On the domed roof of a historical market in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, architect Bassel al-Daher moves between workers painstakingly working to erase the scars of war.

Algeria's oldest museum, home to some of the country's most valuable art, was vandalised during protests against President Abdelaziz Bouteflika's bid for a fifth term, the culture ministry said Saturday.

A 116-year-old Japanese woman who still enjoys studying math and playing board games has been recognised as the world's oldest person, the Guinness World Records said Saturday.

A Muslim American congresswoman's remarks deemed anti-Semitic by some colleagues has exposed deep fault lines among Democrats, with the party seeking to contain the damage with passage Thursday of a measure condemning bigotry and hate.

Progress towards gender parity at work has barely budged for the past quarter century, and will only speed up once men take on far more unpaid caregiving tasks, the UN said Thursday, on the eve of International Women's Day.

Global banking giant Goldman Sachs is loosening its tie as it works to stay current with younger employees who favor more casual dress.

Top brass at the investment bank announced a break from Wall Street's notoriously buttoned up and rigid dress, unveiled a new "firm-wide flexible dress code" that essentially directs bankers to use attire that is in line with client expectations. 

One of the largest U.S.-based Jewish advocacy groups on Monday praised the Vatican's "enormously important" decision to open the archives of Pius XII, who was pope during the World War II period.

Two French journalists were sacked Friday for their part in an online bullying scandal that has shaken the country's media, industry sources told AFP.

After eight years of brutal war in Syria, the UNESCO World Heritage-listed city of Aleppo lies in ruins -- but a vast digital archive in Germany aims to keep its memory alive and help rebuild it one day.

The Syrian Heritage Archive Project documents what it can of the millennia-old history of a part of the world that saw some humanity's earliest urban centres and writing systems, but which has become a symbol of the barbarity of war.

Australian Cardinal George Pell, one of Pope Francis' closest advisors, has been found guilty of sexually assaulting two choirboys, becoming the most senior Catholic cleric ever convicted of child sex crimes.