A Malian jihadist will go on trial in August, set to admit to an attack on the World Heritage site of Timbuktu which triggered a global outcry, the International Criminal Court said Wednesday.

Intimate letters, personal photographs and rare manuscripts that once belonged to French writer Marcel Proust have sold at auction for 1.2 million euros ($1.3 million).

The sale at Sotheby's in Paris on Tuesday far exceeded expert estimates for the collection of between 520,000 to 740,000 euros ($600,000 to $850,000).

Gaming fans in Hong Kong have called a decision "absurd" by Japan's Nintendo to rename the popular Pokemon character Pikachu using the official language of mainland China instead of local language Cantonese.

A popular Iranian actress has found herself at the center of a dispute over feminism in the Islamic republic after cameras appeared to capture a "women power" symbol tattooed on her arm.

Taraneh Alidoosti's tattoo was seen sneaking from under her sleeve this week as she addressed reporters after returning from the Cannes Film Festival, where her latest film "The Salesman" won two awards.

The most senior lawyer at the EU's top court said Tuesday that companies may ban Muslim headscarves if they are enforcing a general prohibition on religious symbols in the workplace.

At least four people were killed in central Nigeria in two days of violence over an alleged blasphemy by a Christian trader against Prophet Mohammed, residents told AFP on Tuesday.

Germany's parliament votes Thursday on a resolution that qualifies the massacre of Armenians by Ottoman forces as "genocide", despite a strong warning from Turkey.

Drawn up by the ruling left-right coalition and the opposition Greens, the resolution entitled "Remembrance and commemoration of the genocide of Armenians and other Christian minorities in 1915 and 1916" also carries the contested word throughout the text.

Devout Hindus may soon receive water from the River Ganges by post, a minister said Monday, as India moves to tap booming e-commerce platforms.

Many Hindus believe the water from the River Ganges has the power to wash away their sins and religious ceremonies are considered incomplete without a generous sprinkling of the holy water.

Transgender people live under dramatically varying circumstances around the world -- often facing violent repression, but also conquering crucial new rights most notably in Europe and the United States.

There are few reliable statistics on the community, in part because many transgender people around the world are unable to come out. And there are sometimes misunderstandings of the complex and changing vocabulary involved.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Monday launched restoration work at Kabul's historic Darul Aman Palace, whose bombed out ruins have long symbolized the suffering caused by decades of conflict.

The once-grand hilltop palace at the edge of Kabul was also the venue of Ghani's cabinet meeting on Monday, the first such official gathering there in nearly a century.