With melons that sell for the price of a new car and grapes that go for more than $100 a pop, Japan is a country where perfectly-formed fruit can fetch a fortune.

An industry of fruit boutiques has defied Japan's sluggish economy to consistently offer luscious and lavishly tended produce for hefty prices -- and it is always in demand.

France has awarded the U.S. writer Philip Roth its highest decoration, the Legion d'honneur (Legion of Honor), with the country's foreign minister bestowing the award in New York.

At a ceremony on Friday, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, in the Big Apple for the United Nations General Assembly, praised Roth's prolific career as one of the leading men of American letters.

George Washington's Mount Vernon estate on Friday formally opened a new $47 million library dedicated to the study of America's first president, with plans to host a series of scholars who will examine the lives of Washington and the Founding Fathers.

And if those scholars occasionally knock Washington off his lofty perch as America's flawless father, that's OK by Mount Vernon.

An oil painting by German abstract artist Gerhard Richter from Eric Clapton's collection is heading for a New York City auction.

Christie's auction house says "Abstraktes Bild" is estimated to sell for $20 million to $25 million on Nov. 12. It says the English guitarist and songwriter bought the painting at auction in 2001.

Some 250 works of contemporary art are being donated to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the U.S. museum announced Friday.

The gift is from American collector and former art dealer Virginia Dwan, 81, and includes 34 sculptures, 15 paintings, as well as prints and drawings, photographs, films and a set of artist books.

Poland's powerful Roman Catholic church on Friday apologized over two alleged pedophile priests as prosecutors on both sides of the Atlantic began probing the men, one a former Vatican envoy.

Prosecutors in the Dominican Republic have asked Interpol to arrest fugitive Polish priest Wojciech Gil, 36, who allegedly abused several young boys while serving on the Caribbean island.

A nine-metre (30-foot) high bronze statue of South Africa's first black president Nelson Mandela will be erected at a government complex in the capital Pretoria, an official said Thursday.

The figure with outstretched arms and one foot slightly forward, will depict a younger looking Mandela, as he looked 10 years after his 1994 election.

The world's longest-running cartoon is to go fully digital, its Japanese broadcaster said Friday, abandoning hand-drawn celluloid-based animation after a run of 44 years.

Fuji Television Network said episodes of "Sazae-san" aired from October would be produced entirely digitally. The move will mean there are no hand-drawn cartoons left on Japanese television, according to the Association of Japanese Animations.

Kim Bok-dong was only 14 when Japanese occupying forces knocked on her parents' door and requisitioned her for what they said was wartime work in a factory.

Instead, she found herself on the battlefield in a brothel where soldiers had sex with her from morning until evening, every day for years -- one of tens of thousands of girls used as "comfort women" by the Japanese military during the Second World War.

Besides killing more than 100,000 people, Syria's civil war is exacting another irreparable toll as historic sites and artworks are looted or destroyed in the fighting.

An emergency list of endangered artworks was released Wednesday at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The initiative stems from the International Council of Museums, in collaboration with UNESCO and the U.S. State Department.