U.N.-Arab League Special Envoy for Syria Kofi Annan on Friday said Lebanese authorities were doing everything possible to prevent arms smuggling across the border with Syria.

“We should deter arms smuggling and the Lebanese government informed me clearly that it prevents smuggling,” Annan said in a press conference at the Grand Serail following talks with Prime Minister Najib Miqati.

The Walt Disney Co. on Thursday named a top Warner Bros executive to head its studio operations, replacing ousted chief Rich Ross who resigned month after the massive box office flop "John Carter."

Alan Horn was named chairman of Walt Disney Studios effective June 11, heading up production, distribution and marketing for films from Disney, Pixar and Marvel, and marketing and distribution for DreamWorks Studios.

Dark Catholic imagery was spliced with blood, guts and guns as Madonna burst onto the stage at Tel Aviv's Ramat Gan stadium late on Thursday to kick off her hotly-anticipated MDNA world tour of some 30 countries.

The portentous tolling of a church bell opens the first set with bare-chested monks in burgundy robes swinging a giant golden censer in front of a giant red cross.

The villain in Lebanon's new hit war movie: a cigar-smoking Israeli army colonel who sports a cowboy hat and a handlebar mustache and repeatedly orders troops to shell Lebanese villages. The heroes: residents of one such village who band together to fight Israeli troops.

The film, 33 Days, tells the story of the 2006 war between Israel and the Lebanese group Hizbullah in one front-line village and glorifies "the resistance" — shorthand among many Lebanese for Hizbullah and other groups that fight Israel.

For a fashion designer it is a unique task: dressing a woman who must be immediately recognizable from Antigua to Zimbabwe, visible from a distance, bright, dignified and immune to wardrobe malfunctions.

But the series of dressers who have worked with Queen Elizabeth II have helped her evolve a personal style that wins praise from unlikely quarters, including from a young French designer who worked for a decade with Jean Paul Gaultier.

The Beach Boys release their first album of new songs in years next week to mark their 50th birthday -- joining an elite band of icons celebrating half a century of music that still rocks the world.

In the same year the California group first surfed into the charts -- 1962 -- Bob Dylan was strumming his way into pop culture history, while the Beatles and the Rolling Stones led a revolution on the other side of the Atlantic.

Under the title Once Upon a Time, Lebanon: Visions of Postwar in New Lebanese Cinema, Lebanese filmmakers will participate in the Toronto International Film Festival that will be held in Toronto at the (TIFF) Bell Lightbox between June 14- June 17.

Curated by Rasha Salti, Toronto International Film Festival programmer of African and Middle Eastern Cinema, Once Upon a Time, Lebanon: Visions of Postwar in New Lebanese Cinema, features an exciting line-up of fifteen films (8 features and 7 shorts) from the most promising and internationally acclaimed national cinema in the Middle East.

Andie MacDowell will be a pioneer for the Hallmark Channel, starring in the network's first prime-time series.

Hallmark said Wednesday that MacDowell will portray municipal court Judge Olivia Lockhart in "Cedar Grove." It will start with a two-hour movie airing later this year and continue with a 13-episode series early in 2013.

A court has found a French magazine violated singer Celine Dion's privacy and awarded her 8,000 euros ($9,940) in damages after it wrote in 2010 that she was in hospital with pregnancy-related problems.

The court in Toulouse ordered celebrity magazine Ici Paris to pay the damages, and 2,000 euros in court fees, after it wrote in September 2010 that the Canadian star had been rushed to hospital and doctors feared for the twins she was expecting.

Colombian superstar Juanes said singer-songwriter-producer Juan Luis Guerra got him out of his comfort zone when the musician started rearranging his songs for his "MTV Unplugged" taping.

And Juanes was happy to take on the challenge.