Greek police say they have recovered a painting by Flemish master Pieter Paul Rubens which had been stolen from a museum in Belgium in 2001. Two people have been arrested.

Police spokesman Panagiotis Papapetropoulos says the painting had been certified by experts from the Culture Ministry as being genuine. He did not have the name of the painting, which was being guarded by police in Athens.

A female bonobo has been named "the world's smartest ape" after beating chimpanzees distracted by male rivalry in a contest between two Belgian zoos, whose results took scientists by surprise.

The chimps, generally a more aggressive, male-dominated species than bonobos, were expected to take the title.

Bayern Munich goal-scorer Arjen Robben has said the Bavarian giants are hitting top form after they demolished Hamburg 5-0 in the German league.

After a faltering start to the season, Bayern produced an impressive display on the third weekend of the Bundesliga campaign on Saturday as Robben and fellow star winger Franck Ribery ran the Hamburg defense ragged.

A violent storm that lashed an outdoor rock music festival in northern Belgium killed at least five people after uprooting trees and collapsing two stages, local officials said.

Tens of thousands of people were attending the outdoor Pukkepop festival when the storm broke Thursday, toppling one stage on concert-goers at the annual event held in Kiewit near the town of Hasselt.

European stock markets were holding onto gains Friday after another rollercoaster ride as nervous investors tried to get ahead of the curve and a short-selling ban in Europe helped the under-fire banks.

France, Italy, Spain and Belgium banned short-selling in bank stocks after rumors about their financial health saw them suffer massive losses in recent days and then Germany upped the ante by calling for a Europe-wide bar.

Bank stocks recovered their poise Friday and helped European stock markets push higher as investors assessed the impact of a short-selling ban on financial shares in four eurozone countries.

The advance in Europe follows big gains on Wall Street Thursday, which helped support most markets in Asia.

Scientists on Wednesday said they had uncovered the secret behind the extraordinary jumping ability of the white-handed gibbon, capable in the wild of leaping across more than 10 meters (33 feet) in gaps in the forest canopy.

Using high-speed cameras and laser measurement, researchers recorded two captive gibbons -- one an adult male, the other a juvenile female -- as they jumped between trunks at a wildlife park in Belgium.

A burqa and niqab ban came into force in Belgium on Saturday with the threat of fines and jail time, but the law faced an immediate court challenge from two women who wear the full Islamic veil.

Belgium joined France as the second European Union nation to enforce such a ban.

Belgium will enforce a burqa ban from July 23 with a fine and possible jail time for women who wear it, joining France as the second EU nation to forbid full veils, Belgian media said Thursday.

The new law was published Wednesday in the kingdom's official journal after deputies approved it unanimously in parliament in April.

Belgium plans to halve its troop numbers in Afghanistan from the start of January, a defense ministry official told Agence France Presse on Sunday in the latest sign of allied exit from the decade-old war.

"The main reduction will be in Kabul, where the minister has determined that our objective has been met by some distance," said Didier Deweerdt, a spokesman for Defense Minister Pieter De Crem.