At a new private museum in Lebanon, a contemporary sculpture of a mortar missile is displayed alongside millenia-old statues retrieved from the bottom of the sea.

Chinese authorities have launched a campaign against halal products in the name of fighting extremism in the capital of Xinjiang, the fractious northwest region where Muslims are facing a raft of religious restrictions.

They are among Istanbul's most iconic sights -- magnificent waterside mansions strung out along the Bosphorus as the waters of the strait dividing Europe and Asia lap almost at their front doors.

Once the preserve of the Ottoman elite and affluent foreigners working in what was Constantinople, the mansions, known as yalis, were made famous in novels and more recently through modern Turkey's hugely successful TV soap operas.

Nadia Murad survived the worst cruelties inflicted on her people, the Yazidis of Iraq, before becoming a global champion of their cause and winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

The referendum in Romania this weekend that could see the conservative country ban gay marriage underlines the largely East-West split in Europe over same-sex unions.

The #MeToo movement in one year has shaken the United States, brought down dozens of powerful men and threatens the confirmation of a Supreme Court judge, yet it has also become deeply polarizing and its long-term impact remains unclear.

A judge cannot refuse to take testimony from a woman because she is wearing an Islamic veil, a court has ruled.

Perched on the edge of Libya's Mediterranean coast, the ancient city of Sabratha remains an awe-inspiring spectacle, the pink columns of its amphitheater towering above turquoise waters.

She was a 22-year-old former beauty queen, fashion model and social media star, whose daring outfits revealed tattoos on her arms and shoulder.

Tara Fares won fame and 2.8 million Instagram followers in conservative, Muslim-majority Iraq with outspoken opinions on personal freedom, such as: "I'm not doing anything in the dark like many others; everything I do is in the broad daylight."

A Saudi woman has lost a judicial battle to marry the man of her choice as a court deemed him "religiously" unfit because he plays a musical instrument, a Saudi newspaper reported Tuesday.