After the death of their spiritual leader, more than 2,000 Egyptian Copts have poured into the Holy Land for the Easter holidays, defying a ban he imposed on visiting Jerusalem and other Israeli-controlled areas.

The influx — after decades when Egyptian pilgrims were a rarity — adds a new element to the already diverse mix of languages and faiths in Jerusalem's Old City during the holy season. The pilgrims are clearly distinguished by the Egyptian accent of their Arabic and long cotton robes worn by many of the men.

Wafts of perfume thrill visitors as soon as they set foot in the frescoed halls of the Santa Maria Novella pharmacy in Florence, a perfumer to poets, film stars and noblewomen through the ages.

The perfumer actually traces its roots back to 1221 by Dominican friars who cultivated medicinal herbs to make potions and balms and the company is housed in mediaeval halls with spectacular views on a cloister in the city center.

Home to 4,000 people and overlooking the strategic Straits of Hormuz that Iran has threatened to close, Kumzar village has a thousand year-old language of its own that no one else on earth understands.

Nestled on the northernmost tip of Oman's Musandam peninsula and hidden by spectacular mountains that plunge into the Gulf's aquamarine waters, tiny Kumzar is a simple fishing village that is a haven for dolphins and teems with marine life.

Serbian police have uncovered a painting by French Post-Impressionist Paul Cezanne stolen from Switzerland in 2008 and arrested three suspects, local media said Thursday.

According to private broadcaster B92 the police found the painting "The Boy in the Red Vest" (1894-95) late Wednesday in Belgrade. Estimated to be worth tens of millions of euros (dollars), it was stolen from the E.G. Buehrle collection in Zurich together with paintings by Edgar Degas, Vincent van Gogh and Claude Monet, B92 added.

The Titanic was more than just the most advanced ship of its time. It was the paragon of turn-of-the-century style and luxury, when languid meals, dinner suits and fine china were de rigueur.

Like the steel and steam engines that made the liner an engineering wonder, the Titanic's more perishable finery now lies 12,400 feet (3,780 meters) down in the darkness of the North Atlantic.

It's a game that every Ukrainian knows about: The "Death Match" of 1942, when top Kiev football players trounced a team of Nazi occupiers and reportedly paid for it with their lives.

But Ukrainian authorities on Tuesday froze the release of a movie depicting that Soviet defiance of Nazi Germany because of concerns it could ignite explosive emotions just weeks before Ukraine co-hosts the 2012 European Championship.

Turkish President Abdullah Gul has signed into law a controversial education bill which extends access to religious schools and has infuriated secularists, NTV television reported Wednesday.

The bill was approved by parliament last month after fierce debates between lawmakers from Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's moderate Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) and opposition deputies.

The naked body in Arab art is the theme of a new Paris exhibit meant to broaden views of Arab culture, spotlighting the many artists willing to break taboos and depict nudity in all its forms.

"The Body Uncovered" at Paris' Arab World Institute aims to "challenge the stereotypes usually associated with the Arab world that reduce it to the single image of religious fanaticism," said the institute's chairman Renaud Muselier.

A century after its sinking the Titanic haunts this Canadian port where some 150 victims are buried, but has helped spur a tourist boom as it readies to commemorate the somber anniversary.

The Titanic is everywhere here.

A website published more than 200,000 documents on Monday relating to the sinking of the Titanic, to mark the disaster's 100th anniversary.

The collection, published by British family history website Ancestry.co.uk, includes a list of passengers as well as the wills of Edward Smith, the doomed liner's captain, and US tycoons Benjamin Guggenheim and John Jacob Astor.