Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami hosted a ghost story reading event in Tokyo amid growing attention before the announcement of this year's Nobel Prize in literature, an award he is a perennial favorite to win.

Murakami said at Thursday's reading that he enjoys scary stories and wanted to write more of them. The event featured one from the 18-century collection "Tales of Moonlight and Rain," which intrigued Murakami since his childhood and is known to have inspired his work.

Many millions of Chinese tourists are expected to travel within their country, splurging on hotels, tours, attractions and meals in a boost to the economy during the 8-day autumn holiday period that began Friday.

This year's holiday began with the Mid-Autumn Festival on Friday and also includes the Oct. 1 National Day. The public holidays end on Oct. 6.

More than a year after Algeria launched a pilot program to teach English in elementary schools, the country is hailing it as a success and expanding it in a move that reflects a widening linguistic shift underway in former French colonies throughout Africa.

Students returning to third and fourth grade classrooms this fall will participate in two 45-minute English classes each week as the country creates new teacher training programs at universities and eyes more transformational changes in the years ahead. Additionally, the country is strengthening enforcement of a preexisting law against private schools who operate primarily in French.

Rana Hariri doesn't know when she'll be able to send her children back to school, as Lebanon's grinding economic crisis thrusts the fate of public education into uncertainty.

Lack of funding for the school system has precipitated repeated teachers' strikes and school closures, resulting in children being increasingly pulled out of the formal learning system, and in some cases being forced to work.

"The Immortals" have spoken: the 388-year-old Academie Francaise, custodian and promoter of the French language, has a new leader in the form of author Amin Maalouf.

The French-Lebanese writer, 74, becomes only the 33rd person to occupy the post of "perpetual secretary" since the body's founding under King Louis XIII in 1635.

Lebanese singer and actress Najah Salam, who surged to fame in the mid-20th century in the Middle East for her songs promoting pan-Arabism, has died, her family said Thursday. She was 92.

Her family did not disclose the cause of her death.

After a 148-day strike, Hollywood screenwriters secured significant guardrails against the use of artificial intelligence in one of the first major labor battles over generative AI in the workplace.

During the nearly five-month walkout, no issue resonated more than the use of AI in script writing. What was once a seemingly lesser demand of the Writers Guild of America became an existential rallying cry.

More than 11,000 Palestine Refugees children in South Lebanon will not be able to join their peers at the beginning of the school year on 2 October. This is a quarter of refugee school children and is due to violence and clashes in the Ain el-Helweh camp, the largest in the country.

“UNRWA was forced to take this decision given all our eight schools inside the camp have been taken over by armed groups. They have sustained significant destruction and damage. Other schools – outside the camp- are currently being used by displaced families,” said Dorothée Klaus, Director of UNRWA Affairs in Lebanon.

Ambassador of the European Union to Lebanon Sandra De Waele on Monday opened the 28th edition of the European Film Festival in Lebanon at the Sursock Museum.

Below is the speech delivered by De Waele at the ceremony as received by Naharnet:

Pope Francis on Saturday labeled the weapons industry as being a key driver of the "martyrdom" of Ukraine's people in Russia's war, saying even the withholding of weapons now is going to continue their misery.

Francis appeared to refer to Poland's recent announcement that it is no longer sending arms to Ukraine when he was asked about the war during brief remarks to reporters while returning home from Marseille, France.