An abandoned spiritual retreat in northern India where The Beatles famously learned to meditate has been opened to the public, with plans to turn it into a touristy yoga center.

The ashram, located in the town of Rishikesh on the banks of the holy Ganges River, became derelict after its flamboyant guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi abandoned the place in the 1970s.

Germany, Italy and France called Tuesday for the European Union to crack down on the illegal trade in antiquities used to bankroll attacks by the Islamic State group.

The culture ministers of the three countries wrote in a letter to the European Commission urging concerted measures against the illicit trade in cultural treasures for the benefit of the jihadist group.

Russia on Tuesday began a 60-hour marathon broadcast during which celebrities and members of the public will read aloud the whole of Leo Tolstoy's sprawling novel "War and Peace."

A total of 1,300 readers including actors, politicians and sports figures and ordinary people are taking part in the reading which began at 10 am (0700 GMT).

Guatemalan Catholics gathered across the country Monday as part of a centuries-old tradition to "burn the devil," lighting bonfires in the street to mark the beginning of the holiday season.

The celebration sees Guatemalans set effigies of Satan in flames on the eve of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, the unofficial start of the Christmas holiday season.

The Nobel Peace Prize will be awarded Thursday to four civil society groups who led Tunisia's transition to democracy, though the country has now been plunged into a state of emergency as it battles the threat of jihadism.

After a suicide attack on a bus belonging to the president's security entourage that killed 12 people on November 24, authorities enforced a night-time curfew in Tunis, temporarily closed the Libyan border, and announced a state of emergency -- for the second time this year.

Nikolaus Harnoncourt, one of the most highly regarded classical music conductors of recent times and a pioneer in early music, has announced his retirement.

"My bodily strength requires me to cancel my future plans," the Austrian said in a hand-written farewell letter to the audience of the hallowed Musikverein concert hall in Vienna on Saturday.

An angry brother shot his elder sister dead because she voted in Pakistani local elections after he had forbidden her to do so, police said Wednesday. 

The murder occurred in the town of Taxila 25 kilometers (15 miles) west of Islamabad on Tuesday, according to officials.

A war of words has erupted between privacy-advocating librarians and a newspaper after it published a snapshot of the high-school reading habits of Japan's foremost literary son Haruki Murakami.

Leaked library borrowing cards from half a century ago revealed the teenage Murakami -- nowadays a perennial contender for the Nobel literature prize -- checked out several titles by French writer Joseph Kessel.

Scans in King Tutankhamun's tomb in Egypt's Valley of the Kings point to a hidden chamber, the country's antiquities minister said Saturday, possibly heralding the discovery of Queen Nefertiti's resting place.

"We can now say that we have to find behind the burial chamber of King Tutankhamun another chamber, another tomb," Mamduh al-Damati said at a press conference, speaking in English.

"Are these the people with bullets who took my papa away?" two-year-old Sabiha Ahmad asked her mother anxiously when AFP visited her family, members of Pakistan's persecuted Ahmadi minority, who are currently living in hiding.

The toddler's family have had little contact with anyone since they were forced to flee for their lives on November 20 when hundreds of people torched a factory in the eastern city of Jhelum after rumors spread workers were burning copies of the Koran.