Members of the Amish community in three states have been frightened by recent hair-cutting attacks in Ohio, making fearful calls to authorities and arming themselves with pepper spray and shotguns, a sheriff said.

Jefferson County Sheriff Fred Abdullah said Amish in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana were concerned about the attacks that led federal authorities on Wednesday to raid the compound of a breakaway Amish group and charge seven men, including group leader Sam Mullet, with hate crimes.

Australia on Wednesday announced plans to make forced marriage and "slavery-like" practices prevalent in the sex industry illegal.

Minister for the Status of Women Kate Ellis said the draft legislation was part of the country's response to combat people-trafficking and modern slavery.

A museum in Taiwan says two employees made and sold unauthorized copies of a 220-year-old Buddhist scripture written in the Tibetan language, one of the museum's most treasured pieces.

In January, the National Palace Museum unveiled 500 copies of the 100,000-page book "Tripitaka in Manchu," written in gold and painted with Buddha statues just like the original. Each sells for 1.88 million New Taiwan dollars ($62,000).

Dressed in a black outfit brightened only by red poppy pins, Queen Elizabeth II led thousands of veterans and civilians in a solemn tribute to the country's war dead at the annual Remembrance Sunday ceremony.

The service at central London's Cenotaph war memorial, held on a sunny autumn morning, is a focal point of nationwide observances to honor those who lost their lives in fighting. Similar ceremonies were held in dozens of towns and cities throughout Britain and military outposts in Afghanistan and around the world.

While other national leaders play golf or ride horses to relax, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono says he composes songs.

One of his compositions -- on the environment -- was played just before he spoke to business leaders on Saturday on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Water fowl, monitor lizards and stray dogs have replaced the throngs of tourists at one of Thailand's greatest historical sites. Record flooding has turned Ayutthaya's ancient temples into islands, and a giant statue of the reclining Buddha appears to float miraculously on the lapping water.

Experts fear that at least half of the more than 200 waterlogged monasteries, fortresses and other monuments in the one-time royal capital have been damaged.

An illustrated book describing Canada's vast wilds, masked medicine men and a missionary's taming of bears at the onset of European colonization will hit bookstores on Saturday -- three centuries after it was written.

The manuscript titled "The Natural History of the New World" and a separate codex of drawings was penned around 1675 by a fantastically imaginative Jesuit priest named Louis Nicolas.

Two Syrian theater actors known for their plays mocking authority headed to Egypt on Thursday, fleeing possible arrest in their country but vowing to pursue their pro-democracy struggle.

Mohammed and Ahmed Malas, 29-year-old twin brothers, left to Cairo from Beirut, where they had been living in hiding for the past month.

Russian soldiers in Soviet uniforms paraded across Red Square Monday to mark 70 years after Soviet troops marched through the square directly to fight the German Wehrmacht on the fringe of Moscow.

Tanks, cadets and troops paraded through the square in front of veterans who were among the thousands of soldiers who marched straight to war on November 7, 1941 in a show of force during one of the darkest hours for the USSR in World War II.

An ancient ritual worshipping Kanchenjunga, the world's third-highest mountain, has ended with the death of the last Lepcha priest in remote northeast India, reports said Sunday.

The indigenous Lepcha people of Sikkim paid homage to the Himalayan peak for hundreds of years in an annual ceremony led by direct descendants of the original "bongthing" or priest.