A coalition of more than 100 South Korean civic groups on Thursday condemned the Berlin film festival for inviting director Kim Ki-duk, who assaulted an actress, despite its support for the #MeToo campaign against abuse of women.

Kim, 57, is one of South Korea's top directors whose awards include the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival for "Pieta" in 2012.

A prominent Saudi cleric has endorsed Valentine's Day, long forbidden in the ultra-conservative kingdom, calling it a "positive social event" that was not linked to religion.

A French court was set to hear the case of a 28-year-old man who avoided rape charges after having sex with an 11-year-old after prosecutors judged that the intercourse was consensual.

It is a marriage made in Heaven for cute-obsessed Japan: this Valentine's Day, lovers can present the object of their affection with a world first -- naturally bright pink chocolate.

In a small medieval Slovak town, couples are getting ready on Valentine's Day to make a "deposit" about their romance in a place dedicated to love stories.

France will return three paintings by the Flemish master Joachim Patinir Monday to the descendants of a Jewish family who were forced to sell them as they fled the Nazis.

A veiled Saudi woman and an unrelated man jig and twirl on a busy street, stirring a furious debate about the waning influence of the once-feared religious police, notorious for enforcing sex segregation.

A spate of unprecedented protests against Iran's mandatory headscarves for women have been tiny in number, but have still reignited a debate that has preoccupied the Islamic republic since its founding.

The mayor of Baghdad wants to revive her war-torn city, fix its decrepit infrastructure and twin it with Paris -- another female-led metropolis.

Thikra Alwash, a 60-year-old civil engineer and only woman mayor of a Middle East capital, faces a mountainous task.

The 68th Berlinale, Europe's first major film festival of the year, opens February 15 with 24 new movies from around the world screening in the main showcase.