Flashing a toothless smile, 96-year-old Gaew breaks into the jaunty, staccato verses of "Mo Lam", a style of folk music that reaches deep into the heritage of northeastern Thailand.

For generations, the humour-laden lyrics have covered tales of unrequited love, rural hardship and changing political winds, with the travelling Mo Lam -- the name also refers to the music's expert singers -- commissioned to spread campaign messages across the remote villages of the Isaan region.

Japan on Monday celebrated the inscription of Meiji-era industrial sites on UNESCO's World Heritage list, despite initial opposition from Seoul over the use of forced Korean laborers in the early 20th century.

UNESCO's World Heritage committee on Sunday added 23 sites considered representative of Japan's industrial revolution around the reign of Emperor Meiji (1868-1912) to its vaunted list.

Israeli ministers on Sunday struck down a bill that would have canceled the monopoly the ultra-Orthodox chief rabbinate holds over conversions in Israel.

A proposal approved by the cabinet in November but never passed by parliament stipulated that the chief rabbi of each Israeli city would be able to convene and chair a court on conversions to the Jewish faith, in addition to the four current state-recognized Orthodox bodies.

A replica of the Hermione, the 18th century ship that brought French General Lafayette to America, sailed the waters off New York on Saturday, leading a flotilla marking the Independence Day holiday.

The faithful reproduction of the majestic French frigate glided past New York's famed Verrazano bridge, where it was joined by scores of other boats and ships.

The historic vineyards, wine cellars and champagne houses where the world's most famous sparking wines are produced were listed as a world heritage site by UNESCO on Saturday.

In a double victory for French wine, the vineyards of Burgundy were crowned with the same prestigious distinction by the U.N. cultural body in the German city of Bonn.

Thirty years ago, Gustavo Negrete took his wooden cross and joined other indigenous Ecuadorans to greet Pope John Paul II. But he has no interest in seeing Pope Francis on Sunday.

Like a growing number of indigenous people in Latin America, Negrete has turned his back on the Roman Catholic faith that was violently forced upon their ancestors by Spanish conquistadors.

Iceland's parliament on Friday voted widely in favor of decriminalizing blasphemy, in the name of freedom of expression in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris.

The bill was adopted after 43 of 63 members of parliament voted in favor. One lawmaker voted against, 16 were absent and three abstained.

A Russian gay couple has been granted asylum in Finland because of the discrimination they faced at home over their sexual orientation, Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat reported on Friday.

Vladimir Naumov and Vasily Kolesnikov applied for asylum in the Nordic country in September 2014 and the two men were informed earlier this week that it had been granted, the paper said.

Rarely seen color photographs by Robert Capa, the legendary Hungarian photographer best known for his battlefield pictures from the Spanish Civil War and D-Day, are being shown for the first time in Europe at the Budapest institution which bears his name.

Capa, born Endre Friedmann in Budapest in 1913, began experimenting with color photography in 1938 and it soon became an integral, though seldom published, part of his work. Afterward, he always carried two cameras, one loaded with color film, the other with black and white.

In a Baghdad workshop plastered with black-and-white photos from a more peaceful time, Mahmoud Abdulnabi hand-carves a wooden oud, a string instrument with ancient roots that has fallen silent in much of the war-torn country.

"The oud is different than other musical instruments," said Abdulnabi, who has crafted ouds played by some of Iraq's best known musicians, many of whom look down from headshots on the walls. "If you feel joyful, it can play your joy. If the circumstances are sad it can play your sorrow and... help to empty whatever is in your chest."