Chinese lawmakers have approved a national day to commemorate people who died in wars resisting foreign invaders, state media reported, at a time when Beijing remains at loggerheads with Tokyo over territory and history.

A young Jamaican gay rights activist who brought an unprecedented legal challenge to the Caribbean island's anti-sodomy law has withdrawn the claim after growing fearful about violent backlashes, advocacy groups and colleagues said Friday.

Last year, Javed Jaghai made headlines after initiating a constitutional court challenge to Jamaica's 1864 law that bans sex between men. He argued that the anti-sodomy law fuels homophobia and violates a charter of human rights adopted in 2011 that guarantees people the right to privacy.

"Bad Feminist: Essays" (Harper Perennial), by Roxane Gay

Roxane Gay may call herself a bad feminist — she cops to loving pink and dancing to misogynist music — but she is a badass writer.

Poland marks the 75th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II Monday with one eye on Russia, which invaded it during the war and is now throwing its weight around in neighboring Ukraine.

From the very first German shells fired at a Polish fort in Gdansk in the early hours of September 1, 1939, to the final days in 1945, Poland suffered some of the worst horrors of the war, chief among them the extermination of most of its Jewish population by the Nazis.

Colombia's Constitutional Court ruled Thursday that a lesbian woman could adopt her long-time partner's daughter, though the ruling does not apply to gay adoption in all circumstances.

Ana Leiderman appealed to the court to let her partner, Veronica Botero, adopt her biological daughter after the Colombian Family Well-being Institute rejected Botero's adoption application.

The public will soon get to see an ancient human skeleton recently rediscovered in a Philadelphia museum's storage room.

Visitors can look at the 6,500-year-old remains beginning Saturday at the University of Pennsylvania's Penn Museum.

The United Nations on Friday called on Pacific leaders to enact laws that protect women as a first step in tackling the endemic levels of domestic violence in the region.

Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, the executive director of U.N. Women, said governments played a key role in changing the regulatory and cultural environments that has seen the Pacific record some of the highest rates of violence against women globally.

A group of Japanese publishers have lashed out at Amazon's new book sale rules, after U.S. and European authors accused the online retailer of using strong-arm negotiating tactics.

Several Tokyo-based publishers said Amazon recently unveiled a four-point system that rates them based on the size of the commission they pay for selling books on the U.S. company's vast website, among other criteria.

India on Thursday began work to restore the dilapidated house where "Animal Farm" and "1984" author George Orwell was born and turn it into a museum.

Orwell was born Eric Arthur Blair on June 25, 1903 in Motihari, a tiny town in the impoverished eastern Indian state of Bihar, near the border with Nepal.

Modern and Contemporary Art Fair dedicated to artists of the ME.NA.SA (Middle East, North Africa, South & South East Asia) region, BEIRUT ART FAIR will hold its 5th edition at the Beirut International Exhibition Leisure Center (BIEL) from September 18 to September 21, 2014, led by Laure d’Hauteville and Pascal Odille, a press release said.

This year, BEIRUT ART FAIR is presenting 46 galleries from 14 countries. Whether renowned artists or artists yet to be discovered, rising stars or established artists in the art market.