Archeological sites in Syria are being looted "on an industrial scale," with proceeds being used to fund Islamic State extremists, the head of UNESCO warned Wednesday.

"Satellite imagery shows that archeological sites in Syria are dotted by thousands of illegal excavations... that show there is looting on an industrial scale," Irina Bokova said in Sofia.

Agatha Christie fans have descended on her hometown of Torquay on the English Riviera for the 125th anniversary of the murder master's birth on Tuesday as the crime novel enjoys a global revival.

Simplicity is the key to her enduring popularity, said Christie's only grandson Mathew Prichard, who has been the chief custodian of her work since the queen of crime fiction died in 1976.

As vespers drew to a close at the St. Egidio Catholic community center, a dozen homeless men in threadbare pants and rumpled T-shirts shuffled into a side room where volunteers handed out cups of soda and soft yellow rolls spread with mayonnaise.

"This is like my home," said Ernesto Gutierrez, a 66-year-old retired policeman who sleeps in parks and other public places because he has no relatives overseas helping to supplement his meager pension. Often the sandwich he gets at St. Egidio is his only meal of the day: "I appreciate it so much."

Swiss art dealer Yves Bouvier was charged Monday by a Paris court with stealing paintings by Pablo Picasso, a charge he categorically denied.

The 52-year-old, under investigation for repeated theft, must hand over 27 million euros ($31 million) in caution money -- the sum said to have been paid by Russian billionaire Dmitri Rybolovlev for two Picasso masterpieces, including "Woman with Fan", and 58 drawings.

The first ever exhibition of avant-garde artist Christo in his native Bulgaria opened in Sofia on Monday, giving a rare insight into his spectacular wrapping projects.

Christo, 80, has not returned to Bulgaria since emigrating during communism in 1958 and settling in New York in 1964 with his wife and collaborator Jeanne-Claude, who passed away in 2009.

South African school teacher Benedict Daswa, who was bludgeoned to death for resisting witchcraft, was beatified on Sunday, becoming the first person from the southern African region to undergo the key step toward sainthood.

He was proclaimed "blessed" in an apostolic letter read on behalf of Pope Francis by Italian Cardinal Angelo Amato to some 30,000 people during mass in Tshitanini village, not far from Daswa's house in South Africa's northern Limpopo province.

The deadly collapse of a construction crane in Saudi Arabia's holy city of Mecca has highlighted the controversial pace of high-end urban development in the birthplace of Islam.

More than 100 people died on Friday when the crane toppled into a courtyard of the Grand Mosque, one of Islam's holiest sites, during a thunderstorm.

A British-funded memorial to the thousands killed, tortured and jailed in the Mau Mau rebellion was unveiled in Kenya on Saturday, in a rare example of former rulers commemorating a colonial uprising.

At least 10,000 people died in one of the British Empire's bloodiest insurgencies -- some historians say over double that -- and the security operation to tackle the 1952-1960 struggle was marked by horrific abuses.

Popular Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami's new book has gone on sale, with a major domestic bookstore chain buying 90 percent of the initial print run in a direct challenge to online rivals.

Murakami's autobiographical essay, which translates into English as "Novelist by Profession", appeared in bookstore shelves on Thursday. 

A quarter century after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Lenin made a comeback of sorts Thursday as authorities unearthed a granite head of the Russian revolutionary to truck it across the German capital.

The 3.5 tonne piece, long buried and half forgotten in a forest on the edge of the city, will become an eye-catching highlight of a new museum exhibit of key figures that played a role in Germany's turbulent history.