Cancer sufferer Dietmar Erlacher's lonely anti-smoking campaign in Austria, one of Europe's last bastions of the habit, has won him insults, enemies and even several assaults.

Construction tycoon Niu Yeqing owns four cars in which he cruises the streets of the Chinese city of Hefei, including a black Mercedes-Benz S600. His wife favours a burgundy red Porsche.

By Cat Barton

BUON MA THUOT, Vietnam, April 17, 2013 (AFP) -- Most Vietnamese coffee farmers have never heard of a double tall skinny latte, but they could tell you the price of the beans that go into one in their sleep.

From high-tech Israeli irrigation systems to text message updates of global prices for the commodity, coffee farming in Vietnam's Central Highlands has come a long way since the French first introduced the bean over a century ago.

Chhavi Rajawat, an MBA graduate and one-woman whirlwind, is seeking to drag her impoverished ancestral village in the desert state of Rajasthan into the 21st Century.

On a muddy field located between a motorway and a meander of the Seine southeast of Paris, French archaeologists have uncovered an Iron Age graveyard that they believe will shed light on the great yet enigmatic civilisation of Gaul.

His graffiti once plastered Hong Kong, dense black ink calligraphy applied with a brush to any public surface, telling the outlandish story of why he believed the territory belonged to him.

A new no-holds-barred graphic novel biography of Rembrandt strives to fill in the often dark, drunken and erotic gaps in the tragic life of one of the most famous of Dutch artists.

At a school in a bombed-out Afghan village near Kabul, Angelina Jolie is known as an aid worker or engineer -- never as one of the world's most famous film stars.

For a Shakespeare play with a twist, a Polish arts troupe cast inmates alongside professional actors in an effort to engage those on the sidelines of society.

Shailesh Madiyar forlornly surveys the giant shipyard in the Indian port of Mandvi. A place synonymous with wooden boat-building for centuries, it now lies largely deserted.