When Chinese legislators recommended the abolition of "education" detention centers where prostitutes and clients can be held without charge for two years, activists hoped the facilities' days were numbered.

Long relegated to providing comic relief or playing supporting parts, plus-size actresses are finally getting their due with juicy front-and-center roles in a sign of shifting attitudes towards diverse body types.

There is a violinist, a farmer tilling his field, and a cockerel with a propeller for a head. All were once rockets, artillery shells, or bullets falling on Lebanon's battlefields.

It may be grating for some, but hip-hop is music to the ears of Switzerland's most famous cheese. 

Spain will exhume the remains of late dictator Francisco Franco from its opulent mausoleum and move them to a location outside Madrid in June, the government announced Friday.

Disgraced Australian Cardinal George Pell was on Wednesday sentenced to six years in prison for the "brazen" sexual abuse of two choirboys, in what the judge lambasted as a "grave" abuse of power.

The former Vatican number three -- who managed church finances and helped elect two popes -- was sentenced in a Melbourne court on five counts, including oral rape and molestation of boys in 1996-1997.

Hollywood star Gal Gadot has leapt to defend a fellow actress who was chided by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for challenging his party's treatment of Arab citizens.

On the domed roof of a historical market in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, architect Bassel al-Daher moves between workers painstakingly working to erase the scars of war.

Algeria's oldest museum, home to some of the country's most valuable art, was vandalised during protests against President Abdelaziz Bouteflika's bid for a fifth term, the culture ministry said Saturday.

A 116-year-old Japanese woman who still enjoys studying math and playing board games has been recognised as the world's oldest person, the Guinness World Records said Saturday.