The Greek Orthodox Church said Friday it would not provide religious rites for those who choose cremation, saying it disrespects the human body.

"The incineration of the body is not in keeping with the traditions and actions of the Church, for anthropological and theological reasons," the Church said in a statement.

A bronze sculpture by Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti valued at more than $100 million and 20 works by pop art icon Andy Warhol headline New York's fall art auction season next week.

Art worth at least $1.7 billion from impressionist and modern; post-war and contemporary go under the hammer at Christie's and Sotheby's at combined evening and day sales from November 4 to 12.

Nearly eight decades after she became one of the most famous supporting figures in American popular literature, Mammy has become the heroine of her own story in a prequel to "Gone with the Wind."

"Ruth's Journey" by novelist and poet Donald McCaig comes 75 years after the film version of Margaret Mitchell's Pulitzer-winning epic work of fiction set in the Deep South during the US Civil War.

Australia and New Zealand on Saturday marked 100 years since their first convoy of troops left for the battlefields of World War I, with thousands attending events to commemorate the "heavy day in history".

The convoy left the Western Australian town of Albany on November 1, 1914, carrying 20,000 Australian and 8,500 New Zealand soldiers bound for Gallipoli in modern day Turkey and later the battlefields of Europe.

Afghanistan's cosmopolitan new first lady has backed France's controversial ban on the niqab, comparing the full veil to "blinders" as she prepares to campaign for more respect for women in her conservative adopted homeland.

Rula Ghani shocked Afghan observers earlier this year when she appeared with her husband during the country's presidential campaign, a rare example of a political wife sharing the spotlight.

Sixty years on, the war of independence from France remains a defining moment for Algeria and its elite, like 79-year-old Zohra Drif, a senator who once set off a bomb that left three people dead.

On the night of November 1, 1954, known as "Toussaint Rouge" (Red All Saints Day) because it coincided with the Catholic festival, some 30 explosions rocked government targets in the colony which had been under French occupation for 132 years, leaving seven people dead.

Far fewer Chinese couples applied to have a second child than expected after a relaxation of the country's "one child" policy, state-run media reported Thursday, highlighting the ageing nation's demographic challenges.

The world's most populous country has restricted most families to a single child since the late 1970s, but the Communist party said in November that couples would be allowed to have two offspring so long as one of the parents is an only child, rather than both.

A group of men discovered a 3,400-year-old pharaonic temple from the reign of warrior king Thutmosis III under their house in a city south of Cairo, Egyptian officials said Wednesday.

Antiquities Minister Mamdouh al-Damaty said the seven men made the find during an illegal excavation in Al-Badrashin, 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the capital.

Just in time for Halloween on Friday and a weekend devoted to the dead, Vienna's unashamedly morbid Funeral Museum is now closer to the action: the Austrian capital's huge Central Cemetery.

In a city with a singular attitude to kicking the bucket -- "Death himself must be a Viennese," one local song says -- the "Bestattungsmuseum" was the world's first of its kind when it first opened in 1967.

High above the altar in the Vatican's Sistine Chapel, the halo around Jesus Christ's head in Michelangelo's famous frescoes shines with a brighter glow, thanks to a revolutionary new lighting system.

Angels, Sybils and prophets in blues, pinks and golds, once lost in the gloom, are brought into sharp relief by 7,000 LED lamps designed specifically for the prized chapel, where red-hatted cardinals have elected new popes since the 15th century.