Russian-born author Olga Martynova was awarded Sunday the Austrian Ingeborg Bachmann prize for literature, a major German-language award, the jury announced.

The 50-year-old Martynova, who is now based in Germany, was selected for the 25,000-euro ($30,000) prize for her story about a young boy entitled "Ich werde sagen: 'Hi!'" ("I will say: Hi!").

France and Germany marked 50 years of reconciliation, their leaders stressing the ties that unite the two countries and condemning news of the desecration of dozens of German war graves.

The vandalism of more than 40 graves of German soldiers killed during World War I came on the eve of the highly symbolic meeting in Reims in northern France, a region scarred by centuries of war with Germany.

Pakistani police seized a large number of ancient Buddhist sculptures that smugglers were attempting to spirit out of the country and sell for millions of dollars on the international antiquities market, officials say.

The stash included many sculptures of Buddha and other related religious figures that experts say could be over 2,000 years old. The items were likely illegally excavated from archaeological sites in Pakistan's northwest, said Salimul Haq, a director at the government's archaeology department.

Surrounded by walls of boxes, researchers scan and catalogue the crumbling, mildewed pages, some nibbled by rats, which make up the national archives of the one-year-old republic of South Sudan.

During the five decades of civil war, an extreme climate and an assortment of animals have eaten away at the archives, some of which are still piled up in a giant city center tent -- unbearably hot and humid even in early morning.

It was once one of the most prestigious places to live in the whole Soviet Union, with good salaries, an idyllic waterfront and away from the prying eyes of the secret services.

When the Soviet Union collapsed, Akademgorodok -- a highbrow town outside Siberia's main city of Novosibirsk, created in the 1950s for academics to live and work -- fell on hard times.

Italian art experts have reportedly discovered around 100 drawings and a number of paintings by the Renaissance master Caravaggio in a find that could be worth over $860 million.

Maurizio Bernardelli Curuz and Adriana Conconi Fedrigolli found the works among a collection held at Milan's Sforza Castle by pupils of painter Simone Peterzano with whom Caravaggio studied from the age of 11.

Europe's tallest skyscraper the Shard was inaugurated in London on Thursday in a dazzling sound and light show befitting its status as the capital's brashest and most controversial building.

Thousands of Londoners gathered at vantage points around the city and lined the River Thames to take in the show, but the structure has been the source of heated debate during its gradual rise above capital's skyline.

The donation of a major collection of Chinese art has breathed new life into plans for a cultural development on Hong Kong's waterfront that more than once appeared to be on the brink of collapse.

Leaders of the almost $3 billion integrated development known as the West Kowloon Cultural District are now more confident than ever that the project, already 14 years in the planning, will become a reality from 2017.

U.N. cultural body UNESCO has warned Seville not to endanger its World Heritage status by building skyscrapers in its historic center after a controversial tower nearly stripped the Spanish city of its title.

Seville managed to irritate UNESCO by constructing a 178-metre (584-feet) high tower, designed by architect Cesar Pelli, just a few hundred metres (yards) from the city's Giralda, a former minaret converted to a bell tower for the cathedral -- home to the tomb of Christopher Columbus -- and its Alcazar palace.

Even death does not provide relief from soaring property prices in Hong Kong, where those seeking a final resting place for a loved one face high costs and a shortage of space.

The squeeze has become so acute that traditional Chinese thinking -- where not having a proper burial or a fixed site at which to remember the dead denies the soul a peaceful resting place -- is eroding in favor of sea funerals.