Muslim women who fail to learn English to a high enough standard could face deportation from Britain, Prime Minister David Cameron announced Monday.

He also suggested that poor English skills can leave people "more susceptible" to the messages of groups like Islamic State (IS).

Pope Francis made his first visit on Sunday to a synagogue as pontiff, citing an "unbreakable" bond between Jews and Christians as hundreds of armed security personnel were deployed for the Rome visit.

Francis is the third pope to visit the Great Synagogue in Italy's capital after John-Paul II in 1986 and Benedict XVI in 2010.

Experts revealed Sunday new findings at two of Egypt's famed pyramids, boosting efforts to unravel whether the ancient world's iconic monuments contain secret chambers.

For the past three months a team of researchers from Egypt, France, Canada and Japan have been scanning four pyramids with thermal cameras to see if they contain unknown structures or cavities.

Police in Pakistan have arrested an imam for inciting violence after a 15-year-old boy who was reported to have been mistakenly accused of blasphemy cut off his own hand.

The cleric, Shabbir Ahmed, last Monday told worshipers at a village mosque that those who love the Prophet Mohammad always say their prayers, before asking who among the crowd had stopped praying, according to local police chief Nausher Ahmed.

A video game allowing players to kill Australian Aboriginals has been removed from mobile stores after more than 50,000 people signed an online petition against the "racist" app.

The app, "Survival Island 3 -- Australia Story", tells users that they have to find ways to stay alive in "one of the most dangerous places in the world", including having to "fight with aboriginals -- you invaded their home!".

Long a symbol of Polish-German reconciliation, Poland's western city of Wroclaw will become a European culture capital this year highlighting its history at the crossroads of political upheaval in central Europe.

Formerly known as Breslau and part of Germany before the end of World War II, Wroclaw will share the limelight with fellow capital of culture San Sebastian on Spain's northern Basque coast.

A town in Germany has banned male asylum seekers from public swimming pools after complaints from women that they were being harassed by migrants, AFP learned Friday.

A spokesman for the local government of Bornheim said the ban on male asylum seekers above the age of 18 came after six people filed complaints "over the sexually offensive behavior of some migrant men at the pool."

Pakistani lawmakers have withdrawn a proposal to impose harsher penalties on those who arrange child marriages after it was scuttled by a religious body who branded it "blasphemous" and against Islam, sources told AFP Friday. 

The proposal, which would also have raised the legal age of marriages for females from 16 to 18, called for "rigorous" punishment up to two years in prison for those who organize child marriages, still common in some parts of Pakistan.

A ancient Egyptian obelisk has become a makeshift memorial for the 10 German tourists killed in this week's suicide bombing in Istanbul, with people laying carnations, messages and even football scarves to remember the victims.

The suicide bomber, a Syrian member of the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group, detonated his charge on Tuesday morning next to the Obelisk of Theodosius in the center of Istanbul's historic district.

Calls for French Jews to leave their skullcaps at home in the wake of a jihadist attack on a kippa-wearing teacher sparked an emotional debate Wednesday pitting security concerns against a desire to uphold Jewish identity.

Parents in the southern city of Marseille, where Monday's attack "in the name of Allah" added to a string of anti-Semitic incidents in recent months, have begun urging their sons to wear a baseball cap instead.