In ultra-conservative Saudi Arabia, where the sexes are strictly segregated, traditional matchmakers face tough competition from blossoming marriage services on online social networks.

More than 200 Twitter accounts and dozens of other forums on the Internet offer services for Saudi men and women seeking spouses, angering matchmakers like Um Sami who sees it as "organised prostitution."

King Mohammed hailed the "spiritual wealth and diversity" of Morocco at a ceremony on Wednesday to mark the end of the restoration of a 17th century synagogue in the city of Fez.

The ceremony was held in the medina, the Old City, of Fez, a UNESCO world heritage site, before more than 200 people including the country's Islamist prime minister and German parliament speaker Norbert Lammert.

A Syrian government official warned Wednesday of rampant trafficking in antiquities from his country and appealed for U.N. help in halting the illicit trade that has flourished during the nearly 23-month-long civil war.

Syria's turmoil has increasingly threatened the country's rich archaeological heritage but the issue of smuggling artifacts has taken a back seat to more dramatic images as some of the most significant sites got caught in the crossfire between regime forces and rebels.

Peruvian archeologists have discovered a temple believed to be about 5,000 years old at the ancient El Paraiso archeological site in a valley just north of Lima, the Culture Ministry said Tuesday.

If the date is confirmed, it would be among the oldest sites in the world, comparable to the ancient city of Caral, a coastal city some 200 kilometers (125 miles) to the north.

Long targeted during the country's sectarian war, Iraq's best hairdressers and beauticians have held a festival in central Baghdad to show their talents, a symbolic move to break with years of fear.

The event, officially called the Make-up, Hairdressing and Fashion Show, was organised over the weekend in the small Sadeer Hotel in Andalus Square, the first of its kind since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and its violent aftermath.

France's National Assembly voted Tuesday to adopt legislation allowing homosexual couples to marry and adopt children, and the law will now go for approval by the upper house of parliament.

The legislation, a key election pledge of Socialist President Francois Hollande, was backed by 329 deputies and was opposed by 229 after months of frenzied debate.

Pope Benedict XVI's surprise resignation awakened hopes among Latin American supporters of liberation theology for an easing of Vatican pressure on left-leaning clerics.

"We hope that a new pope will create a more open atmosphere, and that Christians can have a dialogue about modern society without so many suspicions and criticisms," Brazilian theologian Leonardo Boff said on Venezuela's Telesur.

Unidentified members of an armed group in northern Syria have cut off the head of a statue honoring Abbasid-era poet Abou al-Alaa al-Maari, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Tuesday.

"An armed group in the (rebel-held) town of Maaret al-Numan have cut off the head of a sculpture honoring the memory of poet and philosopher Abou al-Alaa al-Maari, who was born in the town," said the Britain-based Observatory.

Behind the bars of a prison on Poland's eastern fringe, a dozen women serving time are lost in concentration as they learn the intricate art of icon-writing in the Orthodox Christian tradition.

The centuries' old craft, which typically displays the Virgin with the baby Jesus, saints and Christ in rich strokes of dark red, green and gold is being used for the first time as part of a social reintegration program at a major correctional facility in Bialystok.

A New Zealand politician has labelled young Muslim men a terrorist threat who should be banned from Western airlines, sparking condemnation from Prime Minister John Key on Tuesday.

Richard Prosser, of the New Zealand First party, also labelled Islam a "stone age religion" in a magazine column, claiming that most terrorists were "angry young Muslim men who hate the West".