Thousands of Christians gathered near Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulcher for Easter Saturday and marched in processions brimming with tradition, taking turns to pray in the site where they believe Jesus was slain and buried.

Easter Saturday is a day of reflection and waiting for many Christians, who believe Jesus was crucified on Friday and rose from the dead on Sunday.

The Iranian deputy culture minister on Saturday hailed German Nobel literature laureate Gunter Grass's poem in which he accused Iran's nemesis Israel of plotting its annihilation, local media reported.

In a letter addressed to "Distinguished author Dr. Gunter Grass," Deputy Culture Minister Javad Shamaqdari was quoted as saying: "I read your literary work of human and historical responsibility, and it warns beautifully."

Millions across Japan this weekend are flocking to the best spots for viewing cherry blossoms, in a tradition that last year was overshadowed by the natural disasters that struck the nation.

The national weather service announced Friday that blooming had officially started in Tokyo on March 31, using the city's central Yasukuni Shrine as a barometer -- an explosion of colors that will last only about a week.

A Russian-Ukrainian crew that set sail in September on a historic sailing expedition around the South and North Poles has gone missing in the Antarctic, its spokeswoman said on Friday.

The eight-person crew on board the 29-metre (97-foot) Scorpius sailboat has made no radio or other contact since Monday night, Anna Subbotina, spokeswoman of the Russian Polar Sailing Expedition, told the Interfax news agency.

Roman Catholic fanatics in the Philippines had themselves nailed to the cross Friday in a bloody display of religious frenzy as the Christian world marked the day Jesus was crucified.

The gruesome real-life reenactments of the crucifixion, which are held every Good Friday in the Philippines, are frowned upon by the Catholic Church but have become freak tourist draws.

Time and how it shapes us is key to the work of French sculptress Nathalie Decoster, including the giant bronzes she has just shipped off to Hong Kong -- quiet meditations for a hectic-paced city.

Forty monumental human figures of bronze and steel, from two to six meters high (six to 20 feet), are currently making the month-long boat journey to Asia, where 15 of them will hang for two months in the streets of the vertical city.

The wreck of the Atlantic liner Titanic will this month come under UNESCO protection, as it has now lain at the bottom of the Atlantic for 100 years, the United Nations cultural body said Thursday.

The British liner sank in international waters and so comes under no state's protection but, after a century, wrecks fall under the jurisdiction of a 2009 UN Convention on the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage.

Syria's year-long revolt has exposed to looting and destruction the country's archaeological treasures, including the ancient city of Palmyra and the Greco-Roman ruins of Apamea, experts warned Thursday.

Most vulnerable are strife-torn areas that have fallen outside the full control of the regime where looters have already targeted museums, excavation sites and monuments, they said.

Frederic and Anne-Laure Pascal are devout Roman Catholics who built their lives around their religion. When she lost her job last year, the young couple decided on an unlikely expression of their religious commitment: a worldwide "interfaith pilgrimage" to places where peace has won out over dueling dogmas.

Since October, the French couple has visited 11 nations from Iraq to Malaysia in an odyssey to find people of all creeds who have dedicated their lives to overcoming religious intolerance in some of the world's most divided and war-torn corners.

Thai censors banned a film based on William Shakespeare's "Macbeth", saying the tale could sow "disunity" in the politically divided kingdom.

In the play, a power-hungry general kills the King of Scotland to take the throne for himself.