roots of Hitler's Aryan doctrine was carved from a meteorite, scientists reported on Wednesday.

In a paper published in an academic journal, German and Austrian researchers recount an extraordinary tale where archaeology, the Third Reich and cosmic treasure are intertwined like an Indiana Jones movie.

A British anti-arms trade campaign and promoters of peace, human rights and the environment from the United States, Afghanistan and Turkey have been named as winners of this year's Right Livelihood Awards, also known as the "alternative Nobels."

American scholar Gene Sharp, a developer and promoter of nonviolent revolution techniques, will share the €150,000 ($195,000) cash prize three ways with Sima Samar, an Afghan doctor whose organization provides health care and education for the poor, and Britain's Campaign Against Arms Trade.

The terror of Saddam Hussein's secret police has lived on long after his fall through their millions of reports, which are still dragged up by Iraqi politicians and the media, often with damaging results.

But Saad Iskander, the head of Iraq's national archives, thinks the documents have been used for long enough, and is pushing legislation that would criminalise their release without the consent of the people they concern.