A pearl and diamond pendant owned by Marie Antoinette before she was beheaded during the French Revolution sold for $36 million at an auction on Wednesday, shattering its pre-sale estimate of up to $2 million.The Sotheby's auction at an ultra-luxurious hotel on the banks of Lake Geneva saw feverish bidding for a 10-piece collection owned by the ill-fated queen, featuring jewels unseen in public for two centuries. (AFP)The 10 items, which had been estimated to fetch a total of roughly $3 million,

Thais have reacted with shock and anger after a 13-year-old boxer died during a charity bout, reviving calls for a ban on fights between children in the brutal Muay Thai martial art.Thai boxing is hugely popular in the country and many fighters enter the sport at a young age in search of fame and fortune.But the involvement of kids who sometimes start under 10 years of age in bouts that use kicks and elbows to the head -- often without headguards -- has stirred frequent criticism.The involvement

MUNSTER, Germany (AFP) -- A former Nazi concentration camp guard said at his trial Tuesday that he was ashamed at having been part of the SS and that he was unaware of the systematic killings there.Johann Rehbogen is accused of complicity in mass murder at the Stutthof camp near what was then Danzig, now Gdansk in Poland.Dressed in a dark grey suit, the white-haired 94-year-old was wheeled into the German court, holding a walking stick in his right hand.In rare testimony in one of the last cases

ROME (AFP) -- Italy's populist government defied the European Commission Tuesday by sticking to its big-spending budget plan, risking financial sanctions in a high-stakes standoff with Brussels.Despite pressure from the European Commission, which rejected Rome’s budget outright last month in a first for the EU, Italian Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio vowed to stand firm on the country's anti-austerity plans.“The budget will not change, neither in its balance sheet nor in its growth forecast.

Deadly radiation from the cosmos, potential vision loss, and atrophying bones are just some of the challenges scientists must overcome before any future astronaut can set foot on Mars, experts and top NASA officials said Tuesday.The US space agency believes it can put humans on the Red Planet within 25 years, but the technological and medical hurdles are immense."The cost of solving those means that under current budgets, or slightly expanded budgets, it's going to take about 25 years to solve t

Amazon's "second headquarters" is being split between New York City and the Washington suburbs, the US tech giant announced Tuesday, capping a yearlong contest that saw dozens of cities fight it out for a promised $5 billion investment and 50,000 expected jobs.The chosen locations are Long Island City neighborhood in the New York borough of Queens, across the East River from Manhattan, and the Crystal City section of Arlington, Virginia, across the Potomac from the US capital.Both districts offe

Drug baron Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman's defense told his New York trial Tuesday that his cartel bribed Mexican presidents, painting the absent co-defendant as a ruthless criminal who murdered in cold blood.Opening statements finally got underway after two jurors were dismissed from the lineup, forcing lawyers and the judge to re-interview potential candidates before the full panel could be sworn in. Drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, one of the world`s most notorious criminals, is on trial i

Prince Charles turns 70 Wednesday and is still heir to the throne _ a role he has served since he was a young child.He's not lacking in things to do and shows few signs of slowing down _ he is wealthy, extremely active in matters of great importance to him, and preparing to welcome his third grandchild into the world when Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, gives birth next spring.His destiny, however, is to be king, a position he will automatically assume with the death of his 92-year-old mother, Qu

LONDON (AFP) - Amnesty International on Monday stripped Aung San Suu Kyi of its highest honour over the de facto Myanmar leader's "indifference" to the atrocities committed by the military against Rohingya Muslims.It was the latest in a string of awards the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner lost since Myanmar's military drove 720,000 Rohingya out of the Buddhist majority country in what the United Nations has called an act of genocide. (AFP)The London-based global human rights organisation said it w

GREENBELT (AFP) -- Some 126 million kilometers from Earth, alone on the immense and frigid Red Planet, a robot the size of a small 4x4 wakes up just after sunrise. And just as it has every day for the past six years, it awaits its instructions.Around 9:30 Mars time, a message arrives from California, where it was sent 15 minutes earlier.“Drive forward 10 meters, turn to an azimuth of 45 degrees, now turn on your autonomous capabilities and drive.”The Curiosity rover executes the commands, moving

IRBIL, Iraq (AFP) -- When Iraq’s female cycling team snatched bronze and silver medals at a landmark pan-Arab race, it was thanks to athletes from the autonomous Kurdish region.The country’s toughest female competitors, its best-equipped facilities and most experienced coaches are not in the capital Baghdad, but in the Kurdish-majority northern region.And the three medals won by the Iraqi female cyclists in September at the tournament in Algeria were seen as proof of this sporting prowess in a r

LA'BO, Indonesia (AFP) -- Martha Kande’s family lived with her graying, shriveled corpse at their home in Indonesia for seven months, as they prepared an elaborate funeral that is central to the Toraja people's centuries-old death rituals.“We keep the body in a coffin at home,” Meyske Latuihamallo, the 81-year-old woman’s granddaughter, told Agence France-Presse. “But it's kept open before they are buried because we see them as sick so they are brought food and drink every day.”Torajans -- an et

SEVRES, France (AFP) -- Sealed in a vault beneath a duke's former pleasure palace among the sycamore-streaked forests west of Paris sits an object the size of an apple that determines the weight of the world.Forged against a backdrop of scientific and political upheaval following the French Revolution, a single, small cylinder of platinum-iridium alloy has laid largely undisturbed for nearly 130 years as the world's benchmark for what, precisely, is a kilogramme.The international prototype of th

Akihiko Kondo's mother refused an invitation to her only son's wedding in Tokyo this month, but perhaps that isn't such a surprise: he was marrying a hologram."For mother, it wasn't something to celebrate," said the soft-spoken 35-year-old, whose "bride" is a virtual reality singer named Hatsune Miku.In fact, none of Kondo's relatives attended his wedding to Miku -- an animated 16-year-old with saucer eyes and lengthy aquamarine pigtails -- but that didn't stop him from spending two million yen

TOKYO -- Supporters of four South Koreans who served as wartime forced labourers for a Japanese firm visited its Tokyo headquarters Monday to demand court-ordered compensation.South Korea's highest court ruled last month that Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal pay the men 100 million won ($88,000) each for being forced to work at its steel mills between 1941 and 1943. Only one of the victims is still alive.Lawyers for the men -- accompanied by supporters -- went to the company's Tokyo headquarters to