A North Korean orchestra led by a South Korean conductor performed in Paris for the first time Wednesday, in a diplomatic victory highlighting that "music is bigger than borders".

The musicians played with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Radio France under the baton of South Korean maestro Myung-Whun Chung who called the event a "family concert".

Musicians at New York's renowned Lincoln Center, one of the premier venues for live performances in the world, are protesting a major ballet company's decision to perform to canned music.

The visiting Paul Taylor Dance Company took over the stage for an almost three-week period in Lincoln Center's David H. Koch Theater starting Tuesday.

The world's biggest Titanic visitor attraction opens in the ship's Belfast birthplace this month, 100 years to the day since the doomed liner was completed in the same yards.

After decades of quietly forgetting "the most famous ship since Noah's Ark", Belfast has reclaimed the Titanic, and is championing a legend which continues to captivate the imagination a century on.

The One World international documentary festival, which opened in Bucharest on Wednesday, will focus on the new weapon in revolutions and revolts across the world: the Internet.

"If the Romanian 1989 revolution was the first one to be televised, the Green movement from Iran blossomed on the Internet and was fuelled via virtual networks. This change of tools has only taken 20 years", the organizers underlined.

Fifty years after losing the Algerian war, France is still suffering fallout from a conflict that shamed its armed forces and fuels bitter political rows even in its latest election battle.

Though French officials are keen to play down the 50th anniversary on March 18 of the ceasefire that ended the conflict, the war's legacy has reared its head in the run-up to France's April-May two-round presidential vote.

The suspected arsonist behind a deadly fire at a Brussels mosque said Tuesday he set the Shiite place of worship ablaze to scare the community he blames for the violence in Syria, officials said.

Belgium's Muslim community was in shock a day after the attack that left an imam dead.

The art collection of the late German-born playboy Gunter Sachs, featuring works celebrating his obsession with his former wife Brigitte Bardot, is to be auctioned in London on May 22-23.

The star lot to go under the hammer at Sotheby's is an Andy Warhol portrait of Bardot which Sachs commissioned in 1974, five years after the couple divorced, which is estimated to fetch up to £4 million ($6.3 million, 4.8 million euros), the auction house said Tuesday.

China has long been known for its highly disciplined approach to education, but parents and lawmakers alike are beginning to question the wisdom of putting so much pressure on young children.

China's tough approach to bringing up children was made famous worldwide last year by the Chinese-American professor Amy Chua, who told in her book "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" how she insisted on top marks from her kids.

Two of Japan's best-selling pop acts will play in Washington to mark the centennial of the capital's cherry blossoms and offer thanks for U.S. support after last year's tsunami, organizers said Monday.

Misia, Japan's best-known R&B singer who has sold more than 30 million albums, will perform on March 25 at a ceremony to celebrate 100 years since Japan gifted the celebrated pink-flowering trees to the United States.

Sunday marks 50 years since the end of Algeria's war of independence from France, but there will be no formalities to mark the milestone for fear of reopening old wounds in an election year.

The anniversary of the signing of the Evian Accords that rang in independence for the north Africa nation after 132 years of colonial rule, will be a low-key affair.