Almost one in 10 babies and toddlers in England and Wales are Muslim, according to new analysis of census figures published Friday, illustrating the growth of the minority community.

Some 317,952 children aged under five, or 9.1 percent, were registered as being Muslim in the 2011 census, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures show.

Israel unveiled Friday a memorial in Tel Aviv to remember the gay and lesbian victims of Nazi persecution, in a ceremony attended by Germany's ambassador.

Members of Tel Aviv's gay community turned out to see the stone monument, modeled on the pink triangle Nazis made homosexuals wear in concentration camps during World War II, which features inscriptions in German, Hebrew and English.

When her mind is clear, Gong Qifeng can recall how she begged for mercy. Several people pinned her head, arms, knees and ankles to a hospital bed before driving a syringe of labor-inducing drugs into her stomach.

She was seven months pregnant with what would have been her second boy. The drugs caused her to have a stillborn baby after 35 hours of excruciating pain. She was forced to have the abortion by officials in China's southern province of Hunan in the name of complying with national limits on family size.

Two Czechs have breathed new life into telephone booths made obsolete in the cell phone age, converting them into mini libraries with the first installed at a Prague hospital on Thursday.

On the shelves of the red booth, patients of the IKEM hospital will find a plethora of genres, including works by U.S. crime writer John Grisham, Czech and Russian titles and biographer Andrew Morton's "Diana: Her True Story".

France's Socialist government on Thursday claimed a last-gasp victory in its battle to prevent a controversial stand-up comic from launching a nationwide tour with a show widely condemned as anti-Semitic.

Less than two hours before the comic, Dieudonne M'Bala M'Bala, was due to take the stage in the western city of Nantes, France's highest administrative court, the Council of State, overturned a local judge's ruling that the show should be allowed to go ahead.

Millions of barefoot devotees packed the Philippine capital's streets Thursday for one of the world's biggest Catholic parades, honoring an ancient statue of Jesus Christ they believe has miraculous powers.

Chanting "Viva, Viva Senor Nazareno! (Long Live Mister Nazarene)", frenzied pilgrims climbed over one another in the suffocating heat to touch the Black Nazarene during the ebony-hued wooden statue's slow procession.

A government-run Singapore museum said Thursday it was considering legal action against a prominent New York art gallery accused of selling stolen Asian artifacts.

The Asian Civilizations Museum (ACM) said it was monitoring court proceedings against the gallery, Art of the Past, and was ready to return any items found to have been stolen.

Looking out at the Channel from France's Lower Normandy beaches, there is little reminder today of the harbor built after the D-Day landings of tens of thousands of Allied soldiers that took the Germans by surprise in 1944.

Just a handful of large concrete blocks remain of a engineering feat by the Allies that became a crucial logistical support leading to their victory in Normandy.

The Vatican is limiting the use of honorific "monsignor" titles, according to a letter sent to Catholic dioceses around the world, after repeated complaints from Pope Francis about careerist priests.

The Secretariat of State, the central administration of the Catholic Church, said it said on Wednesday that the title could now only be given to priests who are at least 65 years old and those who occupy senior posts.

One hundred years after the start of World War I, Britain has been gripped by an unexpectedly bitter argument over the legacy of the conflict, focusing on the television comedy "Blackadder".

Comments by the education minister Michael Gove about the war this week have sparked a fierce debate that, despite its historical origins, goes to the heart of present-day questions about British identity.