Standing next to a newly refurbished bell tower, priest Aristakes Aivazyan says it needed divine intervention to save Armenia's medieval Haghartsin monastery.

But it also took a lot of money from a very unlikely benefactor -- the Muslim ruler of the resource-rich Arab emirate of Sharjah, Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed al-Qasimi.

A bird statuette featured in the classic 1941 detective thriller "The Maltese Falcon" is going on sale in New York City.

The black figurine is being offered on Monday at Bonhams auction house, which did not provide a pre-sale estimate.

An Asian buyer purchased a rare Leica camera, one of only four of its kind in the world, for $620,000 at a Hong Kong auction, auctioneers said Saturday.

The 1932 Leica Luxus II fetched HK$4.84 million ($620,000) late Friday in an auction where about 80 cameras and accessories went under the hammer in the southern Chinese city.

A French veteran made more than 10,000 euros Friday selling four photo albums he took from Adolf Hitler's mountain retreat as "a souvenir" in the final days of World War II.

The albums, which contain pictures and messages of admiration, were presented to Hitler by supporters in the 1930s and early 1940s. Two of them are bound in red leather with the Reich eagle engraved on the cover.

From the heart of France to the foothills of Mount Fuji and the streets of Washington DC, wine-themed fun was the order of the day Thursday as a new vintage of Beaujolais Nouveau was uncorked.

As ever, the reviews were mixed for the purply-pink "primeur" wine that the vignerons of the Beaujolais country in eastern France rush to market within a few weeks of harvest, often having been fermented in only a few days.

Germany has put more paintings and drawings of priceless artworks stolen by the Nazis online including works by Edvard Munch, Max Liebermann and Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, public prosecutors announced.

"Thursday night the Augsburg prosecutor's office communicated (the references) of more works of what has been called 'the artistic discovery of Schwabing' to the coordinating panel for lost cultural goods," the culture minister's office said in a statement, referring to the Munich district where 1,406 lost artworks have been found.

A collection of Nelson Mandela's personal items, including his photograph with boxing legend Muhammad Ali, will go under the hammer in South Africa next week, in a rare auction of the peace icon's memorabilia.

The assortment of 79 signed mementos at Wednesday's auction date from 1964 to 2010.

A senior member of Turkey's ruling party stirred up a new furor on Thursday over the imposition of Islamic values in the country, saying it was a "big mistake" to allow boys and girls to study together.

The comments by deputy parliament speaker Sadik Yakut followed a storm of controversy over a push by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan earlier this month to do away with mixed-sex dorms at universities.

Indonesian researchers said Thursday they have discovered what is believed to be the wreck of a German submarine that was torpedoed off the main island of Java during World War II.

A team found the wreck -- which contained at least 17 human skeletons -- north of Java earlier this month after a tip-off from local divers.

U.S. customs agents said Wednesday they have seized a horde of "priceless" ancient Korean artifacts, brought to California by U.S. a serviceman deployed in the Korean War six decades ago.

The nine seals of the Korean Empire and Joseon Dynasty were recovered in San Diego, after a local man approached a Washington-based antiques dealer seeking to have them valued.