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Titian Masterpieces Inspire Peep Show and Sexy Robot

A peep show of seven women named Diana and a "seductive" robot are among the modern works unveiled at London's National Gallery in an exhibition inspired by Renaissance master Titian.

The gallery has invited artists, poets, choreographers and composers to create works based on three great nudes by the 16th century Italian painter for the new show, "Metamorphosis: Titian 2012".

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Klimt up Close and Personal on His 150th Birthday

On his 150th birthday, Vienna's museums offer an intimate look at Gustav Klimt, digging beneath the layers of paint and scratching away at the artist... but not without a good dose of kitsch.

Over the past century, Klimt has gained worldwide recognition even beyond the art world, something Vienna has been keen to exploit with ad campaigns borrowing heavily from his famous golden paintings like "The Kiss."

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Study: Native Americans Descended From Three Asian Groups

Native Americans spread out today from Canada to the tip of Chile descended not from one but at least three migrant waves from Siberia between 5,000 and 15,000 years ago, a study said Wednesday.

The finding is controversial among geneticists, archaeologists and linguists -- many of whom have maintained that a single Asian ancestral group populated the Americas.

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U.S., France Mark 50th Anniversary of First TV Satellite

Fifty years ago Thursday a beach ball-sized satellite carried the first television images across the Atlantic, kicking off a new era of global communications decades before the Internet.

The Telstar satellite -- built by Bell Telephone Laboratories for use by AT&T -- was also the first privately sponsored space mission, and was seen as part of the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union.

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Seoul's Last Old-Style, 1-Screen Cinema Shuts Down

Seoul's last old-style, one-screen cinema, soon to be knocked down and replaced by a hotel, played its final movie Wednesday — the Italian classic "The Bicycle Thief" — a moment so emotional for the theater operator that she publicly shaved her head in frustration.

The theater, which opened in 1964, had become a place where mostly elderly moviegoers gathered regularly to watch classic Hollywood and South Korean films and indulge in nostalgia for cinematic days gone by.

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Taiwan to Stage 1st Same-Sex Buddhist Wedding

Two women plan to tie the knot next month in Taiwan's first same-sex Buddhist wedding, as gay and lesbian groups push to make the island the first society in Asia to legalize gay marriage.

Fish Huang and her partner You Ya-ting, both 30, will receive their blessings from Master Shih Chao-hui at a Buddhist monastery in north Taiwan's Taoyuan county on August 11.

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Bosnia Remembers Srebrenica, With Masterminds On Trial

Bosnia remembers the Srebrenica massacre on Wednesday with the two alleged masterminds, Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic, finally on trial.

But for many of the survivors and relatives of the thousands of victims of the mass killings -- Europe's worst single atrocity since World War II -- the pursuit of justice is just too little, too late.

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British Playwright Opens Avignon Fest with A Bang

When Simon McBurney fled Thatcherite Britain in the 1980s he found a spiritual home in Paris. Back in France as guest artist at the Avignon festival, the actor-director opened the event with a bang.

McBurney's version of Mikhail Bulgakov's Soviet satire "The Master and Margarita" opened the three-week extravaganza on Saturday night, before 2,000 people in the court of honor of the southeastern city's historic Papal Palace.

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Workers Occupy Historic Italian Film Studios

Workers have occupied the famous Cinecitta film studios in Rome where classics like "Quo Vadis" and "Cleopatra" were shot in a protest against a major renovation project, trade unionists said on Monday.

"Dozens of workers and artisans will be forced to leave," Alberto Manzini, a regional official from Italy's biggest trade union, CGIL, told Agence France Presse.

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S. Sudan Shrugs Off Gloom to Celebrate Year of Freedom

South Sudan has put aside dire warnings over the stability and economic viability of the fledgling nation, the world's newest, to celebrate its first year of independence.

Crowds took to the streets of the capital Juba on Monday, with people crammed into cars driving around the city and honking horns to mark the first anniversary since separating from former civil war foes Sudan.

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