In a remote corner of the Indonesian archipelago, a modest synagogue stands in a tiny Jewish community that has found acceptance despite rising intolerance in the world's most populous Muslim-majority country.

A Saudi novelist has won the International Prize for Arabic Fiction, becoming the third author in 10 years from the kingdom to grab the Arab world's most prestigious literary award.

Israel appointed its first female judge in its Muslim sharia court system on Tuesday, officials said, a move hailed as historic.

Ivanka Trump, making her overseas debut as the U.S. "First Daughter" at a women's summit in Berlin on Tuesday, was forced to defend her father's attitude towards women.

Leaning on his crutch, Nizar picks through the rubble where the main building of Mosul University used to be, looking for whatever administrative documents can still be salvaged.

He is part of a unit of four volunteers working relentlessly to bring the university back to life three months after the damage it suffered during an Iraqi offensive against the Islamic State group.

Islam Maytat thought marrying an Afghan-British businessman was her ticket to a new life as a fashionista in London. Instead she became a widow living under jihadist rule in Syria.

The president of war-torn Afghanistan is creating a tourism ministry in a bid to attract visitors to the country endowed with stunning landscapes and archaeological sites, but wracked by nearly four decades of conflict.

Growing cultural ties between Iran and Europe were on display on Wednesday night as a French-Iranian conductor became one of the first Westerners to lead the Tehran Symphony Orchestra since the revolution.

Ilya looks tired and drawn. After being beaten and tortured by men in military uniform in Russia's Chechnya region, he fled to Moscow but still fears for his life -- because he is gay.

UNESCO awarded its prestigious peace prize on Wednesday to migrant rescue association SOS Mediterranee and the mayor of Lampedusa, the tiny Italian island on the frontline of the refugee crisis.