A rare collection of letters between Indian independence icon Mahatma Gandhi and a South African bodybuilder with whom he shared a close relationship went on display in New Delhi on Wednesday.

The bond between Gandhi and Hermann Kallenbach has been a subject of speculation and gossip for years owing to their closeness, with previously published correspondence suggesting they may have had a physical relationship.

Singapore said Wednesday it has rejected plans by South Korean activists to erect a statue in the city-state commemorating women forced into sexual slavery by Japan during World War II.

The culture ministry denied claims by the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery that there had been talks about plans to put up such a statue.

Romanian police investigating the spectacular October theft of seven masterpieces from a Rotterdam museum searched the home of a fashion designer on Monday and arrested his assistant, a police source said.

They searched the home of Catalin Botezatu and were also "interrogating him in the framework of the inquiry," the source said.

A new Chinese translation of "Finnegans Wake", renowned for its linguistic difficulty in the original, is proving a hit in China -- although one academic called the author James Joyce "mentally ill".

The first-ever mainland Chinese edition of the novel sold out its initial print run of 8,000 copies just three weeks after being launched in December, the official Xinhua news agency said.

Evangelical churches are blooming in Angola, a traditionally devout Catholic nation, as its impoverished people turn to the promises of proselytism and Protestantism.

In a country of about 19 million people, Pope Benedict XVI drew a crowd of one million faithful when he visited the former Portuguese colony in 2009, and three in five Angolans belong to the faith.

The Fendi fashion house is financing a €2.18 million ($2.93 million) restoration of the Trevi Fountain in Rome, famed as a setting for the film "La Dolce Vita" and the place where dreamers leave their coins.

The 20-month project on one of the city's most iconic fountains was unveiled at a city hall press conference Monday featuring Fendi designers Karl Lagerfeld and Silvia Venturini Fendi, who said the project combined a love of Rome's past with a need to preserve its future.

Israel's health ministry has warned that immigrants must not be given contraceptives without their proper consent, after allegations that Ethiopian women were coerced into taking contraceptive jabs.

The allegations surfaced in December, when an investigative news program looking into the declining birth rate of Ethiopian immigrants to Israel uncovered claims that would-be migrants were told they would be refused entry to the Jewish state if they did not take Depo Provera contraceptive injections.

Sri Lanka's president Sunday urged nationalist Buddhist monks not to incite religious hatred and violence as he moved to stem a wave of attacks targeting minority Muslims.

President Mahinda Rajapakse met with monks with the group known as "Bodu Bala Sena", or Buddhist Force, and urged them to help maintain religious harmony in a country emerging from decades of ethnic violence, according to a statement released by his office.

Authorities in Vienna are refusing to return to Italy the remains of composer Antonio Salieri, Mozart's putative rival, after his native town Legnano launched a new bid to have them repatriated, press reports said Sunday.

"Salieri is part of Vienna's musical history," a spokeswoman for the Austrian capital's culture authority told the Oesterreich daily.

Syria's 22-month war, despite its dehumanizing effects, is teaching ordinary people to pull together and come up with innovative ways to survive without electricity or their daily bread.

"Buying bread or stepping out to collect water can be deadly," said Abu Hisham, a young resident of Aleppo, the strife-torn country's main northern city and one-time economic capital.