Despite ramming through austerity measures that sparked popular protest in the streets, Spain's right-leaning government seems to be hesitating on a potentially more divisive reform: tightening the abortion law.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's Popular Party promised, in a manifesto ahead of its 2011 election victory, "to reinforce protection of the right to life".

Romania's homosexual community takes to the streets for a Gay Pride parade on Saturday but a controversial amendment to the constitution banning same-sex marriage threatens to overshadow the event.

Hundreds of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) activists and sympathizers are expected to join the march in downtown Bucharest, an annual event which in previous years was marred by minor disturbances.

Where are people most unfaithful? Who uses sex toys? On a darker level, where is child rape more prevalent? French geographers have tried to answer these questions and others in a global atlas on sexuality.

From legislation and the dynamics of couples to prostitution and violence, the book maps out the evolution of sexual habits and acts around the world by collating various surveys, figures and reports already available.

A 2,500-year-old Egyptian mummy came out of his coffin Friday to undergo cleaning and restoration at Massachusetts General Hospital.

The mummy known as Padihershef has been on display at the third oldest general hospital in the United States since it received him as a gift from the city of Boston in 1823 as a medical oddity. He is one of the first complete mummies brought to the United States.

Nearly half a century after his death, New York's Museum of Modern Art will pay homage to celebrated French architect and designer Le Corbusier in a major exhibit that opens next week.

The extensive show will focus on the way Le Corbusier viewed and observed different landscapes throughout his career, featuring his early watercolors and models of his large-scale projects.

Australia has been challenged to match France's promotion of Aboriginal art after the inauguration of a landmark work in Paris.

Gija artist Lena Nyadbi's Dayiwul Lirlmim (Barramundi Scales) will be seen by millions of visitors to the French capital for decades to come as a result of a decision to install a hugely enlarged version of her abstract representation of a traditional dreaming story on the roof of a museum that sits directly under the Eiffel Tower.

She has led Moscow's renowned Pushkin Museum for over half a century, helped Russians discover the art of her friend Marc Chagall and battled to bring late impressionist art out of the vaults and into public view.

And at the age of 91, the doyenne of Russia's museum directors Irina Antonova shows no sign of letting up.

A new highway touted as a way to ease Beirut's notorious traffic has angered residents and activists who say it will destroy rare old houses that survived Lebanon's 15-year civil war.

The Fouad Boutros highway overpass is a long-stalled project, dating back to before the 1975-1990 civil war, and intended to route unnecessary traffic away from some of the city's most congested areas.

Egypt's Al-Azhar institute said on Thursday that legal measures were underway to recover a Koranic manuscript taken from Cairo in the 18th century during Napoleon's invasion.

French auction house Osenat withdrew the manuscript after the Egyptian embassy in Paris lobbied against its sale.

It may sound like an unlikely No. 1 best-seller for any country, but in Norway — one of the most secular nations in an increasingly godless Europe — the runaway popularity of the Bible has caught the country by surprise. The Scriptures, in a new Norwegian language version, even outpaced "Fifty Shades of Grey" to become Norway's best-selling book.

The sudden burst of interest in God's word has also spread to the stage, with a six-hour play called "Bibelen," Norwegian for "the Bible," drawing 16,000 people in a three-month run that recently ended at one of Oslo's most prominent theaters.