The ever-disputed investigation into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy is getting a fresh look.

Former New York Times correspondent and best-selling author Philip Shenon has a book coming out this fall that alleges "powerful" people interfered with the Warren Commission's efforts to determine whether Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in shooting JFK in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.

Kamiran Aziz Ali grimaces and leans forward, his hands behind his back, re-enacting the moment in January 1990 when Saddam Hussein's henchmen flung him into a jail cell in the "Red House".

"I am still in pain," Ali says. "I cannot sit down for a long time anymore."

A major fire caused "irreversible" damage on Wednesday to a landmark 17th-century Paris mansion, the Hotel Lambert, as it was undergoing controversial renovations by the Qatari royal family.

Murals, frescoes and paintings dating back hundreds of years were completely destroyed by the blaze which broke out around 1:30am (2330 GMT Tuesday).

Part of an ancient Egyptian king's unique sphinx was unveiled at a dig in northern Israel on Tuesday, with researchers struggling to understand just how the unexpected find ended up there.

The broken granite sphinx statue -- including the paws and some of the mythical creature's forearms -- displayed at Tel Hazor archaeological site in Israel's Galilee, is the first such find in the region.

Some 1.5 million pilgrims are expected in Rio late this month for Pope Francis' visit during a major Roman Catholic youth fest, a top state security official said Tuesday.

"According to the latest figures, we are expecting up to 1.5 million people" for World Youth Day (WYD) July 23-28," said Roberto Alzir Dias Chavez, the deputy security secretary for Rio de Janeiro state.

With its Hercules statue towering above a massive water cascade, romantic gardens and castle, Germany's Bergpark Wilhelmshoehe has long been a marvel of baroque landscape design. As of last month, it's also a UNESCO world heritage site.

Locals are ecstatic that Europe's largest hillside park, with its fairytale waterfalls, secluded ponds and hidden bridges, has made it onto the list of the world's must-see cultural attractions and are readying for a tourist rush in the summer holidays.

Muslims across Indonesia began celebrating the holy month of Ramadan Wednesday, with hardliners vowing to raid "sinful" bars and police steamrolling a mountain of alcohol and porn amid rising intolerance.

Islam's holiest month is used by hardliners in Indonesia as an opportunity to attack nightclubs, bars and shops that openly sell alcohol, the consumption of which is against Islamic law.

French Muslims were thrown into confusion Tuesday as the country's top Islamic body and officials at the leading mosque in Paris differed over the start date of the holy month of Ramadan.

While the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM), the official Islamic representative body, was insisting that Ramadan had started on Tuesday, the theological council at the Great Mosque of Paris said it would not start until Wednesday, when many Arab countries are due to begin the observance.

The Church of England voted Monday to restart the process that would lead to ordaining women bishops after traditionalists blocked the idea last year, plunging the church into turmoil.

The General Synod, the governing body of England's state church, will consider the draft measures in November with the aim of securing final approval for women bishops in 2015.

"It's a sense of home," German master baker Karl-Dietmar Plentz muses, dipping his hands into a tray of flour and letting it run through his fingers as 26 types of bread bake in the ovens of his 136-year-old family business.

Behind him a worker deftly kneads two pieces of dough into identical loaves, one in each hand, as they roll off a cutting machine. They belong to a batch of 'potato bread', one of Plentz's specialties that is still partly made the way his grandfather did it.