A group of Sydney Symphony Orchestra musicians scaled the city's Harbor Bridge for an exclusive concert on Monday to celebrate the sweeping structure's 80th birthday.

Known as the "Grand Old Dame" of Sydney, or more colloquially "The Coathanger", the bridge was officially opened to traffic on March 19, 1932, joining the harbor’s northern and southern shores for the first time.

Marco Muller, who is winding up his mandate as head of the Venice Film Festival, has been named artistic director of Rome's international film festival, the Cinema Foundation said Friday in a statement.

"I couldn't be happier, I'm returning to my city after 22 years to work on an exciting project," said Muller, who was born in Rome. "Let's roll up our sleeves and get to work."

Hong Kong director Ann Hui will be honored for her life's work at the Asian Film Awards on Monday, in recognition of classics such as "Song of the Exile".

Hui, the first female director to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Hong Kong International Film Festival Society, is widely regarded as a pioneer of the southern city's New Wave of the 1970s and 1980s.

The graphic scenes of real life destruction wreaked by last year's tsunami left manga artist Jiro Taniguchi wondering what the point of his art form was.

The 64-year-old was sitting at his desk on March 11 last year when Japan was changed forever by the huge earthquake and the enormous tsunami it sent hurtling into the coast.

Mormons are by far more generous with their time and money than the average American, though they often devote it to their own communities, a U.S. study showed Thursday.

The study showed members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) -- some six million people across the United States, but heavily concentrated in the western state of Utah -- use 36 hours each month to volunteer, compared to an average of four hours a month for non-church members.

Germany's top federal appeals court ruled Friday that a Berlin museum must return to a Jewish man from the U.S. thousands of rare posters that were seized from his father by the Gestapo, saying that for the institution to keep them would be perpetuating the crimes of the Nazis.

The Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe said Peter Sachs, 74, was the rightful owner of the posters, now believed to be worth between €4.5 million and €16 million ($6 million and $21 million), and can demand their return from the German Historical Museum.

After a recent wave of attacks in Baghdad, urbane intellectuals sought refuge, as they have for years, in a storied market-place that has been their oasis in the capital's chaos: Mutanabi Street.

It comes alive on Fridays, when its book market vies for the attention of passersby with men who recite verses from poetry by the Arab writer after whom it is named as others sip hot lemon tea at the renowned Shabander Cafe.

China dominates the global art and antiques market as of last year, said a report published Friday ahead of the launch of the European Fine Art Fair in the Netherlands.

Published by organizers of the world's biggest antiques fair, to open to collectors in the southern city of Maastricht, the report said China now claims a 30 percent share of the worldwide market.

State-employed archaeologists in crisis-hit Greece say government spending cuts pose a severe threat to the country's rich cultural heritage.

The Association of Greek Archaeologists warns that as Greeks are pummeled by income losses and record unemployment, looting of ancient sites by amateur treasure hunters is growing. They say cutbacks have also led to severe security guard shortages.

A North Korean orchestra led by a South Korean conductor performed in Paris for the first time Wednesday, in a diplomatic victory highlighting that "music is bigger than borders".

The musicians played with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Radio France under the baton of South Korean maestro Myung-Whun Chung who called the event a "family concert".