Migrants play soccer at makeshift camp in Via Cupa (Gloomy Street) in downtown Rome, Italy, August 2, 2016. Italy is taking in thousands of boat migrants every week for a third year in a row, and friction is common between them and those who live along the path many take on their journey towards northern Europe. (Photo by Max Rossi/Reuters)

Kyaiktiyo Pagoda, also known as Golden Rock is a well-known Buddhist pilgrimage site in Mon State, Burma. It is a small pagoda (7.3 metres (24 ft)) built on the top of a granite boulder covered with gold leaves pasted on by devotees. According to legend, the Golden Rock itself is precariously perched on a strand of the Buddha's hair. The balancing rock seems to defy gravity, as it perpetually appears to be on the verge of rolling down the hill. The rock and the pagoda are at the top of Mt. Kyaiktiyo. It is the third most important Buddhist pilgrimage site in Burma after the Shwedagon Pagoda and the Mahamuni Pagoda. A glimpse of the "gravity defying" Golden Rock is believed to be enough of an inspiration for any person to turn to Buddhism.

While communism, collectivism, worms, dry rot and casual looting failed to destroy the majestic wooden churches of Russia, it may be ordinary neglect that finally does them in. Dwindled now to several hundred remaining examples, these glories of vernacular architecture lie scattered amid the vastness of the world’s largest country. Just over a decade ago, Richard Davies, a British architectural photographer, struck out on a mission to record the fragile and poetic structures. Austerely beautiful and haunting, “Wooden Churches: Traveling in the Russian North” (White Sea Publishing; $132) is the result. Covering thousands of miles, Mr. Davies described how he and the writer Matilda Moreton tracked down the survivors from among the thousands of onion-domed structures built after Prince Vladimir converted to Christianity in 988.

Damai, 3 years old Bornean orang utan plays courtyard at Surabaya Zoo as he prepares to be released into the wild on May 19, 2014 in Surabaya, Indonesia. The two baby orangutans, brothers, were found in Kutai National Park in a critical condition having been abandoned by their mother on May 14, 2014. The Centre for Orangutan Protection (COP) have since been nursing the animals back to health, treating them for malnourishment and 16 wounds predominantly to the feet and hands. (Photo by Robertus Pudyanto/Getty Images)

A Belgian shrimp fisherman rides a carthorse to haul a net out in the sea to catch shrimps during low tide at the coastal town of Oostduinkerke, Belgium July 3, 2015. At the end of each fishing session, the fishermen and their mounts leave the water to empty the net's contents into two wicker baskets fixed on each side of the horse. This traditional method of catching shrimps along the North Sea coast, which dates back to some 500 years, attracts tourists every summer. In 2013, Unesco recognized shrimp fishing on horseback as an intangible cultural heritage. (Photo by Yves Herman/Reuters)

Members of security forces secure Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt, November 11, 2016. Egypt imposed a big security clampdown in its cities on Friday as mass demonstrations called to protest against austerity measures failed to take place. Riot police and armored vehicles filled the otherwise empty streets of central Cairo, but most people stayed at home. (Photo by Mohamed Abd El Ghany/Reuters)

“Josephine Baker (June 3, 1906 – April 12, 1975) was an American-born French dancer, singer, and actress. Nicknamed the “Bronze Venus”, the “Black Pearl”, and even the “Créole Goddess” in anglophone nations.

Baker was the first African American female to star in a major motion picture and to integrate an American concert hall, and to become a world-famous entertainer. She is also noted for her contributions to the Civil Rights Movement in the United States (she was offered the unofficial leadership of the movement by Coretta Scott King in 1968 following Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination, but turned it down), for assisting the French Resistance during World War II and for being the first American-born woman to receive the French military honor, the Croix de guerre”.

Photo: American entertainer Josephine Baker in costume for her famous “banana dance”. Baker was an overnight sensation when she arrived in Paris in the mid-1920s. (Photo by Walery/Getty Images)

Japan Self-Defense Force (JSDF) soldiers and firefighters make rescue works among mountain lodges, covered with volcanic ash near the peak of Mt. Ontake, which straddles Nagano and Gifu prefectures in this September 28, 2014 photo taken and released by Kyodo. More than 30 people were feared dead on Sunday near the peak of the Japanese volcano that erupted a day earlier, sending a huge cloud of ash and rock tumbling down its slopes, while packed with hikers. (Photo by Reuters/Kyodo News)