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Whenever London's South Americans go looking for a job, a helping hand, the flavours of home or a party with their compatriots, they head to the Latino indoor market

A 3,000-year-old head sculpture of an eternally-young Tutankhamun — the Egyptian pharaoh known as King Tut — goes under the hammer this week in London despite an outcry from Cairo.

Ken Follett, Lee Child, Kate Mosse and Jojo Moyes, four heavyweights of British literature, are launching a "Friendship Tour" of Europe to represent the 48 percent who

Models in zombie make-up and a growing number of women on the catwalks were among the eye-catching features of Men's Fashion Week, which wrapped up in

A bolt of lightning pierced its tower and flames licked across its thick oak roof. Thirty-five years ago it was York Minster in northern England that went up in flames.

 

British pop legend Elton John has joined "friend" George Clooney in calling for a boycott of nine Brunei-owned hotels over the sultanate's new death-penalty laws for

British singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran has married his girlfriend Cherry Seaborn in a "tiny winter wedding", The Sun newspaper reported on Thursday.

Alex Honnold, a big wall climber who has conquered a series of intimidating rock faces on his own and almost without equipment, could on Sunday add the Oscars to his conquests for his

 

Harry Potter makes his stage debut on Tuesday in a new London play that imagines the fictional boy wizard as a father of three, in the latest offshoot of the globally successful franchise.

"Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" is set 19 years after the seventh and final book in the series by J.K. Rowling, which have sold more than 450 million copies since 1997 and been adapted into eight films.

Like many of his fans, Potter has now grown up and has three children with his wife Ginny Weasley, the sister of his friend Ron, and is working at the Ministry of Magic.

He still has his trademark round-rimmed glasses and the scar on his head, a permanent reminder of his nemesis Lord Voldemort, but must now help his youngest son Albus confront the family’s dark past.

Cut-price previews for the play at the Palace Theatre, in London’s West End, begin on Tuesday ahead of the world premiere on July 30.

Rowling pleaded with spectators at the previews not to disclose the details of the play.

 

 

Hollywood star and UN refugee agency envoy Angelina Jolie is to become a visiting professor at Britain’s prestigious London School of Economics, the university announced Monday.

Jolie was named as one of four new “visiting professors in practice” who will contribute to a new master’s programme on “women, peace and security”.

“I am very encouraged by the creation of this master’s programme,” Jolie said in a statement.

“I hope other academic institutions will follow this example, as it is vital that we broaden the discussion on how to advance women’s rights and end impunity for crimes that disproportionately affect women, such as sexual violence in conflict.”

Also appointed was British former foreign minister William Hague, with whom Jolie co-founded the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative in 2010.

 

 

Scarves emblazoned with red dragons draped over their black business suits, Chinese officials lit incense and bowed solemnly at the feet of a mythical ancestor known as the Yellow Emperor.

The avowedly atheist Communist Party is promoting worship of the ancient figure as it seeks to bolster its legitimacy -- and emphasise Chinese blood ties, including with Taiwan ahead of the inauguration of Beijing-sceptic president Tsai Ing-wen.

Thousands gathered in the heartland province of Henan, where the Yellow Emperor –- described in archaic annals and present day schoolbooks as the

founder of Chinese civilisation -- is said to have been born 5,000 years ago.

 

Shots from gold-painted cannon began the annual ceremony, and the crowd, many in replica antique costume, listened to a booming announcer heralding the "ancestor of the Chinese nation".

High-ranking cadres –- including the province's top official, and a former vice culture minister -– processed up a red carpet, placed offerings in front of an altar and gazed into the statue's chiselled visage, before bowing.

Lydia Zhou, an investment manager who flew from Shanghai to attend, told AFP: "I'm here to worship. He is our ancestor and this is his birthplace."

 

 

South Korean author Han Kang won the Man Booker International Prize on Monday, sharing the £50,000 ($72,000, 63,500 euros) award with her translator -- who had only taught herself Korean three years before.

Han Kang, 45, an author and creative writing teacher who is already successful in South Korea, is likely to enjoy a spike in international sales following the win for "The Vegetarian".

"I'm so honoured" she told AFP. "The work features a protagonist who wants to become a plant, and to leave the human race to save herself from the dark side human nature.

"Through this extreme narrative I felt I could question... the difficult question of being human."

She was the first South Korean to win the prize.

Described as "lyrical and lacerating" by chairman of the judges Boyd Tonkin, the tale traces the story of an ordinary woman's rejection of convention from three different perspectives.

It was picked unanimously by the panel of five judges, beating six other novels including "The Story of the Lost Child" by Italian sensation Elena Ferrante and "A Strangeness in My Mind" by Turkey's Orhan Pamuk.

"This is a book of tenderness and terror," Boyd told guests at the award ceremony dinner at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Han Kang's first book to appear in English, "The Vegetarian" was described by newspaper The Guardian as a shock to the system.

"Across the three parts, we are pressed up against a society's most inflexible structures -- expectations of behaviour, the workings of institutions -- and we watch them fail one by one," Daniel Hahn wrote in a review.

- 'Climbing a mountain' -

For the first time this year, the award went jointly to the translator, Deborah Smith, 28, who only started learning Korean three years before she embarked on the translation.

"This was the first book that I ever translated, and the best possible thing that can happen to a translator has just happened to me," an emotional Smith told AFP.

"When I was 22 I decided to teach myself Korean… I felt that I was limited by only being able to speak English. I'd always read a lot of translations, and you get the sense of this whole world being out there, very different perspectives, different stories," she said.

"It felt as thought I looked up almost every other word in the dictionary. It felt a bit like climbing a mountain. But at the same time just falling into this world that was so atmospheric and disturbing and moving -- it was a wonderful experience."

 

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