An Australian museum said Monday it would exhibit what it believes is the best opal stone ever found -- a 6.0-centimeter (2.4 inch) multi-colored gem unearthed in the Outback named the Virgin Rainbow.

The South Australian Museum said the stone, valued at more than Aus$1.0 million (U.S.$730,000), would go on public display for the first time in September to mark the centenary of opal mining in the country.  

Nearly a thousand people rallied outside Taiwan's education ministry Sunday, demanding the minister's resignation and the scrapping of what they describe as a "China-centric" high school curriculum.

The protesters, whom police estimated at around 800, ripped up the new versions of textbooks printed under the new curriculum guidelines.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin on Saturday placed a major archaeological site in Crimea, which he has hailed as the country's most sacred spiritual symbol, under federal control following turmoil over the appointment of its director.

The Kremlin said that Putin ordered the area of the ancient Greek city of Chersonesus to be placed under federal oversight. The site is located just outside Sevastopol, the main port city in Crimea, the Black Sea Peninsula annexed by Russia from Ukraine last year.

An ultra-Orthodox Jew accused of stabbing six people at a Gay Pride march in Jerusalem weeks after his release from jail for a similar attack lashed out in court Friday, Israeli media reported.

"I do not accept this court's authority," said a defiant Yishai Shlissel, representing himself at a hearing.

Amnesty International says Muslims in the western part of Central African Republic are being forced to hide their religion or convert to Christianity under threat of death.

The group said in a report Friday that bans against Muslims are happening outside areas under the protection of U.N. peacekeepers.

Britain has denied Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei a six-month visa and restricted him to a three-week trip because he did not declare a "criminal conviction" in his application, he cited an embassy official as saying Thursday.

The decision prompted outrage online and condemnation from rights groups.

Deborah Brown has danced at the Sydney Opera House and on other famous stages around the world, but performances on the dirt of remote Australian Aboriginal communities are her most nerve-wracking.

It is these stripped back Outback dances which can be the most beautiful, says Brown, a choreographer and dancer with the acclaimed Bangarra Dance Theater, which is inspired by Australia's ancient indigenous culture.

Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei was flying to Germany Thursday on his first overseas trip since he was arrested nearly four years ago, a week after receiving a new passport. 

Ai was expected to arrive on a Lufthansa flight to the southern city of Munich at 1450 GMT, Stephan Urbaschek of his Berlin gallery, Galerie Neugerriemschneider, told AFP.

Psy, Paris Hilton and Queen Elizabeth II all made it, but South Korean President Park Geun-Hye turned down her chance of immortality in the first Asian outpost of France's famous waxwork museum, Musee Grevin, that opened in Seoul Thursday.

The new museum's focus is firmly on the world of entertainment and, in particular, stars of the "Hallyu" or "Korean Wave" of pop songs and TV melodramas that have become the country's most potent cultural export.

More than a century after slavery officially ended in Brazil, DNA tests are giving Afro-Brazilians the intriguing chance to find out who they are beyond mere skin color.

"Above all, slaves lost their names and their identity. With these DNA tests, they can re-establish the connection," said Carlos Alberto Jr, head of "Brazil: DNA Africa," a series of five upcoming documentaries that aim to "restore the links broken by slavery."