Shares of Tencent and other major Chinese gaming companies plummeted Tuesday after a state-run media article described online games as "spiritual opium", prompting the tech giant to consider a playing ban on children under 12 altogether.

Films by Jane Campion, Pedro Almodovar and Paolo Sorrentino will compete among other international entries for the Venice Film Festival's top Golden Lion prize next month, organizers said. 

Twenty-one films will compete during the 78th edition of the high-profile competition to be held September 1-11, with Almodovar's "Madres Paralelas" (Parallel Mothers) starring Penelope Cruz opening the festival. 

Tourists and residents remembered British singer Amy Winehouse on Friday, paying tribute on the tenth anniversary of her death at a statue in her memory in the London borough of Camden.

A red rose had been placed on the bronze statue in the soul singer's trademark beehive hair style to mark the anniversary of Winehouse's death at her home in the north London neighborhood in 2011. 

Lebanon's annual Baalbek Festival was held Friday in virtual form with the famed Roman ruins a part of its backdrop, as an expression of hope in the crisis-hit country.

The seven justices who reversed Bill Cosby's conviction this week spent months debating whether he had a secret agreement with a prosecutor that tainted his 2018 criminal sexual assault conviction.

In the end, Pennsylvania's highest court ruled that a district attorney had induced Cosby to give incriminating testimony in 2005 for a lawsuit, with the promise that no criminal charges would be filed. Then, a decade later, another prosecutor used it against him — a fundamental violation of his Fifth Amendment rights. "America's Dad" walked out of prison Wednesday and won't face any further trials in the case.

A young Yemeni model has attempted suicide in a Sanaa jail run by Huthi rebels enforcing a strict moral code, rights groups and her lawyer said.

Oscar-winning actor Angelina Jolie on Sunday visited a refugee camp in Burkina Faso sheltering thousands of Malians who have fled jihadist violence in the region.

Pyramids, Tutankhamun masks, Nefertiti busts -- Egypt's souvenir-makers are pinning their hopes on a new lease of economic life, after tourism was battered by the coronavirus pandemic.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle announced Sunday the birth of their daughter Lilibet Diana -- named for Harry's grandmother Queen Elizabeth II and his late mother -- in a moment of joy capping a year of increasingly strained ties between the couple and the British royal family.

Hundreds gathered Thursday for the first concert in the Saudi capital since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic to watch performances by Syrian diva Assala Nasri and Kuwaiti crooner Nabeel Shuail.

Before stiff rules were brought in a year ago to stem the spread of coronavirus, the ultra-conservative kingdom had started to ease decades-long restrictions on entertainment, as part of efforts to improve its image and attract tourists.