Oscar-nominated director Andrei Zvyagintsev on Thursday launched a furious attack on the Kremlin over government censorship that he said is strangling the arts.

Israel recalled its ambassador to UNESCO for consultations Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced, after a second resolution accused of denying the Jewish connection to Jerusalem.

The founder of Scandinavia's first female-led mosque is a soft-spoken "imama" who has riled conservatives with her views on marriage but others say her project is not progressive enough.

Israel's national theater company is to perform for the first time in a West Bank settlement with a hardline reputation, drawing praise from the right-wing government and outrage from opponents.

An historic mosque in India agreed Monday to scrap a ban on women entering its inner sanctum, after a bitter legal battle about the restriction in the deeply religious country.

The Haji Ali Dargah trust has since 2011 barred women from the landmark mausoleum off the coast of Mumbai, insisting the presence of women near the tomb of a revered saint is a "grievous sin" in Islam.

Iraq's parliament on Saturday voted to ban the sale, import and production of alcohol, in a surprise move likely to anger some minorities but also to please influential religious parties.

In many parts of Africa albinos are stigmatized or hunted for their body parts, but for one night in Kenya those with the condition took to the catwalk to show off their unique beauty.

Billed by organizers as the first pageant of its kind, young albino men and women on Friday competed for the title of Miss and Mr Albinism Kenya.

Private rooms at the pope's summer residence in Castel Gandolfo will open to the public from Saturday at the request of Pope Francis, who has never holidayed there in more than three years as pontiff.

A painstaking restoration of a 15th-century Flemish masterpiece is revealing the long-lost detail and splendour that helped make the altarpiece one of the world's most stolen artworks.

"The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb" by the Van Eyck brothers was unveiled 600 years ago at Saint Bavo's Cathedral in Ghent, but since then its full glory has dimmed, after being split into pieces, seized by Napoleon, then the Nazis, and nabbed by thieves.

Italy's Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi, on Friday described a UNESCO resolution condemning Israel's actions in east Jerusalem as "incomprehensible and unacceptable" and said his officials should have voted against it.