Nepal reopened its temple-filled Durbar Squares to the public on Monday despite warnings over safety, seeking to woo back tourists after a deadly earthquake that left much of the country's cultural heritage in ruins.

Traditional dancers and musicians performed at a ceremony to mark the official reopening of Durbar Square in the historic town of Bhaktapur, one of three former royal squares in the Kathmandu Valley that date back as far as the 12th century.

Israeli artists and leading cultural figures gathered Sunday to try and consolidate an approach against Culture Minister Miri Regev's declared intent to withdraw support from institutes that "delegitimize" Israel, a move critics say would amount to censorship.

Hundreds of cultural icons crammed into a performance venue in Jaffa, south of Tel Aviv, to discuss a joint response after Regev sparked a furore last week when she threatened to defund a theater managed by an Arab Israeli if he refused to perform in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

The best-known portrait of German composer Johann Sebastian Bach was welcomed back in his home city in an emotional ceremony Friday after an odyssey sparked when the Nazis came to power.

Back in the city of Leipzig thanks to the largesses of a late U.S. millionaire and classical music lover, the 1748 work was unveiled in a packed church, going on public view for the first time in centuries.

The historic Christian Syrian town of Maalula celebrated Saturday as a new statue of the Virgin Mary was erected in its center, replacing the figure destroyed in rebel attacks in 2013. 

Dozens of families gathered alongside government officials and religious dignitaries in the main square, which was adorned with government flags and a giant portrait of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Belgium this week hosts days of commemorative events and mock battles to mark the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo that shaped the face of Europe, at a time when the continent's unity is under threat.

European royals will attend a solemn memorial service on Thursday at the battlefield near Brussels where French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte's dreams of European conquest were crushed by British and Prussian forces on June 18, 1815.

Borneo tribal shamans chanted age-old prayers on Saturday in a ceremony in Malaysia aimed at soothing spirits and bringing an end to disturbing aftershocks from an earthquake that killed 18 people.

About 100 members of the Kadazan Dusun, the largest tribal group in the Malaysian state of Sabah, held the ritual in the state's Tamparuli district after a 5.1-magnitude aftershock shook the area on Saturday.

A pocket watch that stopped at 8:15 a.m. when the first atomic bomb dropped. A sprawling picture of twisted bodies and screaming faces engulfed by the flames. The school lunch box of a girl who disappeared without a trace.

As the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II approaches, American University Museum in Washington is showcasing artifacts and art recalling the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The world's biggest wine fair opens in Bordeaux, wine capital of France, this weekend, with vintners eying new tipplers in Africa as global consumption rises in Asia and elsewhere.

The U.S. and China are the world's top wine-lovers, but Africa is the industry's next "future destination", says the Vinexpo wine and spirits fair, in a market expecting 3.5 percent growth over the next three years.

More than 13,000 people turned out in Paris on Thursday for the 27th edition of 'Diner en blanc' ('Dinner in white') -- a pop-up picnic where attendees dress to the nines entirely in white.

The diners were armed with white tables and chairs, and packed out public areas of the Tuileries Garden and the Palais Royal, locations that were made public at the last minute in an event that has become an international phenomenon.

The slapping sound of colliding flesh reverberates through a basement in Mongolia's capital, as Tsogt-Erdeniin Mendsaikhan hones fighting skills in pursuit of his dream -- sumo wrestling in Japan.