Salafist Muslims tried to prevent the filming of current Internet craze the "Harlem Shake" at a Tunis school on Wednesday, but were driven off after coming to blows with students, an Agence France Presse correspondent said.

When the dozen or so ultra-conservative Muslims, some of them women in veils, showed up at the Bourguiba Language Institute in the El Khadra neighborhood, a Salafist bastion, students shouted "Get out, get out!"

A hat which belonged to South Korea's most revered monarch King Sejong has been recovered more than 500 years after it was looted by Japanese invaders, a senior scholar said Wednesday.

Apart from its intrinsic value as an historical relic, the discovery has thrilled scholars after documents were found stitched inside the hat carrying explanations of King Sejong's greatest legacy -- the Hangeul alphabet.

Passers-by in Tokyo's busy Akasaka district have started to notice something odd about a 40-floor hotel -- it has shrunk to about half its original height.

Slowly but surely, and with none of the explosions or dust normally associated with the demolition of skyscrapers, the hotel is being torn down.

Turkey has embarked on a campaign to retrieve children of Turkish immigrant families living in Europe who are fostered by foreigners, and instead place them in homes where their cultural identity can be preserved.

The step comes after a court in the Netherlands refused last week to return nine-year-old Yunus -- who had been taken into care by a Dutch lesbian couple -- to his biological Turkish family, reportedly citing the mother's inability to speak Dutch.

As war came to Jerusalem in May 1948, Palestinian Omar Saleh Barghouti fled his home, leaving behind hundreds of his books, including years worth of his diaries. He would never see them again.

Unknown to him, as the battle over the creation of the Jewish state raged, teams of Israeli librarians and soldiers were collecting tens of thousands of books from Palestinian homes in Jerusalem, Haifa, Jaffa and elsewhere -- including 256 from Barghouti's home in the Katamon neighbourhood.

Iran on Monday criticized Hollywood for awarding its top honor to the Iran hostage drama "Argo", with a senior official saying it "lacks artistic value" and media poking fun at U.S. first lady Michelle Obama's surprise appearance at the Oscar ceremony.

"This anti-Iran movie lacks artistic value," Culture and Islamic Guidance Minister Mohammad Hosseini was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency.

After a Pole and a German, will the Roman Catholic Church revert to an Italian leader once again?

Italy has the biggest voting bloc in the conclave to elect the next pope, with 28 of the 117 cardinal electors, but only one Italian, Milan Archbishop Angelo Scola, is widely seen as "papabile", or a strong candidate to succeed Benedict XVI.

Two years after the revolution, a Tunisian version of Macbeth is parodying deposed dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, cast in the mold of William Shakespeare's notorious villain alongside his scheming wife.

"Macbeth, Leila and Ben", which premiered in Tunis last week, revisits 30 years of autocratic rule that finally led to Ben Ali's ouster in January 2011, while taking a swipe at the ruling Islamists who succeeded him.

Fireworks lit up the sky across China on Sunday and straw-hatted farmers in one village hurled molten metal into the air, as the country marked the end of Lunar New Year festivities.

China's Lantern Festival traditionally signals the close of just over two weeks of rest and feasting during the Lunar New Year, the country's biggest holiday, which sees hundreds of millions return to their ancestral homes.

Catholicism in Latin America is "lively and dynamic," Brazilian Cardinal Raymundo Damasceno Assis said Sunday, suggesting that the church look to Latin America for leadership.

Damasceno is one of the the 117 "cardinal electors" that will participate in the upcoming conclave to elect a new pope. No favorite has to succeed Pope Benedict XVI, who announced that he is stepping down at the end of the month.