Several Kuwaiti liberal civil societies have condemned calls from some organizations and individuals forbidding the celebration of Christmas in the oil-rich Gulf state, a report said Sunday.

The civil societies said in a statement published by Al-Jarida newspaper that every year at this time certain groups declare celebrating Christmas and New Year as forbidden from an Islamic point of view.

Tunisian Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali kicked off viewing on Saturday for an auction of thousands of luxury items once owned by ousted dictator Zine El Abidine Ali and his family.

Jebali inspected 40 luxury cars, thousands of clothing, jewelry items and art works on the eve of the public auction which is being held in the Tunis suburb of Gammarth in a bid to raise millions of euros for government coffers.

In a high-school classroom in western Sydney, teacher Noeleen Lumby is asking her pupils to recall the Aboriginal name for animals that indigenous Wiradjuri people have used for hundreds of years.

As she holds up stuffed toys representing some of Australia's native wildlife, including a kangaroo, an emu and a cockatoo, the class of about 25 -- many from Vietnamese and Cambodian backgrounds -- come to grips with the ancient tongue.

Queen Elizabeth II's chaplain Reverend Rose Hudson-Wilkin, tipped to become one of Britain's first women bishops, said Saturday that the Church of England is struggling with "institutional racism".

Jamaican-born Hudson-Wilkin, a chaplain to the monarch and also to parliament's lower House of Commons, told The Times newspaper that she had been a victim of racism in her ministry.

Pope Benedict XVI on Friday weighed in on a heated debate over gay marriage, criticizing new concepts of the traditional family and warning that in the fight for the family, mankind itself is at stake.

"In the fight for the family, the very notion of being – of what being human really means – is being called into question," Benedict said in Italian during an end of year speech.

Marie, the biggest of all the new bells being made for Paris's Notre Dame Cathedral on its 850th anniversary next year, left its foundry in the Netherlands on Thursday headed for France.

"Marie left the foundry around 2 pm and should arrive in Normandy for final adjustments around 11 am tomorrow," the head of the Eijsbouts royal bell foundry, Joost Eijsbouts, told Agence France Presse.

Canada's top court ruled Thursday that Muslim women wearing the niqab can be forced to remove their veils when testifying, but only if absolutely necessary and after any objections have been considered.

The case, considering a rape victim's request to wear the veil at trial, pitted religious freedoms set out in the constitution against a defendant's right to face an accuser in court, which is deeply entrenched in Canadian law.

While doomsayers hunkered down to await the coming apocalypse, others took a more lighthearted view Friday of a Mayan prophecy of the world's end and marked the event with stunts and parties.

Interpretations of the Mayan "Long Count" calendar point to an era of more than 5,000 years coming to a halt on December 21, although in Sydney it was business as usual.

Turkish officials have taken down an exhibition of paintings of nude women at a state art gallery, a trade union activist said Wednesday, condemning the move as censorship.

The show of 29 oil paintings by prolific Turkish artist and teacher Emin Guloren was due to run in the State Fine Arts Gallery in the northwestern city of Eskisehir for 10 days but was closed down earlier this week, a union official said.

The tomb of the Roman general who inspired the film "Gladiator" risks falling into oblivion despite a plea from Oscar-winning actor Russell Crowe to save it, as recession-hit Italy struggles to preserve its archaeological jewels.

"It's incredibly sad, this is an extraordinary site. Its fate has caught the eyes of the world," said Daniela Rossi, head archaeologist on the dig that unearthed the tomb of Roman general Marcus Nonius Macrinus.