Offbeat

Steffan Millius grips his sword and makes his way through the throngs of people crowding into Appenzell’s central square to take part in Switzerland’s famous

With two cars, foreign holidays and a cook for their apartment, one Beijing family epitomizes the new middle class created by China’s decades of rapid economic gro

NEW YORK: Online retail titan Amazon announced Thursday it is expanding sales of its Kindle tablet computers to “over 170 countries and territories around the worl

MANILA: Dan Brown’s description of Manila as “the gates of hell” in the American novelist’s latest book has not gone down well with officials in the Philippine capital.

Nothing like a good hairdo to fight deeply entrenched racism in one of the world’s emerging economic giants.

KATMANDU, Nepal: A Nepalese official says 80-year-old Japanese mountaineer Yuichiro Miura has become the oldest man to reach the top of Mount Everest.

JAKARTA: Hundreds of sunbathers fled a popular Indonesian beach in panic when a four-meter crocodile laid down next to them to soak up some rays, an official said yesterday.

LOS ANGELES: The pants worn by actor Mark Hamill in the first Oscar-winning “Star Wars” film went under the hammer Tuesday for $ 36,100, according to auction house’s website.

MOSCOW: Russia’s federal guard service launched an investigation after photos appeared in the media of a disgraced former employee posing behind Vladimir Putin’s desk in the Kremlin, an official s

An 80-year-old Japanese extreme skier who climbed Mount Everest five years ago, but just missed becoming the oldest man to reach the summit, was back on the mountain yes