Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami has started offering opinions and advice on queries from fans in an online agony uncle column, kicking things off by revealing his fears over hate speech and his own failing eyesight.

The publicity-shy writer started the project Thursday at "Murakami-san no tokoro" or "Mr. Murakami's place" where he hoped for easy-going, fun exchanges with readers.

In the spirit of Charlie Hebdo, Palestinian cartoonist Ramzy Taweel is making his feelings about the French satirical weekly crystal clear -- his latest illustration equates the publication to toilet paper.

Palestinian political cartoonists, including Taweel, rushed to eulogies the staff of Charlie Hebdo killed by Islamic extremists in an attack on their offices in Paris last week, publishing images defending free speech, condemning violence and expressing solidarity with France.

When Suh Hyun-Woong showed his mother his first tattoo, she burst into tears.

"She couldn't understand why I would want to do that to myself," Suh laughed. "But now she's pretty much accepted it."

Director Peter Jackson said Wednesday he's putting his energy into helping launch a museum to commemorate World War I after finishing his "Hobbit" movie trilogy.

If he has any plans for future blockbusters, he's not saying.

Campaigning in the Greek elections took an unexpected turn on Wednesday when one deputy took aim at a school text book describing the removal of the famed Elgin Marbles from Athens in the 19th century.

The ancient Greek sculptures, also known as the Parthenon Marbles, were taken from Greece by British diplomat Lord Elgin in 1803.

A Budapest court has ordered a U.S.-based internet service provider (ISP) to remove an article after ruling it denied the events of the Holocaust, a crime in Hungary, the news agency MTI reported Wednesday.

Prosecutors said the article, published in July 2013 on the Hungarian-language news portal Kuruc.info, called into question the deaths of Jews at Nazi Germany's notorious wartime death camp Auschwitz. 

A group of Muslim girls in Malaysia were threatened with arrest Wednesday after a video emerged showing them hugging members of K-pop boy band B1A4, local media reported.

The incident has prompted a public outcry in the Muslim majority country, with Islamic conservatives denouncing both the popular Korean K-pop genre and the girls.

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic on Wednesday launched a highly symbolic Orthodox New Year visit to Kosovo, the former Serbian province that unilaterally seceded in 2008 despite Belgrade's fierce opposition.

In Gracanica, a Serb enclave at the outskirts of Pristina, Vucic called for a peaceful coexistence with the ethnic Albanian majority that makes up 90 percent of the nearly two million Kosovo population.

In private, even the stylish former U.S. first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis admitted to tiring of the all-black attire long considered chic in New York City.

"I just love this suit & will wear it everywhere as I am SO sick of everyone constantly in black — like Mediterranean villages where everyone is in mourning for 20 years," she once wrote to Bill Hamilton, then the design director at Carolina Herrera.

Sri Lanka's first saint was a 17th century missionary whose role in reviving the Catholic faith during religious persecution by Dutch colonizers gives him a contemporary resonance on the island.

Pope Francis will canonise Joseph Vaz on Wednesday at a public mass on the Colombo seafront which is expected to be attended by a million devotees.