More than 20 million Hindu pilgrims ritually bathed in India's holy rivers on the opening day of the Kumbh Mela, a gigantic festival billed as the world's largest human gathering.

Indian devotees led decked-up cows over burning hay to celebrate the Hindu harvest festival in a ritual seeking good fortune and protection from harm.

The Makar Sankaranti festival marks the advent of spring and is celebrated by kite-flying and other regional festivities in the month of January.

The shah of Iran's last refuge before fleeing his country in 1979 was a palatial estate nestled against the Alborz Mountains — a place no Iranian ever dreamed of visiting.

Today, it costs them around $1.

A Saudi teen who caused an international sensation by defying her family and seeking asylum abroad on Tuesday vowed to fight for women's freedoms in her first public address since she was taken in by Canada.

A Russian LGBT rights group on Monday reported a new wave of persecution against gay people in Chechnya, in which it says around 40 people have been arrested and two killed. 

Chechen authorities immediately denied the claims which come two years after an international outcry when gay men said they had been tortured by law-enforcement agencies in the majority-Muslim Russian republic.

Transgender woman Tessa Ganserer will make history in Germany when she takes up her seat in the Bavarian regional parliament next week, three months after winning reelection as Markus Ganserer.

A fast-food clown nailed to a cross has united its Finnish creator with Holy Land Christians demanding the artwork's removal from an exhibition at an Israeli museum.

An exiled Russian artist and his partner went on trial in Paris on Thursday for setting fire to the facade of a French central bank building, a performance that was filmed and circulated on social media.

Macedonian lawmakers prepared Wednesday to debate a motion to change their country's name to settle a decades-long dispute with Greece and open the way to NATO and EU membership.

A Saudi teen's live-tweeted asylum plea has cast a renewed spotlight on women's rights just months after women won the right to drive, and sparked rare criticism of restrictive "guardianship" laws -- from men.