A replica of the Hermione, the 18th-century ship that brought French General Lafayette to America, sailed to Canada Saturday on the last leg of its North American journey before its voyage back to France.

The faithful reproduction of the majestic French frigate fired its cannon 20 times as it arrived in the port of Lunenburg, not far from the city of Halifax, at around 10 am (1300 GMT).

New York's Empire State Building was lit in green late Friday to celebrate the Eid al-Fitr holiday that marks the end of Ramadan.

The green light will shine until the famous skyscraper closes to the public at 2:00 am (0600 GMT), when the building traditionally turns out its lights.

The Salzburg Festival, one of the world's most prestigious arts gatherings, will launch on Saturday hoping to prove that a reduced budget and fewer shows do not mean a less exciting program.

After an eight-percent budget cut down to 60 million euros ($65.2 million, £41.8 million), the 95th edition will feature only 188 performances compared with 270 last year.

In the fields of Bulgaria they are everywhere -- hundreds of mounds like huge molehills concealing the gold-filled tombs of ancient kings who left no other trace of their rule.

Known as tumuli, the burial mounds are the only remnants of the Thracian civilization that inhabited the Balkan peninsula from the 2nd millennium BC to the 3rd century AD.

President Barack Obama on Thursday wished Muslims in America and around the world "Eid Mubarak!" or a blessed Eid, praising efforts to recognize the end of Ramadan as a holiday.

"The holiday is a reminder to every American of the importance of respecting those of all faiths and beliefs," he said in a statement that also hailed New York City's decision to add Eid to the official school calendar.

An Indian couple forbidden to marry because of their different backgrounds are in hospital after slitting their own throats in an apparent suicide pact at India's famed monument to love, the Taj Mahal.

Police said the pair -- named in the Times of India as Rajveer Singh and Shabnam Ali -- were stable after they were discovered in a pool of blood in the grounds of the Taj Mahal on Wednesday afternoon.

In Moscow, a sprawling city with highly-prized green spaces, hundreds of locals are up in arms to defend a park against what they claim is an illegal landgrab by Russia's powerful Orthodox Church.

Dmitry Fedotov, a 28-year-old engineer who lives near northern Moscow's Torfyanka park, joined protesters last week to denounce the church's bid to build a chapel there, as part of a drive to erect 200 churches across the Russian capital.

During the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, Muslims are called on to reflect on their faith as they conduct their daily fast. This past month, some clerics and scholars reflected on ways to reform the religious discourse in Islam to keep up with modern-day challenges and oppose extremism.

A popular Egyptian religious figure used his daily TV show to talk about ways to renew interpretation of Islam's holy book, the Quran. The United Arab Emirates hosted a series of Ramadan mosque lectures by dozens of clerics, including many from al-Azhar, Egypt's premier Sunni Muslim center of thought and learning, and a popular American sheikh, who warned that renovation is needed in Islam after centuries of neglect in thought left the Muslim world in disrepair.

The spiritual leader of a Chinese Buddhist sect is to be prosecuted for financial and sexual offences, state media said Thursday, as Beijing intensifies its crackdown on what it calls dangerous cults.

Wu Zeheng, the leader of the Huazang Dharma group, will face a number of charges, including rape and using a cult "to sabotage law enforcement", the official Xinhua news agency said.

Iraq's antiquities minister says the Baghdad National Museum has gotten back nearly 500 artifacts recovered by U.S. Army commandos during a recent raid in Syria targeting the Islamic State group.

Minister Adel Fahad Sharshab pledged that authorities will recover all missing artifacts. He spoke Wednesday as the recovered pieces were on display.