World Story of the Day

China runs the largest censorship machine in human history, researchers say. But Harvard studies of Internet postings in China suggest that even vitriolic criticisms of leaders and state policies are not what officials want to censor.

The new chairman of the Reserve Bank of India infused a sense of much-needed optimism this week, but analysts say the exuberance is unlikely to last. India's economic growth has crashed, its currency has plunged and prices are up. After a decade of high growth rates, India is now the sick man of Asia.

Dumplings are a huge part of Chinese culinary tradition, and restaurants there cater to the nation's obsession with a dazzlingly array of dumpling shapes and fillings, including green frogs stuffed with bullfrog meat and a flock of birds filled with roasted Beijing duck.

Treating sex workers infected with HIV can save their lives and reduce the odds that they will spread HIV to clients. To make it easier for prostitutes to get care, a university-run clinic in Johannesburg is located in a neighborhood where they work.

Jan Scannell is a 32-year-old former accountant with a dream: to establish a national holiday in South Africa like July 4 called Braai Day. Braai is a South African barbecue of meat or vegetables over wood embers.

On Thursday, more than 200 bodies of those killed in a crackdown on protesters by the Egyptian military were being prepared for burial at the El-Iman mosque in Cairo. Some mourners said the government was pressuring them to say the dead committed suicide or died of natural causes.

The Iraqis, among many other Middle Easterners, believe they invented the kebab. The skewered meat dish appears as early as the 9th century in a book from the southern city of Basra called The Book of Misers.

Every two years, Venice hosts the largest and oldest noncommercial art exhibit in the world. It's a dizzying and eclectic array of sights by both celebrity artists and total unknowns. More than 150 artists from 88 countries will be on display through November.

Years of rapid industrial expansion have left many parts of China contending with thick smog and dirty water. The move comes at a time when China is trying to shift away from the investment-led economic model that has generated such dizzying growth in recent years, but the global economic downturn has made the transition a lot more challenging.

Israeli settlers turned the area near the spring into a picnic spot. A local Palestinian says the land has been in his family for generations. The fight is symbolic of the much larger battle over West Bank land.