China has banned civil servants, students and teachers in its mainly Muslim Xinjiang region from taking part in Ramadan fasting, government websites said, prompting condemnation from an exile group on Wednesday.

China's ruling Communist party is officially atheist, and for years has restricted fasting in Xinjiang, home to the mostly Muslim Uighur minority.

British artist Tracey Emin's controversial 'My Bed' sold for £2.2 million ($3.8 million, 2.8 million euro), almost double its guide price, at an auction in London on Tuesday.

The work, a rumpled bed surrounded by the intimate debris of empty bottles of vodka, cigarette packets and condoms, attracted controversy when it was shortlisted for the 1999 Turner Prize, prompting a debate about the state of contemporary art.

The European Court of Human Rights on Tuesday upheld France's controversial burqa ban, rejecting arguments that outlawing full-face veils breaches religious freedom.

In a case brought by a 24-year-old French woman with the support of a British legal team, the court ruled that France was justified in introducing the ban in the interests of social cohesion.

Galloping with the vigor of strong and simple brush strokes, the horses painted by late Chinese master Xu Beihong inspired his countrymen in wartime -- and now to pay huge sums to treasure them.

Xu, who died in 1953, created horses that pulsed with beauty and bravery just as China was knuckling under Japanese occupation in the 1930s and 1940s, imbuing them with realism learned at the prestigious Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

Korean women forced into sex slavery for Japanese troops during World War II have been invited to a mass to be celebrated by Pope Francis in Seoul in August, a spokeswoman said Tuesday.

The invitation comes at a time when relations between Japan and South Korea are a low ebb over Tokyo's recent allegations that there was no evidence to corroborate the testimony of so-called "comfort women" who were forced to work in Japanese military brothels.

Peru finally put into effect a 90-year-old law allowing abortions in certain cases, after the government issued a new decree on how to apply the law.

The new guidance covers abortions at up to 22 weeks of pregnancy and only when a mother's health or life is in danger.

Sunni jihadists have declared an "Islamic caliphate" on territory they have seized in Iraq and Syria, reviving a system of rule abolished nearly one century ago.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL, renamed itself simply as the Islamic State, and ordered the world's Muslims to obey Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, now the "caliph" or successor to the Prophet Mohammed.

Waving pots and pans, police pushed back dozens of hungry Iraqi refugees as they rushed to seize free food, ending their first daylong fast of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan in an encampment for the displaced.

Shouting men scrambled Sunday to reach pots of rice, meat and chicken stew in this dusty, hot encampment some 60 miles (100 kilometers) from the northern city of Irbil, the capital of Iraq's self-ruled Kurdish region. The chaotic scene underscored the fearful insecurity of displaced Iraqis as they begin Ramadan in a nation gripped by unrest and bitterly divided along sectarian lines.

A book importer in China said Monday it scrapped plans to distribute Hillary Clinton's memoir "Hard Choices," which talks about Chinese censorship and a dissident who took refuge in the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, due to sensitive content.

Shanghai Book Traders canceled after discovering the content, said an employee of the company, who would give only his surname, Hua. He refused to say which parts of the book the importer deemed sensitive.

A Stradivarius viola considered to be one of the world's finest instruments has failed to sell, auctioneers Sotheby's said on Thursday.

The minimum asking price was $45 million (33 million euros), reflecting the rarity of the 'Macdonald' Stradivarius, one of only ten surviving violas made by the Italian master Antonio Stradivari.