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Pope Prays in Arabic for First Time

Pope Benedict XVI on Wednesday pronounced a blessing in Arabic at his weekly audience in front of 20,000 pilgrims on St. Peter's Square -- the first time the language has been used at such an event.

"The pope prays for all Arabic speakers. May God bless you all!" the pope said in Arabic at the audience, after a bishop read out an Arabic translation of the pope's comments praising the results of the Second Vatican Council.

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Modern Life, and TV Wrestling, Come to Nepal Himalayas

In the Nepalese hamlet of Simen, five days' walk from the nearest town, children pay for schooling with wood or animal dung, and life appears untouched by modernity -- but change is coming.

Just two valleys away in Dho Tarap village, business is booming and satellite dishes that beam in American wrestling are set up beside traditional prayer flags as the high Himalayan landscape of Upper Dolpa opens up to the outside world.

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Cuba, U.S. Still at Odds 50 Years After Missile Crisis

Fifty years after the Cuban missile crisis, Havana remains virulently hostile to the United States, which reciprocates by maintaining a crippling economic embargo against the communist-ruled island.

Despite the passage of time, official speeches from the Castro regime and state-controlled media still refer to the superpower 90 miles (145 kilometers) across the Florida Strait as "the enemy" or "the Northern empire."

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Baghdad Film Festival Ends on Sour Note

Once a sign of Iraq's cultural revival after decades of conflict, the Baghdad International Film Festival ended on a sour note Sunday with complaints of poor organisation and a lack of funds.

Several prominent directors were absent, there was a palpable lack of resources, and obvious disinterest from the government as the five-day festival drew to a close on Sunday night.

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Largest Assembly of Modern Aborigine Art on Display in Paris

The largest exhibition of modern Aboriginal paintings ever to go on display outside of Australia opens Tuesday at the Quai Branly Museum in the heart of Paris.

"The Sources of Aborigine Painting" features more than 200 works of art, and decorated artifacts, like shields, from which the abstract painting style derives.

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Rothko Painting Vandalized in London

London's Tate Modern was temporarily closed on Sunday after a mural by U.S. modern artist Mark Rothko was defaced by black paint, the gallery said.

The gallery shut for a short time at around 3.25pm (1425 GMT) after the damage was found on the corner of one of the Rothko's Seagram murals.

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A Million March in Argentina Pilgrimage

A massive crowd that organizers said topped a million took part Sunday in a pilgrimage to Lujan, one of Argentina's key symbols of its majority Roman Catholic faith.

"Today, we have come to ask for something: for her to teach us to work for justice," Buenos Aires Archbishop Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio said at a mass outside the cathedral in Lujan, home of a celebrated icon of the Virgin Mary.

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A Gender-Neutral Pronoun Makes Waves in Sweden

Sweden's tradition of gender equality has famously put more mums in the workplace while rising numbers of dads stay at home.

Now advocates have a new frontier: they're pushing for a gender-neutral pronoun, "hen", to be added to "han" (he) and "hon" (she).

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Sotheby's Drops $1.6 Mln Painting Sale Disputed by Nun

Sotheby's said on Monday it has canceled the sale of a Chinese painting by a top-selling artist at its auction in Hong Kong, after its ownership was challenged by a Taiwanese Buddhist nun.

The 1950 painting, "Riding in the Autumn Countryside" by Zhang Daqian, was expected to fetch up to $1.6 million at Monday's fine Chinese paintings sale, where 325 art works valued at up to $22 million will go under the hammer.

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New 'Complicity' Charge Against 1956 Hungarian Ex-Communist Leader

Hungarian prosecutors brought a new charge of "complicity in criminal acts" on Friday against Bela Biszku, a former communist leader under investigation for alleged war crimes in the aftermath of the 1956 anti-Soviet uprising in Budapest.

"In March 1957, at a time when Bela Biszku was interior minister, policemen severely beat three members of the Hungarian Academy of Science who had taken part in the events of 1956," the Prosecution Office in Budapest said in a statement.

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