Saudi Arabia announced Saturday it will allow 60,000 vaccinated residents of the kingdom to perform the annual hajj, state media reported.

Lebanese International Soprano Tania Kassis released Monday an English song entitled “Land For All” in collaboration with the U.N. Information Center in Beirut.

This song, which is the English version of her Arabic song “Al Ardou Lil Jami3”, is a blend of both western and eastern tunes and was written by Tania Kassis herself and composed and arranged by Michel Fadel with an adaptation of a small part of the famous "O Fortuna" from Carmina Burana by Carl Orff.

French actors, stage technicians and other members of the performing arts ended a more-than-two-month occupation of the famous Odeon theatre in Paris on Sunday, allowing the show to go on after this week's easing of Covid-19 curbs.

Guatemala's Pacaya volcano has been erupting since February, keeping local communities and authorities on high alert.

A prominent Hindu sect lured low-caste men from India to the United States and paid them just $1.20 an hour to build America's largest Hindu temple, a lawsuit alleges.

China's population has grown at its slowest pace in decades, reaching 1.41 billion, census results showed on Tuesday, highlighting fears of a looming crisis over an ageing society.

The growth of 5.4 percent was the slowest since the 1960s, due in part to falling birthrates and a sharp drop in the number of working-age people.

Markets in Yemen's embattled Marib city are bustling with people gearing up for the Eid al-Fitr holiday, despite fighting that has raged nearby between government forces and Huthi rebels.

Egyptian authorities on Sunday executed a Coptic Christian monk convicted over the 2018 killing of the abbot of an ancient desert monastery, the monk's family told AFP.

Pope Francis on Sunday called for an end to violence in annexed east Jerusalem, where clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police have left scores of Palestinians injured.

After delivering his Regina Caeli prayer from the window overlooking St Peter's Square, the pope said he was "following with particular concern the events that are happening in Jerusalem."

French President Emmanuel Macron is to lay a wreath at the tomb of Napoleon Bonaparte to mark the 200th anniversary of his death on Wednesday after months of debate about the legacy of the country's most famous autocrat.