For Gaza resident Mahmud Khalaf, it was a bizarre new experience, prostrating himself for his daily Muslim prayers beneath the gaze of an icon of Jesus Christ.

But since the war in Gaza began, he has had no choice but to worship in a Christian house of God, where he took refuge after Israeli air strikes pummeled his neighborhood in the north of the Palestinian territory.

A Philippine Christian church renowned for its discipline, money and political power will mark its 100th anniversary on Sunday with more than one million followers expected to join the celebrations.

The Iglesia ni Cristo (Church of Christ) members will congregate at a giant complex especially built for the occasion near Manila, in an event that will showcase the religion's stunning success at home and abroad.

The Polish government has canceled plans for a year of cultural celebrations with Russia out of anger with Russian actions in Ukraine.

The Foreign Ministry said Thursday that it summoned the Russian ambassador to inform him of the decision.

Sham marriages to win the right to live in Britain are more prevalent than thought and a major risk to immigration control, a group of lawmakers warned on Friday.

The number of suspect couples referred to the interior ministry each year had more than doubled over the past three years to 2,145, a parliamentary committee said.

A special exhibition on childhood in the British royal family is to open at Buckingham Palace on Saturday, featuring well-loved toys spanning 250 years including a gadget-laden miniature James Bond supercar.

The Royal Childhood exhibition at the London palace features more than 150 objects, including cherished outfits, family photographs and private film footage.

Sculptures thought to be by masters Degas and Rodin have been found in the flat of the late German art collector whose priceless hoard included Nazi-looted works, investigators said Thursday.

Images of the works, once their origins are verified, will be published in the online inventory www.lostart.de to help trace their rightful owners in case they were once plundered by the Nazis, said the task force in charge of the investigation.

Japan must work to "eliminate misogyny" if it wants to draw more women into the workforce as part of a wider bid to stimulate the economy, said the head of the United Nations Development Program.

Helen Clark, a former New Zealand prime minister, made the comments in an interview with AFP ahead of the release of the agency's 2014 Human Development Report in Tokyo on Thursday.

U.S. President John F. Kennedy is getting his old look back on new collectors' coins.

The slain president's profile debuted on the half dollar 50 years ago, and the image was subtly tweaked and sharpened in the 1990s. Now the U.S. Mint is producing collectors' coins that restore the original 1964 design, which incorporated suggestions from a grieving Jacqueline Kennedy.

More than 2.2 billion people are "poor or near-poor", with financial crises, natural disasters, soaring food prices and violent conflicts threatening to exacerbate the problem, a United Nations report said Thursday.

While poverty is in decline worldwide, growing inequality and "structural vulnerabilities" remain a serious threat, said the report by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), released in Tokyo.

As she nears retirement along with millions of other Chinese, He Xiangying is too busy sending her son money and raising a stranger's child to worry about who will eventually look after her.

The nanny's plan is to work until her health fails, then go back to her home village in the Chinese countryside and grow vegetables to save money.