Some of the world's largest broadcasters including American network NBC are being asked by human rights groups to cancel plans to cover next year's Winter Olympics in Beijing. The Winter Games are scheduled to open on Feb. 4.

The request comes in an open letter from rights groups representing minorities in China, including Uyghurs, Tibetans, Hong Kong residents and others.

Chinese prosecutors have dropped a case against a former Alibaba manager accused by a female colleague of sexual assault, weeks after the case caused a backlash against the e-commerce firm over how it handles sexual misconduct allegations.

Police detained the former manager, whose last name is Wang, in August after a female Alibaba employee accused him of sexual assault while they were on a business trip to the northern Chinese city of Jinan.

A towering statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Virginia, will be taken down on Wednesday as a symbol of racial injustice, more than 130 years after it was erected in tribute to the South's Civil War leader.

While many other Confederate symbols across the South have been removed without public announcements beforehand to avoid unruly crowds, Gov. Ralph Northam's office is expecting a multitude and plans to livestream the event on social media.

Universities in Kabul were almost empty on the first day of the Afghan school year, as professors and students wrestled with the Taliban's restrictive new rules for the classroom.

The Taliban have promised a softer rule than during their first stint in power from 1996-2001, when women's freedoms in Afghanistan were sharply curtailed and they were banned from higher education.

Pope Francis on Sunday asked for prayers for his visit later this month to "the heart of Europe," a four-day pilgrimage to Hungary and Slovakia, which will be his first travels since surgery earlier this summer.

Francis spoke of his trip that begins in Hungary on Sept. 12, then takes him to Slovakia, before returning to the Vatican on Sept. 15.

In 2018, Tessa Ganserer made history as the first openly transgender woman to serve in a German state assembly.

Rights activists said Monday they had filed a criminal complaint in Germany against five retailers including C&A, Lidl and Hugo Boss, accusing them of benefiting from forced labor among China's Uyghur population.

The European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) said it had filed the case, which also targeted the two supermarket chains Aldi Nord and Aldi Sued, after carrying out an open source investigation.

Iraq will allow only 40,000 foreigners, 30,000 from Iran, to attend the Arbaeen pilgrimage later this month in the Shiite shrine city of Karbala, authorities said Sunday, due to the pandemic.

Arbaeen marks the end of the 40-day mourning period for the killing of Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Mohammed, by the forces of the caliph Yazid in 680 AD.

Having started on the 15th of August and running until the 26th of September, an extraordinary musical event featuring 37 soloists, seven orchestras and twelve conductors from all over the world is being held in Dubai, UAE. This distinguished project is led by the European Foundation for Support of Culture (EUFSC) with the collaboration of SAMIT Event Group. InClassica 2021 brings classical music to new audiences, and gives this prestigious art form a new platform in today's cultural landscape.

In addition to this outstanding festival, the EUFSC and SAMIT are also bringing to Dubai two hotly anticipated events: the Classic Piano International Competition, which started on the 15th August and finished on the 3rd of September, and the Middle East Classical Music Academy (MECMA). Classic Piano featured the winners of fourteen preliminary competitions from around the world, who competed in Dubai across four rounds in a display of pianistic excellence. The Middle East Classical Music Academy, taking place in parallel with InClassica from 4th to 23rd September, welcomes some of the most esteemed professors and performers from across the globe, for a series of workshops, lectures and open masterclasses for piano, violin, cello, clarinet and flute.

The new head of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Montenegro was inaugurated on Sunday, arriving by helicopter under the protection of police who dispersed protesters with tear gas.