Under the autumn Iraqi sun, Abbas Abbud expertly scrambles up the ragged trunk of the palm tree. His mission? Picking the juicy dates overhead, and keeping this ancient profession alive.

A Brussels district has suspended a teacher who showed a caricature of the Prophet Mohammed while discussing the murder of a French teacher who had used the same image, its spokesman said Friday.

Tens of thousands of Muslims, from Pakistan to Lebanon to the Palestinian territories, poured out of prayer services to join anti-France protests on Friday, as the French president's vow to protect the right to caricature the Prophet Muhammad continues to roil the Muslim world.

Demonstrations in Pakistan's capital Islamabad turned violent as some 2,000 people who tried to march toward the French Embassy were pushed back by police firing tear gas and beating protesters with batons. Crowds of Islamist activists hanged an effigy of French President Emmanuel Macron from a highway overpass after pounding it furiously with their shoes. Several demonstrators were wounded in clashes with police as authorities pushed to evict activists from the red zone, a security area that houses Pakistan's diplomatic missions. As night fell, demonstrators staged a sit-in on a main road some three kilometers away to protest authorities' use of force.

Pope Francis prayed for the victims of an attack by a knifeman in a Nice church Thursday, as the Vatican said "terrorism and violence can never be accepted."

French President Emmanuel Macron's defense of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed sparked widespread protests, but in Tunisia, it triggered debate balancing hard-won rights of the revolution with respect of religion.

Some Turks were happy this week to see President Recep Tayyip Erdogan teach France a "good lesson" with a "long overdue" call for a boycott, but others said the move was "irrational" and "impossible to apply."

Female passengers flying from Qatar were subjected to invasive searches after a premature baby was found abandoned in an airport bathroom, in procedures the Australian government on Monday described as "grossly disturbing" and "offensive."

Along a five-kilometer (three-mile) stretch of road in Sulaimaniyah, an Iraqi Kurdish artist on Monday unveiled a stitched collage of clothes from women survivors of domestic violence.

The UNDP and LibanPost organize a stamp competition on November 17 urging youth to design a postage stamp for the occasion of the 2020 International Anti-Corruption Day, a press release said on Monday.

Turkey said on Sunday "offensive caricatures" of prophet Mohammed were being used to intimidate Muslims in Europe under the guise of freedom of expression.