From New York to Sao Paulo, epicureans have been revelling in a new generation of exciting wines from one of the least expected places -- Slovenia, a vintner's paradise in full renaissance.

The small nation has in fact a flourishing viticultural tradition stretching back some 2,400 years to the Celtic era, long before the Romans introduced winemaking to France and Germany.

Recently married, Namrata Raut returned to her family home in rural western India to paint hundreds of Ganesha idols ahead of a major Hindu festival celebrating the elephant-headed deity.

Pen, in Maharashtra state, is renowned for its exquisitely designed and beautifully colored statues of the auspicious god, which are sold around the world providing the lifeblood of this small community. 

A replica of the French frigate that transported General Lafayette to America in 1780 to rally U.S. rebels battling for independence was due back in France on Monday after a four-month Atlantic voyage.

The Hermione was due to land with its 80-strong crew at Brest in northwestern France, accompanied by a fleet of 25 traditional boats and a modern navy frigate.

Former communist Albania's most secretive military base, the strategic Sazan island on the Adriatic Sea, has opened its derelict bunkers and tunnels, hoping to turn it into a top tourist draw.

Situated at the entrance of Vlora bay in southwestern Albania and at a strategic point on the Otranto canal that separates the Adriatic and Ionian seas, the tiny island of only a dozen square kilometers (4.5 square miles) was through centuries coveted by various armies: Roman, Ottoman, Greek, Italian and even German.

Fresh out of jail and sporting tattoos on his neck and knuckles, 53-year-old Shaun Perkins sits in one of London's oldest gay pubs looking bewildered.

"When you're in prison, they put you in a cell and it's like time stands still," he said, dressed in a leather jacket and jeans.

Long dead but little forgotten, U.S. soldiers who disappeared across the globe during World War II are being reunited with their loved ones in a dogged push to find and bring home their bodies.

From the forests of Germany to the jungles of Papua New Guinea, U.S. experts employed by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency -- among them historians, archeologists and forensic experts -- are the main sleuths.

Lurid allegations against the head of China's Shaolin temple -- renowned as the birthplace of kung fu -- must be investigated by the government, state media said Monday, after former monks accused him of philandering and corruption.

The abbot, Shi Yongxin, has long been known as the "CEO monk" for transforming the ancient Buddhist temple into a global commercial enterprise. 

Holding the young couple's identity cards in one hand and the Koran in the other, the Palestinian justice of the peace pronounces Thaer and Rawan man and wife.

It's an everyday scene at the Islamic sharia law court in the West Bank city of Ramallah except for one glaring difference -- the justice is a woman, the first in the Palestinian territories licensed to perform Muslim marriages.

A young Ukrainian artist has captured global media attention by creating a striking portrait of Russian President Vladimir Putin out of 5,000 bullet shells collected in the separatist east.

Daria Marchenko's "The Face of War" -- a remarkably realistic and politically tinged depiction of Putin in a dark suit and red tie -- stands more than two meters (nearly seven feet) tall and dominates the artist's studio apartment.

Pompeii is rising from the ashes again -- despite the worst that Italy's mafia, and bureaucracy, could throw at it.

The ancient city, buried during a volcanic eruption in the first century, is undergoing a multi-million euro restoration which will see the preserved bodies of victims go on display at the site.