China has detained dozens of people, some of whom it terms doomsday cult members, as part of a nationwide crackdown on rumors about a supposed forthcoming apocalypse, state media said Monday.

Authorities in five different areas have detained 52 people for spreading predictions of a December 21 "doomsday" linked to the ancient Mayan calendar, the state news agency Xinhua reported.

South Africa's former president Nelson Mandela remained in hospital for a ninth straight day on Sunday as he recovered from a lung infection and gallstone surgery.

The office of the president, which has been sending out brief updates on the health of the 94-year-old Mandela, did not release any information Sunday and the presidential spokesman could not be reached for comment.

Austrian conductor Herbert von Karajan, a major figure in 20th-century classical music, was a bigger fan of the Nazis than he made out, according to a historian who has unearthed previously unseen documents.

"It is time to probe scientifically the claims that Karajan constructed and cobbled together... and which in the end he really believed himself," said Oliver Rathkolb from Vienna University.

The piano used for the song "As Times Goes By" in the classic 1942 film "Casablanca" has fetched more than $600,000 at auction.

The 58-key upright was sold to an unidentified buyer for $602,500 at Sotheby's New York on Friday.

Stuck in a small Athens flat all day to avoid being caught by police, earning another stint in prison and possibly a beating, 29-year-old Cameroonian Eugene Manaa rues the day he came to Greece.

"Life is not just difficult here. It's impossible," says Manaa, who recently spent two months in prison on the island of Crete for illegal entry into Greece.

Two boats carrying more than 400 African migrants arrived on the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa on Saturday, the latest in a wave of thousands of undocumented migrants arriving from North African shores.

The boats were intercepted overnight by Italian coast guards in open sea south of the rocky outcrop, which is closer to Africa than to the Italian mainland.

Despite often fierce opposition, the legalization of gay marriage is gaining ground in the West, with France and Britain now expected to join a dozen countries where homosexual couples can legally wed.

For opponents, especially religious conservatives, increasing legal recognition of gay couples is a troubling trend that signals the breakdown of traditional families. Extreme critics have claimed it will open the door to sexual deviance.

Peru has one of Latin America's fastest-growing economies, but Afro-Peruvians are still overwhelmingly mired in poverty.

Those lucky enough to work in unskilled jobs their ancestors had three or four centuries ago -- as pallbearers, hotel bellhops and restaurant wait staff -- hope they may finally be on the cusp of meaningful change.

A ghost town boasting a window onto history rises up out of the punishing, arid desert of northern Chile.

Oddly, this desolate outpost in the Atacama desert born of a frenzy for saltpeter -- a mineral once used to manufacturer gunpowder and fertilizer -- is one of this country's top tourist attractions.

Japan's young people, alienated and outnumbered by a greying population, will barely bother to vote in weekend polls after a campaign that excluded social media and made little effort to engage them.

Opinion polls published Friday show the establishment Liberal Democratic Party -- which draws its support largely from Japan's ageing countryside -- well on its way to victory in Sunday's poll.