An hilarious black comedy about a botched coup in Turkey won a major prize at the Venice film festival Friday.

Standing in line in the courtyard of their school in the capital Damascus, scores of Syrian girls in pink and blue uniforms saluted the flag and sang the country's national anthem. A few miles away in a suburb, children played in the courtyard of a rehabilitated school, where shattered windows were replaced but charred walls and pockmarks from bullets remained on the building facades.

With fewer areas in active combat in Syria, more children are going back to school this year, the Syrian government said, putting the number at 4 million.

A Ugandan music festival was reinstated Wednesday following a public outcry after the country's ethics minister banned it as an orgy of homosexuality, nudity and drugs akin to "devil worship."

A Miss England contestant is set to wear a hijab in the finals on Tuesday, in a first for the organization.

One of the oldest villages in the Nile Delta has been discovered after archaeologists unearthed artefacts dating to the fifth millenium BC, Egypt's antiquities ministry has said.

A huge fire engulfed Brazil's 200-year-old National Museum in Rio de Janeiro, lighting up the night sky with towering flames as firefighters and museum workers raced to save historical relics from the blaze.

The esteemed museum, which houses artifacts from Egypt, Greco-Roman art and some of the first fossils found in Brazil, was closed to the public at the time of the fire, which broke out at 7:30 p.m. Sunday local time, it said in a statement.

The UAE said Monday it had postponed the unveiling of the Louvre Abu Dhabi's most prized acquisition -- a painting attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, bought for a record $450 million.

The abdication of Japan's Emperor Akihito next year will be quite literally the end of an era, the Heisei era of his rule, and behind closed doors, talks on the next era have begun.

Japan is the only country in the world still using Chinese-style imperial calendars. It might be 2018 in much of the world, but in Japan it is Heisei 30, or 30 years into Akihito's reign.

Pope Francis has declined to comment on a claim that he ignored sexual abuse allegations against a senior clergyman amid speculation conservative elements in the Catholic hierarchy are using the issue to mount a "putsch" to remove the liberal pontiff.

Egypt's highest Sunni Muslim authority has said there can be no justification for sexual harassment, in a country where many people often blame women themselves for the widespread problems they face. 

In a statement Al-Azhar blasted all forms of harassment as "a forbidden act and deviant behaviour" and said "the one who carries it out is a sinner".