At the farthest end of the Great Wall, Yang Yongfu limps along the section he arduously restored, in effect "privatizing" it and putting himself on a collision course with the authorities.

The farmer spent five million yuan ($800,000) and years of backbreaking work renovating several hundred meters of the national symbol deep in northwestern China, turning it into a tourist site.

Brazil's capital is well known for the modern architecture of its designer, the late Oscar Niemeyer. But mystic types come for a different kind of thrill, like communicating with the spirits.

The greater Brasilia area has around nearly 1,000 worship sites for every possible faith in the country with, at least nominally, the world's largest Catholic populatio -- and esoteric rites and mediums are part of the mix.

Belief in sorcery and witchcraft is on the rise in the Pacific, experts warned Wednesday after a young woman accused of killing a boy with black magic was burnt alive in Papua New Guinea.

Lawrence Foana'ota, formerly the director of the Solomon Islands National Museum, said people were increasingly turning to witchcraft in the Melanesian country.

Move over Mona Lisa! Paris is about to unveil a new work of art that, just like Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece, will be seen by millions of visitors every year.

From Thursday, a massively enlarged version of a work by Australian Aboriginal artist Lena Nyadbi will adorn the roof of the multimedia library at the French capital's Musee du Quai Branly on the banks of the Seine.

Queen Elizabeth II marked the 60th anniversary of her coronation on Tuesday with a service at Westminster Abbey filled with references to the rainy day in 1953 when she was crowned.

More than 2,000 guests crammed into the abbey for the service, attended by all the senior members of the royal family including Prince William and his heavily pregnant wife Catherine.

Two centuries after the birth of Richard Wagner, audiences in Russia are beginning to overcome decades of suspicion shadowed by the horror of World War II and embrace the music of the great German composer.

The Novaya Opera (New Opera) in the Russian capital scored a major triumph with a new production of Wagner's blazingly intense opera of doomed love "Tristan and Isolde" that was astonishingly the Moscow premiere of one of the cornerstones of Western music.

More than one third of U.S. marriages begin with online dating, and those couples may be slightly happier than couples who meet through other means, a U.S. study out Monday found.

Online dating has ballooned into a billion-dollar industry and the Internet "may be altering the dynamics and outcome of marriage itself," said the study by U.S. researchers in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The earliest evidence of wine in France suggests that it came from Italy, and that it was mixed with basil, thyme and other herbs, according to research published on Monday.

This early wine may have been used as medicine, and likely was imbibed by the wealthy and powerful before eventually becoming a popular beverage enjoyed by the masses, researchers said.

A huge trove of photographs taken over half a century by Switzerland's Rene Burri, known for his iconic portrait of cigar-smoking revolutionary Che Guevara, is to be donated to a museum in his homeland, officials said Monday.

The Lausanne-based Elysee Museum, a temple for photography buffs from around the globe, said it would become the long-term home for an estimated 30,000 of Burri's works.

Populist politician Pauline Hanson, who once warned Australia was in danger of being swamped by Asians, said Monday she would run in this year's national election to protect "the Australian way of life".

Describing herself as "the redhead you can trust" -- seen as a reference to flame haired Prime Minister Julia Gillard -- she told reporters Australians were fed up with "selfish, dysfunctional and egotistical" political parties.