Foodies, take note: After flooding the global market with its vodka, apples and berries, Poland has gone gourmet and is trying its hand at making black caviar.

Dressed from head to toe in sterile clothing, a worker leans over a sieve containing roe from Russian and Siberian sturgeon. She uses tweezers to remove any leftover bits from the ovary sack -- anything to ensure the quality of the caviar.

Cuban authorities detained or kept at home several dissidents Tuesday, including a performance artist who organized an open-mic session for Cubans to speak out about their future.

The fate of the artist -- 46-year-old Tania Bruguera, 46, who trained in Cuba and the United States, and splits her time between the two countries and France -- was not immediately known.

Better known for war and bloodshed, the lush hills of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo are also home to a surprising, successful craft that has survived decades of violence: cheesemaking.

Though not part of the traditional diet, the cheese -- a mild-tasting hard variety with a yellowish-brown rind -- has managed to win favor across the nation.

In small-town northern India, Muslims are offered food and money to convert to Hinduism. If that doesn't suffice, they say they're threatened. Across the country, the Christmas holiday is canceled for hundreds of government servants who spend the day publicly extolling the policies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Powerful Hindu nationalist leaders — some with close ties to Modi's government — say they intend to ensure India becomes a completely Hindu nation.

But Modi himself? He has remained silent as nationalist demands have bubbled over into day-to-day politics, and amid growing fears among minority religious groups of creeping efforts to shunt them aside.

Classified documents made public Tuesday shed light on the political courtship between Britain's Margaret Thatcher and Mikhail Gorbachev -- whom she famously declared she could "do business" with.

After Gorbachev's first official visit to Britain in 1984, four months before he became Soviet leader, Thatcher praised his "charm and humour" as both sides sought to improve East-West relations.

Britain was looking for stronger economic ties with China even before the agreement which would eventually hand it Hong Kong was signed in 1984, secret documents released Tuesday showed.

Ahead of late prime minister Margaret Thatcher's trip to Beijing in December that year to sign the deal, officials discussed how she should make the case for British business with China.

The United Arab Emirates said Tuesday that it will not allow screening of Hollywood's Biblical epic "Exodus: Gods and Kings," mirroring similar bans by Egypt and Morocco.

The National Media Council, charged with vetting films for release in the UAE, said the Ridley Scott movie about Moses's escape from pharaonic Egypt contained "religious and historical mistakes."

An Egyptian court Monday banned an annual Jewish pilgrimage in the Nile Delta province of Baheira honoring a Moroccan rabbi, saying it went against local traditions, a judicial official said.

A court in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria issued an indefinite ban on celebrations marking the birthday of Yacoub Abu Hasira, held annually in January since 1979, the year Egypt and Israel signed a peace treaty.

A group of Christians gathered in an apartment above a Beijing dental surgery, the atmosphere jubilant as a choir belted out carols on Christmas Eve -- but the curtains stayed tightly closed.

Unofficial Christian groups have long been subject to crackdowns, but the situation appears to be worsening as their numbers increase, and the ruling Communist party takes a more nationalist tone under its leader Xi Jinping.

The Philippines's largest broadcaster pulled souvenir T-shirts for an upcoming papal visit from its stores Monday, after coming under fire from Catholic bishops irked by the words "no religion" emblazoned on them.

Pope Francis, who has been praised for being reform-minded regarding long-contentious issues such as remarriage, divorce and homosexuality, will visit the deeply Catholic country in January.