Among the items U.S. soldiers seized from Adolf Hitler's Bavarian Alps hideaway in the closing days of World War II were albums meticulously documenting an often forgotten Nazi crime — the massive pillaging of artwork and other cultural items as German troops marched through Europe.

Two of those albums — one filled with photographs of works of art, the other with snapshots of furniture — were donated Tuesday to the U.S. National Archives, which now has custody of 43 albums in a set of what historians believe could be as high as 100.

In an attempt to award performers who, during their lifetimes, have made creative contributions of outstanding artistic significance to the field of recording "Desert Masterpiece Production” owned by Egyptian media mogul Mr. Ayman Sabek with the partnership of Lions Hermes Beirut District will be hosting on Saturday 31st March 2012, at 6:30PM, a ceremony honoring the renowned Egyptian actor Mr. Mahmoud Hemida at UNESCO Palace.

The Lebanese tenor Gabriel Abdel Nour will mark the opening of this ceremony, singing the Lebanese and Egyptian national anthems.

Thousands of miles (kilometers) from the ocean, a museum tells the story of a woman made famous by the Titanic. No, her name was not Rose, and a movie about her life, "The Unsinkable Molly Brown," starring Debbie Reynolds as a plucky lifeboat survivor, was a hit decades before Kate Winslet's doomed romance in "Titanic."

Molly Brown was a real person, but the movie created a myth that the museum, located in Brown's Denver home, attempts to dispel.

Bark beetles and old age have damaged Leonardo da Vinci's 15th-century painting "Lady with an Ermine," but the masterpiece is still holding up well, according to a conservationist at the Polish museum where it is displayed.

Recent tests show the chestnut board on which Leonardo painted his masterpiece has weakened after being nibbled at by beetles over the centuries, and the painting has also suffered from a dense network of cracks, said Janusz Czop, the chief conservationist at the National Museum in Krakow.

A New York City auction will feature a painting by art deco artist Tamara de Lempicka that vanished from public view after it was created in 1925.

Sotheby's says "Reclining Nude I" (one) is expected to sell for $3 million to $5 million on May 2.

One of Beirut’s most well-established bookshops, Librairie El Bourj, is to host the official launch of UAE-based writer, author and communicator Alexander McNabb’s Olives – A Violent Romance from 5pm on Thursday 29th March 2012 with a talk by the author followed by a reading and book signing.

The novel is set in Jordan, where British journalist Paul Stokes moves to live and work on a contract to produce a magazine for the Ministry of Natural Resources. The Israelis are competing for dwindling water resources as Jordan and Palestine face drought. Daoud Dajani has the solution to Jordan’s water problems and is bidding against the British for the privatisation of Jordan’s water network. When Paul befriends Dajani’s sister, Aisha, British intelligence agent Gerald Lynch realises Paul offers access to the man threatening to drain Israel’s water supply and snatch the bid from the British. Blackmailed by Lynch into spying on Dajani, his movements seemingly linked to a series of bombings, Paul is pitched into a terrifying fight for survival that forces him to betray everyone around him. Even the woman he comes to love.

One of Japan's cultural treasures, a 30-scroll set of paintings from the 1700s, is being shown together outside of Japan for the first time in a rare display in Washington.

The paintings of birds and flowers on silk, created more than 250 years ago by artist Ito Jakuchu, will go on view Friday at the National Gallery of Art. The four-week exhibition marks the centennial of Japan's gift of 3,000 cherry trees to the U.S. as a symbol of friendship.

A Scottish newspaper on Sunday published previously undisclosed files on the 1988 Pan Am bombing that killed hundreds over Lockerbie, arguing it is in the public interest to ignore data protection laws that have kept the documents from the public.

The Sunday Herald newspaper posted an 800-page report by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission to its website. It said it had been authorized to publish the documents by Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the only man convicted over the bombing that killed 270, mostly Americans, and who has long insisted he did not carry it out.

"Become a Christiania stockholder today!": on its Facebook page Copenhagen's "free city", long a refuge for hippies and artists and a popular tourist destination, pleas for help to save the 40-year-old enclave.

Following a court ruling, the self-governed hippie community needs to come up with 76 million kroner (10.2 million euros, $13.4 million) to buy the area at the heart of the Danish capital.

Taiwan loves cherry blossoms. In fact, it loves almost everything Japanese. For a nation that ruled the island for 50 years, often with an iron fist, Japan has left a very favorable impression.

In the latest triumph of Japanese soft power in its former colony, tens of thousands of Taiwanese have taken up planting cherry trees to revel in their colorful bloom for a few precious moments each spring -- just like in Japan.