Lebanon's renowned Baalbek festival is back, held in front of a live audience for the first time since 2019, despite the country's economic meltdown and the coronavirus pandemic.

French pianist Simon Ghraichy performed in front of a full house on Sunday night in what organizers described as a night of hope for Lebanon's revival. The annual festival in the ancient northeastern city of soaring Roman columns has long attracted celebrities from around the world.

Nour never felt entirely safe as a queer person in Lebanon. But in the past few years, the 25-year-old pharmacist had begun letting his guard down, meeting with friends in LGBTQ-friendly spaces in Beirut and even performing in drag shows.

He now opts to stay at home, fearing for his safety more than ever after a wave of anti-LGBTQ hate speech that followed last month's decision by the Lebanese Interior Ministry to shut down any events aimed at promoting "sexual perversion."

The exiled Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader the Dalai Lama on Friday arrived in India's remote Ladakh region bordering China where he received a rousing reception.

Thousands of people lined both sides of the road outside the airport in the cold desert region's Leh town to welcome the Dalai Lama, who is touring outside his base in the northern Indian city of Dharmsala for the first time since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. He will stay in Ladakh for about 45 days.

Curators at an Israeli museum have discovered three previously unknown sketches by celebrated 20th-century artist Amedeo Modigliani hiding beneath the surface of one of his paintings.

The unfinished works by Modigliani, an Italian-born artist who worked in Paris before his death in 1920, came to light after the canvas of "Nude with a Hat" at the University of Haifa's Hecht Museum was X-rayed as part of a sweeping forensic study of his work for an upcoming exhibit in Philadelphia.

Iran has arrested an internationally renowned filmmaker, several newspapers reported Tuesday, the third Iranian director to be locked up in less than a week as the government escalates a crackdown on the country's celebrated cinema industry.

The arrest of award-winning director Jafar Panahi and wider pressure on filmmakers follows a wave of recent arrests as tensions escalate between Iran's hard-line government and the West. Security forces have detained several foreigners and a prominent reformist politician as talks to revive Tehran's nuclear accord with world powers hit a deadlock and fears grow over the country's economic crisis.

Hundreds of thousands of Muslim pilgrims from around the world raised their hands to heaven and offered prayers of repentance on the sacred hill of Mount Arafat in Saudi Arabia on Friday, an intense day of worship considered to be the climax of the annual hajj.

Multitudes stood shoulder to shoulder, feet to feet, for the emotional day of supplication in the desert valley where Muslims believe the Prophet Muhammad delivered his final sermon, calling for equality and unity among Muslims.

The Women's Copa America football tournament starts Friday in Colombia at a time when the sport is clearly evolving in South America but at significantly different speeds and opportunities for players.

Ten teams are split into two groups with two countries advancing from each group to the knockout stage. The final is on July 30 at Stadium Alfonso Lopez in the Colombian city of Bucaramanga.

Tehran residents accustomed to seething at slow-moving traffic, sweltering in summer heat and suffocating in smog may be surprised to find a growing number of outdoor painters reveling in the Iranian capital's historic charm.

The overcrowded metropolis may be dusty and in need of beautification, but the honeycomb of alleyways that make up old Tehran is drawing throngs of artists out of their cramped studios and into the open streets — a trend that accelerated during the lockdowns of the coronavirus pandemic.

Hundreds of thousands of hajj pilgrims began streaming out of Mecca Thursday ahead of the highlight of the annual rites, which have attracted huge crowds despite the continuing pandemic and unforgiving heat.

Many of the robed worshippers are making the journey on foot to Mina, seven kilometers (four miles) from Mecca's Grand Mosque, Islam's holiest site, where they circled the imposing black Kaaba at the start of the rituals on Wednesday.

Lebanon's LGBTQ community, long among the most vocal and visible in the Middle East, has been targeted by a crackdown that has seen queer activists harassed and Pride gatherings cancelled.

It has heaped pressure on a community that already lost many of its safe spaces in the devastating 2020 Beirut port explosion and been depleted by an exodus driven by Lebanon's severe economic crisis.