Gesticulating and breaking into spine-tingling arias, a jovial Placido Domingo coached young opera singers vying for their big break while perched on a stool in a rehearsal room at London's Royal Opera House.

Frenchman Julien Behr greeted him with a "Buenos dias!" before practicing an aria with the legendary Spanish tenor for Sunday's final of the Operalia competition, being held in the British capital for the first time.

Remains belonging to victims of Nazi anatomy professor August Hirt have been found at a forensic medicine institute in eastern France, local authorities said in a statement Saturday.

Eighty-six Jews had been sent to the gas chambers in 1943 and their bodies brought to the eastern French city of Strasbourg, then under Nazi occupation and where Hirt was assembling a macabre collection of corpses.

Liu Shoupeng, a 74-year-old retired electrical engineer, is a devout Muslim in China, where he says his practice of Islam has not only been protected, but also respected.

Arranged through local government officials, Liu told The Associated Press on Saturday on the day following the end of the holy month of Ramadan that his country's stability is of paramount importance to his religious belief.

A replica of the Hermione, the 18th-century ship that brought French General Lafayette to America, sailed to Canada Saturday on the last leg of its North American journey before its voyage back to France.

The faithful reproduction of the majestic French frigate fired its cannon 20 times as it arrived in the port of Lunenburg, not far from the city of Halifax, at around 10 am (1300 GMT).

New York's Empire State Building was lit in green late Friday to celebrate the Eid al-Fitr holiday that marks the end of Ramadan.

The green light will shine until the famous skyscraper closes to the public at 2:00 am (0600 GMT), when the building traditionally turns out its lights.

The Salzburg Festival, one of the world's most prestigious arts gatherings, will launch on Saturday hoping to prove that a reduced budget and fewer shows do not mean a less exciting program.

After an eight-percent budget cut down to 60 million euros ($65.2 million, £41.8 million), the 95th edition will feature only 188 performances compared with 270 last year.

In the fields of Bulgaria they are everywhere -- hundreds of mounds like huge molehills concealing the gold-filled tombs of ancient kings who left no other trace of their rule.

Known as tumuli, the burial mounds are the only remnants of the Thracian civilization that inhabited the Balkan peninsula from the 2nd millennium BC to the 3rd century AD.

President Barack Obama on Thursday wished Muslims in America and around the world "Eid Mubarak!" or a blessed Eid, praising efforts to recognize the end of Ramadan as a holiday.

"The holiday is a reminder to every American of the importance of respecting those of all faiths and beliefs," he said in a statement that also hailed New York City's decision to add Eid to the official school calendar.

An Indian couple forbidden to marry because of their different backgrounds are in hospital after slitting their own throats in an apparent suicide pact at India's famed monument to love, the Taj Mahal.

Police said the pair -- named in the Times of India as Rajveer Singh and Shabnam Ali -- were stable after they were discovered in a pool of blood in the grounds of the Taj Mahal on Wednesday afternoon.

In Moscow, a sprawling city with highly-prized green spaces, hundreds of locals are up in arms to defend a park against what they claim is an illegal landgrab by Russia's powerful Orthodox Church.

Dmitry Fedotov, a 28-year-old engineer who lives near northern Moscow's Torfyanka park, joined protesters last week to denounce the church's bid to build a chapel there, as part of a drive to erect 200 churches across the Russian capital.