A new ad with an elegantly dressed minister using "fascist" perfume drew online outrage Tuesday, the latest in a social media war ahead of an Israeli election that has also featured a flatulent hippo.

Fighting between Myanmar's military and ethnic Rakhine insurgents has now reached the ancient temples of Mrauk U, the former capital of the Rakhine kingdom and a popular tourist site, local residents said Monday.

The carnage unleashed in Christchurch by a white supremacist has highlighted what analysts say is the global problem of a far-right threat that frequently flies beneath the intelligence radar.

When Chinese legislators recommended the abolition of "education" detention centers where prostitutes and clients can be held without charge for two years, activists hoped the facilities' days were numbered.

Long relegated to providing comic relief or playing supporting parts, plus-size actresses are finally getting their due with juicy front-and-center roles in a sign of shifting attitudes towards diverse body types.

There is a violinist, a farmer tilling his field, and a cockerel with a propeller for a head. All were once rockets, artillery shells, or bullets falling on Lebanon's battlefields.

It may be grating for some, but hip-hop is music to the ears of Switzerland's most famous cheese. 

Spain will exhume the remains of late dictator Francisco Franco from its opulent mausoleum and move them to a location outside Madrid in June, the government announced Friday.

Disgraced Australian Cardinal George Pell was on Wednesday sentenced to six years in prison for the "brazen" sexual abuse of two choirboys, in what the judge lambasted as a "grave" abuse of power.

The former Vatican number three -- who managed church finances and helped elect two popes -- was sentenced in a Melbourne court on five counts, including oral rape and molestation of boys in 1996-1997.

Hollywood star Gal Gadot has leapt to defend a fellow actress who was chided by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for challenging his party's treatment of Arab citizens.