In a corner of Ireland, hope has replaced desperation as parishioners watch their own Christmas miracle unfold in front of their eyes.

St Mel's Cathedral in the small town of Longford is being restored to its former glory three years after it was destroyed by a fire on Christmas Day.

A Saudi Arabian liberal writer was arrested on Monday for making comments on his Twitter account that were allegedly insulting to Islam, family members said.

Turki Ahmed was arrested on orders of Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Nayef bin Abdel Aziz, who was tipped off by a religious organization, they said.

Almost 80 years after first going to print, the final Newsweek magazine hit newsstands Monday featuring an ironic hashtag as a symbol of its Twitter-era transition to an all-digital format.

The second-largest news weekly magazine in the United States has been grappling with a steep drop in print advertising revenue, steadily declining circulation and the migration of readers to free news online.

A Swedish university said Sunday it wants to return three human skulls that researchers collected in French Polynesia in the 19th century.

The skulls arrived in Sweden in 1884 aboard the royal frigate Vanadis, which had stopped in Tahiti and in the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia. Swedish ethnographist and archaeologist Hjalmar Stolpe was among those on the voyage.

Hundreds of visitors have tucked handwritten notes into the enormous stone slab at the new center adjacent to Bogota's main cemetery, which many think of as Colombia's "Wailing Wall."

The structure is the centerpiece of Colombia's new Center for Remembrance, Peace and Reconciliation where visitors can pay their respects to victims of the armed conflict that has torn the country apart for nearly a half-century.

Thousands of Palestinians and tourists were flocking to the West Bank city of Bethlehem on Monday to mark Christmas at the site where many believe Jesus Christ was born.

This year's celebration carries special significance for many Palestinians, coming after 12 months in which their status on the world stage has been significantly upgraded.

The last surviving British-based member of the International Brigades who fought in the Spanish Civil War has died aged 94, The Independent newspaper reported Monday.

David Lomon was a 19-year-old rag-and-bone man in east London when he volunteered to join left-wing forces battling General Francisco Franco's nationalist troops in the 1936-1939 conflict.

Several Kuwaiti liberal civil societies have condemned calls from some organizations and individuals forbidding the celebration of Christmas in the oil-rich Gulf state, a report said Sunday.

The civil societies said in a statement published by Al-Jarida newspaper that every year at this time certain groups declare celebrating Christmas and New Year as forbidden from an Islamic point of view.

Tunisian Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali kicked off viewing on Saturday for an auction of thousands of luxury items once owned by ousted dictator Zine El Abidine Ali and his family.

Jebali inspected 40 luxury cars, thousands of clothing, jewelry items and art works on the eve of the public auction which is being held in the Tunis suburb of Gammarth in a bid to raise millions of euros for government coffers.

In a high-school classroom in western Sydney, teacher Noeleen Lumby is asking her pupils to recall the Aboriginal name for animals that indigenous Wiradjuri people have used for hundreds of years.

As she holds up stuffed toys representing some of Australia's native wildlife, including a kangaroo, an emu and a cockatoo, the class of about 25 -- many from Vietnamese and Cambodian backgrounds -- come to grips with the ancient tongue.