Andrea Petkovic says she has 'never felt so disrespected' after a gaffe involving the German national anthem during their Fed Cup tie against the United States.

The church in northern Israel where Christians believe Jesus performed the miracle of the loaves and fishes reopened on Sunday, 20 months after an arson attack by Jewish extremists.

Beating a rock statue of Buddha to wish for a good new year and an abundant harvest, villagers in China's eastern Fujian province have a unique way of worshipping the deity. 

The religious ceremony held Friday in Yuxi village is one of many in the run-up to the traditional Lantern Festival, which falls on February 11 this year.

British musician Yusuf Islam, formerly known as Cat Stevens, met Turkey's leader and thanked the country for its support for a mosque being built in Britain's university town of Cambridge, state media reported Thursday.

Vatican finance chief George Pell Thursday hit out at calls that he return to Australia to assist in a child sex probe into him, railing against "anti-religion" agendas.

Ballet slippers, tinned food and drawings by a sister killed from shelling are found among the objects in a new Sarajevo museum used to tell stories of life during Bosnia's war through the eyes of children.

An unfinished letter, kept safe by a young Bosnian woman for 20 years, was started by her mother who perished when their apartment was shelled in the Balkan country's 1992-1995 civil war.

Palestinian authorities have banned a novel by a local author for indecency, the writer said on Tuesday, calling the decision an "unprecedented" attack on freedom of expression.

Italian police were on the hunt Monday for the authors of anti-pope posters which have been slapped around Rome, amid suspicions the campaign may be linked to an arch-conservative wing of the Catholic Church.

A fire broke out Monday at a cultural center in Kuwait that houses the Gulf state's opera house, the fire department said.

Abdo Shehu sits in an office in Kurdish-majority Qamishli in northeast Syria, surrounded by copies of the first Western novel available in the city in his own language.

The novel is "Snow" by French writer Maxence Fermine, the first fruits of a new project to translate international works of literature into a language that was effectively banned in Syria until recently.