An iconic "Water Lilies" painting by French artist Claude Monet sold for £31.7 million ($54 million, 39.7 million euros) at a London sale on Monday, the second-highest sum paid for his work on record.

The 1906 painting "Nympheas" -- sold to an anonymous bidder -- formed part of a seminal exhibition held at the Galerie Durand-Ruel, in Paris, in 1909 to unveil Monet's Water Lily works.

Human rights group Amnesty International on Tuesday condemned a Malaysian government ban on Christians using "Allah" to refer to God as "an abuse against free speech".

The Catholic Church in the Muslim-majority country on Monday lost a long-running court battle for the right to use the Arabic word in the local Malay-language edition of its Herald newspaper.

The U.N. cultural agency has designated a network of ancient, man-made caves outside of Jerusalem a World Heritage site.

UNESCO's World Heritage Committee added the caves of Beit Guvrin-Maresha — known as a "city under a city" — to the prestigious list of during its annual meeting in Qatar on Sunday.

Madrid's top art museum the Prado unveiled a major show Monday about the master painter El Greco, exploring his influence on modern greats such as Francis Bacon and Jackson Pollock.

"El Greco and Modern Painting" is part of a year-long series of big exhibitions to mark the 400th anniversary of the Greek-born master's death.

Myanmar on Monday welcomed the designation of its ancient Pyu kingdom cities as a UNESCO world heritage site, marking its first entry onto the U.N. cultural agency's prized list.

An annual World Heritage Committee meeting in Doha on Sunday granted endangered status to the remains of the cities of Hanlin, Beikthano and Sri Ksetra in the country's Irrawaddy basin.

A row between Tokyo and Taipei over the loan of a host of treasured artefacts to Japan has been solved, Taiwanese officials said Monday, with the exhibition set to open on schedule.

The disagreement broke out last week after the name of Taiwan's national museum was changed in promotional posters advertising an upcoming exhibition in Japan -- a spat that highlighted Taipei's sensitivity over its global diplomatic status.

Two statues from among thousands of works of art looted by British soldiers in the 19th century have been returned to Nigeria, prompting calls for other "stolen" treasures to be repatriated.

For more than a century, the artefacts from the "Benin Bronzes" collection had been in the family of retired medical consultant Mark Walker, whose grandfather was involved in a 1897 British raid in which they were taken. 

U.N. cultural agency UNESCO on Sunday granted its prized World Heritage status to a prehistoric cave in southern France containing the earliest known figurative drawings.

Delegates at UNESCO's World Heritage Committee voted to grant the status to the Grotte Chauvet at a gathering in Doha, where they are considering cultural and natural wonders for inclusion on the UN list.

Malaysia's top court on Monday upheld a government ban forbidding non-Muslims from using "Allah" to refer to God, rejecting an appeal by the Roman Catholic Church that argued that the ban failed to consider the rights of minorities in the mostly Muslim nation.

The Federal Court ruled in a 4-3 decision that the church's newspaper has no grounds to appeal a lower court decision last year that kept it from using "Allah" in its Malay-language weekly publication.

U.N. cultural agency UNESCO on Saturday granted its coveted World Heritage status to a vast and ancient Inca road system spanning six countries in South America.

The listing of the Qhapaq Nan roads will boost efforts to preserve and promote the network -- an engineering marvel comparable to the vast road system of the Roman Empire.