A section of a silk handscroll depicting a historically important trip by China's longest-serving Emperor is to go up for auction in France next week.

Two other Chinese pieces from private French collections will also go under the hammer on April 27 as part of a sale hosted by auctioneers Alain Briscadieu.

A fatwa published this week by Morocco's higher council of religious scholars (CSO) calling for the death penalty for Muslims who renounce their faith has sparked fierce controversy in the country.

The scholars, who represent official Islam in Morocco, said in their edict, published in Tuesday's edition of Arabic-language daily Akhbar al-Youm, that Muslims who reject their faith "should be condemned to death."

A 400-year-old masterpiece that only came to light during a renovation at Paris's Ritz hotel has been sold for 1.44 million euros ($1.88 million) to New York's Metropolitan Museum, auction house Christie's said on Thursday.

The painting by 17th century artist Charles Le Brun (1619-1690) had adorned one of the suites in which fashion designer Coco Chanel lived for more than 30 years.

Sirens and church bells are set to ring across Warsaw Friday to mark 70 years to the day since hundreds of young, poorly armed Jews rose up against the Nazis in a doomed revolt.

Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski will lead a ceremony at the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes, with thousands of people including Holocaust survivors due to attend.

French President Francois Hollande on Thursday hit out at "homophobic" acts by opponents of a same-sex marriage bill following violent protests that included an attack on a gay bar.

Interior Minister Manuel Valls asked protest organizers to throw out members of far-right organisations who have been involved in the violence, as opposition intensifies ahead of the bill's expected final approval.

Spain's center-right government, under pressure from the Catholic Church and its ultraconservative wing, has vowed to "promptly" tighten the nation's abortion laws, angering the opposition Socialist Party which had eased access to the procedure.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy promised during the 2011 election campaign that swept his Popular Party to power to reform the abortion law but the changes to the legislation have been repeatedly put off, prompting a rebuke from the Spanish Church.

Mexican architect Pedro Ramirez Vazquez has died at the age of 94.

Ramirez Vazquez designed some of Mexico's biggest landmark modernist structures, including the new Basilica of Guadalupe, the Anthropology Museum and the Azteca Stadium, all in Mexico City.

The halls of Parliament echoed with a traditional Maori love song after lawmakers made New Zealand the 13th country in the world and the first in the Asia-Pacific region to legalize same-sex marriage.

Supporters of the bill, including hundreds of gay-rights advocates, stood and cheered after the 77-44 vote was announced late Wednesday. Then as lawmakers tried to get back to business, someone started signing "Pokarekare Ana" in the indigenous Maori language, and soon nearly the whole room joined in.

A 16th century religious tapestry stolen from a Spanish cathedral in 1979 and sold at auction three years ago for $369,000 was returned to Spain on Wednesday by the US customs service.

In a statement, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said special agents from its Homeland Security Investigations unit seized the artifact last November from the unidentified Texas business that had bought it.

A letter written in prison by Alfred Dreyfus, the Jewish army captain whose dismissal more than a century ago on trumped-up charges of spying triggered a protracted national crisis in France, is to be sold at auction in Paris.

Written to the interior ministry in 1895, a month after he was sentenced for treason, the letter will be sold by Sotheby's in Paris on May 29 and is expected to fetch between 100,000 and 150,000 euros ($130,000 and $190,000), the auction house said in a statement.