A group of American college students stands in a semicircle, clapping and hopping on one foot as they sing in Yiddish: "Az der rebe zingt, Zingen ale khsidim!"

"When the rebbe dances, so do all the Hasidim," the lyrics go.

A Swiss museum has taken the drastic step of replacing the horns of its rhinoceroses with fake ones to deter thieves fuelling a lucrative global trade, curators said Tuesday.

Staff at Bern's Natural History Museum cut off the horns of its six display animals and put crude wooden ones in their place amid concerns they would be targeted.

One of 12 marble lions that stand watch in Spain's historic Moorish palace, the Alhambra, in Granada returned to its spot Monday after being restored by experts.

A miniature crane lowered the 300-kilogramme (660-pound) stone beast into place at the foot of a fountain in the Court of the Lions at the heart of the palace, one of Spain's biggest tourist attractions.

A large model of an American jetfighter has mysteriously disappeared from a small Dutch museum and its owners are hoping pranksters rather than scrap metal thieves are responsible for what they call the "jetnapping."

Edwin van Brakel, chairman of the Museum Vliegbasis Deelen, says the non-working model of a Lockheed Starfighter was discovered missing Sunday morning.

The Israeli army announced Monday special measures to ease the movement of Palestinian Christians from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip from now till into January to allow for seasonal celebrations.

The West Bank Christians will be allowed to visit Israel in the period up to January 20 without any age limitations, the army said in a statement, without saying how many would be allowed in.

As India inched towards independence, hundreds of mixed-race Anglo-Indians feared for their future and retreated to a self-styled homeland in a thickly forested part of the country.

Ernest McCluskie, an Indian of Scottish descent, established McCluskieganj in what is now the eastern state of Jharkhand, hoping to attract Anglo-Indians anxious about the impending demise of the British Empire.

The most complete ancient copy of the Biblical Ten Commandments goes on public show Friday in New York for a rare viewing outside of its home in Israel.

The yellowed scroll, written in Hebrew, measures 18 by 2.7 inches (45 cm, 7 cm) and dates to between 50-1 BC, according to the Discovery Times Square Exposition, mounting the "Dead Sea Scrolls: Life and Faith in Biblical Times" exhibition.

A room in Gaza's only music school fills with the sound of the qanun, a traditional Middle Eastern instrument, transporting listeners far from the impoverished territory.

Seven-year-old Zeina al-Hamamra confidently picks out a melody on the instrument, a kind of zither, leaning forward to pluck the farthest strings with tiny fingers strapped with silver picks.

At the stroke of midnight this New Year's, millions of people around the globe will hold hands and belt out the famous song "Auld Lang Syne" -- but how many will have a clue what it means?

The Scottish poem and heartstring-tugging tune are reckoned to vie for the title of most widely recognized song on the planet after "Happy Birthday".

Danielle Arbid's movie Beirut Hotel was banned in Lebanon by the General Security because it contains explicit scenes and it "puts Lebanon's security in danger".

The director Danielle Arbid said on her Facebook page that her latest film "cannot be shown in Lebanon ! Its release in Beirut, originally scheduled for 19 January 2012, has just been cancelled."