An outspoken Tibetan writer said Chinese authorities prevented her from receiving a cultural award Thursday at the Dutch ambassador's residence in Beijing.

Poet Tsering Woeser said that state security agents told her Wednesday they would not let her attend the low-key, private event to receive the Prince Claus Fund of the Netherlands award for courage in speaking on behalf of the rights of Tibetans.

Britain's White Cube gallery, known as an early champion of provocative British artists Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin, launched its Hong Kong branch on Thursday, becoming the latest Western gallery to open an Asian outpost in pursuit of China's booming art market.

White Cube was unveiling a 6,000-square-foot (557-square-meter) space in a new building in Hong Kong's central business district. With the opening of its first branch outside Britain, White Cube follows in the footsteps of other British as well as French and American galleries that have set up shop in Hong Kong in recent years.

The number of American mosques has increased dramatically in the last decade despite post 9/11 protests aimed at Muslim houses of worship, according to a new study.

The new Islamic centers serve Muslims who moved into the suburbs and newer immigrants from Africa, Iraq and elsewhere.

Vatican archives documenting centuries of European history including Galileo Galilei's trial documents and Martin Luther's excommunication went on public display for the first time Wednesday.

The exhibit also includes the annulation of Henry VIII's marriage to Catherine of Aragon and the 'Dictatus Papae' of Pope Gregory VII, an 11th-century script asserting the pontiff's spiritual and terrestrial powers.

Soul singer Erykah Badu said Wednesday she holds no grudge against Malaysia's government for barring her from performing after a photograph of her body art offended some Muslims.

More than 1,500 people had bought tickets to watch the Grammy-winning American singer at a Kuala Lumpur auditorium Wednesday, but Malaysia's information minister announced on the eve of the concert that it could not proceed because a promotional photo of Badu with the Arabic word for Allah painted on her bare shoulders was "an insult to Islam."

A five-year search by a Czech author has discovered that 16 paintings in the Czech Republic were once owned by Adolf Hitler.

The art works, which Hitler bought in Germany during World War II, had been moved to Czechoslovakia after it was occupied by the Nazis to prevent them being damaged by Allied attacks.

A bare-chested Vladimir Putin strokes the bottom of an Olympic gymnast and overdoses on Botox as his wife Lyudmila takes refuge in a monastery -- in a new staging of a play at a Moscow theater.

The play -- staged ahead of March 4 polls where Putin is expected to win back the presidency -- takes plenty of inspiration from Internet gossip and breaks almost every remaining taboo about the Russian leader's personal life.

It has been sought for centuries but remained a mystery, still out of reach. Now an expert has pinpointed a site that could be Atahualpa's resting place: the last Inca emperor's tomb.

"This is an absolutely important find for the history of Ecuador's archeology and for the (Andean) region," said Patrimony Minister Maria Fernanda Espinosa, speaking of the ruins found by Ecuadoran historian Tamara Estupinan.

Chinese architect Wang Shu, whose buildings have been praised for their commanding presence and careful attention to the environment, has won the 2012 Pritzker Architecture Prize, the prize's jury announced Monday.

The 49-year-old architect joins Frank Gehry, Tadao Ando, Renzo Piano and Eduardo Souto de Moura in receiving the honor that's been called architecture's Nobel Prize. Wang, the first Chinese architect to receive the honor, is recognized for the museums, libraries, apartment complexes and other structures that he has designed in China.

The April 1 auction of more than 5,000 Titanic artifacts a century after the luxury liner's sinking has stirred hundreds of interested calls, with some offering to add to the dazzling trove already plucked from the ocean floor.

Auctioneer Arlan Ettinger said his New York auction house, Guernsey's Auctioneers & Brokers, has heard from some descendants of the more than 700 survivors, including one offering papers found on the floating body of a passenger.