Clutching a small saw, Syrian volunteer Rana Jreij cut away at bushes growing up the centuries-old walls of one of the world's most famous Crusader castles, Krak des Chevaliers.

Questions swirled Thursday about the origins of Pope Francis' bombshell comments endorsing same-sex civil unions, with all evidence suggesting he made them in a 2019 interview that was never broadcast in its entirety.

The Vatican refused to comment on whether it cut the remarks from its own broadcast or if the Mexican broadcaster that conducted the interview did. And it didn't respond to questions about why it allowed the comments to be aired now in the documentary "Francesco," which premiered Wednesday.

Several Jewish cemeteries and a Holocaust memorial have been desecrated in Greece, the country's Jewish council said Monday, just days after neo-Nazi leaders were jailed in a landmark trial.

Tunisian authorities said Monday police are investigating an MP who in a Facebook post appeared to defend the beheading of a French teacher who had shown his pupils satirical cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.

The scene cuts from Dubai to Tel Aviv, the lyrics switch from Arabic to Hebrew to English and the song is a slightly kitsch electro-pop duet by artists who, for now, remain apart.

An Egyptian activist and satirist detained for more than two years has been released, his family has announced.

The Nobel Peace Prize was Friday awarded to the World Food Program for feeding millions of people from Yemen to North Korea, with the coronavirus pandemic seen pushing millions more into hunger.

The WFP was honored for "its efforts to combat hunger, for its contribution to bettering conditions for peace in conflict-affected areas and for acting as a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict," Nobel committee chairwoman Berit Reiss-Andersen said on unveiling the winner in Oslo.

The Nobel Prize for Literature is set to be awarded Thursday after several years of controversy and scandal for the world's pre-eminent literary accolade.

In 2018 the award was postponed after sex abuse allegations rocked the Swedish Academy, the secretive body that chooses the winners, and sparked a mass exodus of members.

A tragic love story that Simone de Beauvoir thought "too intimate" to publish during her lifetime will finally see the light of day Wednesday, 34 years after her death.

As the pandemic rages in the United States, Aracelis Bonet has had to make a choice between her job and caring for her autistic son.