Before the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech to hundreds of thousands of people gathered in Washington in 1963, he fine-tuned his civil rights message before a much smaller audience in North Carolina.

Reporters had covered King's 55-minute speech at a high school gymnasium in Rocky Mount on November 27, 1962, but a recording wasn't known to exist until English professor Jason Miller found an aging reel-to-reel tape in a town library. Miller played it in public for the first time Tuesday at North Carolina State University.

Determined to rise high enough for their prayers to be heard, climbers defy the stifling summer heat to conquer a summit in Algeria's northern Kabylie region.

They are women desperate for children, youth seeking jobs, and the sick hoping for a cure.

Now 73 and sitting in his Tokyo home, Yohachi Nakajima fights back tears when he thinks of his Chinese adopted mother and the farming village he once called home -- a boy lost inside imperial Japan's crumbling empire.

He was just three years old when Tokyo surrendered on August 15, 1945, ending World War II but also leaving about 1.5 million Japanese stranded in Manchukuo, Tokyo's puppet regime in northeastern China.

Under a soldier's watchful gaze, a group of artists paint a blast wall outside Kabul's presidential palace with a huge pair of eyes in bright, almost psychedelic colors.

Alongside the eyes, a slogan reads: "Corruption cannot be hidden from God or from the people".

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said Wednesday his government would remain opposed to gay marriage during the current parliament, but suggested the issue could be put to a popular vote after the next election.

Despite growing public support for same-sex marriage, with a poll last year finding those in favor of equal rights had reached a record high of 72 percent, Australia has not yet legalized marriage equality.

Hundreds of staff at London's National Gallery on Tuesday began an indefinite strike, the latest in a series of walkouts to protest at the outsourcing of some services to the private sector.

Members of the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union have staged 56 days of action since February after plans were revealed for privatising certain services, which the gallery said would allow it to "operate more flexibly and deliver an enhanced service".

Driving through parts of northeastern Syria, Vian Khouzy points proudly to dozens of new road signs printed in Kurdish. "It's a dream come true," he says.

The 33-year old works as a taxi driver in areas controlled by the autonomous Kurdish administration in northern and northeastern Syria. 

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.