Russian performance artist Pyotr Pavlensky, who is on trial for setting fire to the security service headquarters in a protest, said Tuesday that guards convoying him from court had beaten him, cracking his rib.

A few hundred people from Kosovo's gay and lesbian community held their first ever pride parade Tuesday, seeking acceptance and respect of their rights in the conservative society.

South Korean writer Han Kang's Booker prize marks a major victory for a decade-long effort to drag one of Asia's oldest but, until recently, least-known literary traditions into the global market.

Literary merits aside, the success of Kang's novel "The Vegetarian" was aided by a number of factors that have coincided with South Korea's emergence as an increasingly prominent player on the global cultural stage.

The globe-trotting French intellectual Bernard-Henri Levy made a dramatic late entry into the Cannes film festival Monday with a "close-up look" at the Kurds' battle against the Islamic State group in Iraq.

Iran has arrested eight people for working in "un-Islamic" online modelling networks, particularly on Instagram, the head of Tehran's cybercrimes court said on state television.

The arrests were made under a two-year-old siting operation named "Spider II", targeting among others models who post photos online without the hijab covering the hair that is compulsory for women in public in Iran since its 1979 Islamic revolution.

Italy's health minister is proposing doubling a 'baby bonus' incentive for couples to have more children to combat what she calls a catastrophic decline in the country's birth rate.

As the commander of a Cold War submarine tracking the Soviets, John Jeanette's dresses were stashed away in a locker reserved for top-secret documents.

Soon, this former Norwegian navy captain will be recognized for what she is: a woman born in a man's body.

At the "East is Red" shop in Shanghai, every nook and cranny is packed with memorabilia of China's Cultural Revolution, from small badges of Chairman Mao Zedong to gigantic posters of his iconic image.

Owner Guo Bing himself is a child of the Cultural Revolution, born in 1966, the year the chaotic and violent decade was launched on May 16. His parents named him with the Chinese character for "soldier", a common practice at the time.

A year ago, 28-year-old pianist Aeham al-Ahmad was performing in the ruins of Damascus.

But after Islamic State jihadists torched his beloved piano, he fled to Germany where he now sings to audiences of the troubles in his home country.

You're love-struck and can't wait to have your partner's name or face etched onto your skin for eternity.

Or you've just turned 18, and your first rebellious act upon reaching the age of majority is to have a dragon tattooed on your chest.