The United States on Thursday slapped sanctions on Uganda including canceling a military air exercise, visa bans and freezing some aid after Ugandan leaders brought in tough anti-gay laws.

The new legislation signed into law in February "runs counter to universal human rights and complicates our bilateral relationship," the White House said, as it announced the new steps.

Hundreds of children are believed to have been kidnapped in Africa and brought to Britain for brutal voodoo rituals, a U.N. watchdog said Thursday, urging London to step up its fight against the scourge.

"We're concerned about reports that hundreds of children have been abducted from their families in Africa and trafficked to the UK, especially London, for religious rituals," said Kristen Sandberg, head of the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child.

Amsterdam residents fearing the loss of a popular park have rejected a multi-million-euro Holocaust memorial by famed U.S. architect Daniel Libeskind, forcing officials to rethink the plan.

A district council in the city voted on Tuesday to send the project back to the drawing board after residents complained that the city had backed the project without having properly consulted them.

Denmark's largest purpose-built mosque, including the country's first minaret, opens on Thursday in Copenhagen's gritty northwest district after receiving a 150 million kroner (20.1 million euros, $27.2 million) endowment from Qatar.

The longstanding political influence of the anti-immigrant Danish People's Party (DPP), as well as the row over Prophet Mohammed cartoons that led to deadly protests in Muslim countries have strained relations between Denmark's largest religious minority and the majority population.

U.N. cultural body UNESCO on Wednesday put the Selous Game Reserve in Tanzania on the list of endangered World Heritage sites because of widespread poaching.

The animal population at the 50,000 square kilometers (19,000 square miles) park had dwindled significantly since it was listed as a heritage site in 1982, UNESCO said.

At least 127 test-takers in a Chinese province hired other people to take the country's all-important college entrance exam on their behalf, the provincial college admission office said.

The Higher Education Admission Office of the central Henan province promised a full investigation into the scam after state broadcaster China Central Television ran an expose piece about it on Tuesday.

Jennifer Weiner had so much to share with her readers.

The author of such best-sellers as "Goodnight Nobody" and "In Her Shoes" spoke before about 100 fans Tuesday at a Barnes & Noble on Manhattan's Upper West Side. They came out on a humid evening for the chance to learn more about her new novel, "All Fall Down," and to hear the latest from a woman they think of as a friend, whose stories are in some ways their stories.

Former Norwegian premier Gro Harlem Brundtland was named Wednesday as the first recipient of the Tang Prize, touted as Asia's version of the Nobels, for her work as the "godmother" of sustainable development.

Brundtland was awarded the debut prize, created by one of Taiwan's richest men with a $100 million donation, with winners in three other categories to be announced this week.

The United Nations' cultural body on Tuesday put Bolivia's Potosi, one of the highest cities in the world, on its list of endangered World Heritage sites due to "uncontrolled mining operations".

UNESCO's annual World Heritage Committee gathering, which takes place this year in Doha, ruled that the colonial city once considered the world's largest industrial complex was at risk of being degraded by mining activity in the Cerro Rico mountain that looms over Potosi.

U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay on Tuesday urged India to ensure that perpetrators of caste-based sexual attacks do not escape justice.

"Women from stigmatized castes suffer the double assault of caste-based and gender-based discrimination," Pillay said on the sidelines of a session of the U.N. Human Rights Council.