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Super Price of $3.2 mln for First Superman Comic Book

A near-flawless edition of the first book featuring cartoon hero Superman from June 1938 has fetched $3.2 million at auction, according to e-Bay, surging past the previous record for a single comic book.

After the 10-day online auction concluded Sunday, the hammer came down for Action Comics No. 1 with a price of $3,207,852, according to the online commerce site.

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Sun-Baked Battlefields of Africa's 'Forgotten' WWI Battles

On Kenya's vast Tsavo plains where lions lurk in yellow grass, little has changed for a century: including bitter memories of those killed in bloody colonial battles of World War I.

Far from the freezing mud trenches of Europe's Western Front, the rocky ditches and stone forts where soldiers fought and died under the blazing equatorial sun still remain today.

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Sistine Chapel Choir to Sing in Asia, but Not China

The Sistine Chapel choir will perform in Hong Kong for the first time in September but will not visit mainland China despite efforts to improve the rocky relations between Beijing and the Vatican.

Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi told Agence France Presse on Monday that the choral group, one of the oldest religious choirs in the world, will sing in Macao on September 19, followed by concerts in Hong Kong and Taipei on September 21 and 23.

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Paris Relives Joy of Liberation, 70 Years Later

French President Francois Hollande will Monday lead celebrations to mark the 70th anniversary of the joyful liberation of Paris after four long and bitter years of Nazi occupation in World War II.

Parisians will mark the event just as their parents and grandparents did seven decades ago -- with a mass dance at City Hall.

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Speaking in Tongues: China Divided Over the Common Language

Free-wheeling and business-oriented, the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou is a long way from Beijing physically, culturally and linguistically -- and hackles have been raised by reports Communist authorities are demanding local television drop Cantonese in favor of Mandarin.

Throughout China, Mandarin -- known as Putonghua, the "common language", with its roots in Beijing's northern dialect -- is the medium of government, education and national official media.

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Greek Archaeology Site Sparks Intense Interest

Archaeologists excavating a large burial mound in northern Greece that has captivated the public's imagination have asked politicians and others seeking guided tours of the site to leave them in peace.

The Culture Ministry appealed Thursday for "understanding" while the Amphipolis excavation proceeds.

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The Day Ernest Hemingway Took the Ritz Bar

The liberation of the bar of the Ritz Hotel in Paris by the writer Ernest Hemingway 70 years ago, as the French capital was freed from its Nazi occupiers, is the stuff of legend.

Hemingway, a war correspondent for the American "Collier's" magazine who went on to win the Nobel prize for literature in 1954, was embedded with U.S. 4th Division troops that landed on the Normandy beaches on June 6, 1944.

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Russian Communist Park Restored amid Wave of Nostalgia

Sliding into shabbiness after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, a giant Moscow complex extolling the days of the old planned economy has been restored amid a wave of nostalgia for Russia's past.

The Exhibition of Achievements of the People's Economy, or VDNKh, opened in 1939 to trumpet Soviet successes while the capitalist world was stuck in a deep depression.

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Ancient Ethiopian Walled City Keeps Modern Life at Bay

Hyenas howl and feast on flesh every night outside the ancient walls of Harar -- one of Islam's holiest cities that is holding out against the pressures of the modern world.

But change is coming, and campaigners are working hard to preserve the gated Ethiopian city's unique history, cultural and religious traditions.

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Nazi-Soviet Pact Turns 75 with Europe Still Divided

An infamous Nazi-Soviet pact that divided up Europe on the eve of World War II turns 75 on Saturday, with Moscow and the West still engaged in a scarcely hid rivalry to expand their influence across the continent.

On August 23, 1939 then Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and his Nazi counterpart Joachim von Ribbentrop signed a non-aggression pact between their two countries in Moscow.

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