A year ago, 28-year-old pianist Aeham al-Ahmad was performing in the ruins of Damascus.

But after Islamic State jihadists torched his beloved piano, he fled to Germany where he now sings to audiences of the troubles in his home country.

You're love-struck and can't wait to have your partner's name or face etched onto your skin for eternity.

Or you've just turned 18, and your first rebellious act upon reaching the age of majority is to have a dragon tattooed on your chest.

The global SlutWalk movement is known for its topless protests demanding respect for women's rights, but a row broke out on Friday in Israel over the right to bare all.

A powerful Egyptian film, shot entirely inside a police van crammed with secular revolutionaries and Muslim Brotherhood supporters as riots rage in Cairo, has brought the country's post-Arab Spring woes to the Cannes film festival.

A painting by Frida Kahlo depicting two nude women sold Thursday in New York for a record $8 million, the highest price yet for any work by the iconic Mexican artist, Christie's said.

The 1939 painting "Two Nudes in the Forest (The Earth Itself)" was estimated to be worth $8 to $12 million. Despite selling at the bottom of that range, it surpassed the previous auction record for Kahlo.

Words most commonly heard on the streets of Hong Kong and Singapore like "yum cha" and "wah" have entered the linguistic mainstream, with the Oxford English Dictionary including them in its latest update.

The terms -- a type of Chinese breakfast and an expression of delight, respectively -- enter along with phrases like "dai pai dong", "ang moh" and "chilli crab" (an open-air food stall, a light-skinned person, and a regional delicacy).

When the critical eye of Mao Zedong's wife fell upon a non-conforming artist during China's Cultural Revolution the assessment could be devastating.

The consequences may be less brutal now, but China's Communist authorities still impose strict controls and censorship.

Since the beginning of time, elves have been the stuff of legend in Iceland, but locals here will earnestly tell you that elves appear regularly to those who know how to see them.

Construction sites have been moved so as not to disturb the elves, and fishermen have refused to put out to sea because of their warnings: here in Iceland, these creatures are a part of everyday life.

A Japanese billionaire is the mystery art collector behind the $57.3 million purchase of a huge self-portrait by Jean-Michel Basquiat at auction earlier this week, his art foundation said Thursday.

"Jean-Michel Basquiat is coming to Japan," businessman Yusaku Maezaw wrote on his Instagram account, posing in front of the painting.

Pope Francis said Thursday he is prepared to set up a commission to study the possibility of women entering the Catholic clergy at the rank of deacon, one below a priest.