A majority of Arab Muslim youths see the actions of extremists such as the Islamic State group and Al-Qaida as a perversion of Islam's teachings, according to a new poll.

The Zogby Research Services poll of 5,374 young Muslim men and women from the Middle East and North Africa also found that many millennials blame corruption and repressive governments for the rise of jihadist groups.

Thousands of metres above sea level, high on the Tibetan plateau, hundreds of Tibetan Buddhist devotees in brilliant hues of pink and blue gathered for the Gedong festivals.

Lamas young and old mixed with festival-goers wearing traditional garb to watch the religious Cham dances at the Ganden Sumtseling monastery in Shangri-La.

Turkish authorities have detained two people who were caught smuggling a painting which experts suspect is by the 17th century Flemish artist Anthony van Dyck, reports said Sunday. 

The Hurriyet newspaper said authorities had seized the artwork in Istanbul after two businessmen attempted to sell it to undercover Turkish police officers for 14 million lira ($4.6 million, 4.2 million euros).

Thousands of protesters marched through central Hong Kong Sunday, demanding the release of five missing booksellers who are feared to have been detained by authorities in mainland China.

The five are from Hong Kong's Mighty Current publishing house, known for books critical of Beijing.

In his cramped workshop in Damascus, Mohammad Abdallah delicately etches away at wooden panels inlaid with mother-of-pearl, a craft he perfected over a decade before the outbreak of Syria's war.

As he works, Abdallah says he fears his craft -- the intricate process of filling carved wooden decorative pieces with shells, bone, or ivory -- could be forced into "extinction" by the conflict raging across his country.

Hundreds of French mosques are participating in a major open-house event this weekend, offering visitors the opportunity to come in for tea and a chat about Islam in a country shaken by jihadist attacks. 

Organised by the country's leading Muslim body, the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM), it aims to stimulate dialogue about Islam and create a greater sense of "national cohesion", a year after 17 people were killed in jihadist attacks in Paris targeting satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket. 

Barefoot men and women praying for miracles hurled themselves above huge crowds in the Philippines Saturday to touch a centuries-old icon of Jesus Christ in one of the world's largest Catholic festivals.

Some of the Asian nation's most fervent scenes of devotion played out through the narrow streets of Manila's old quarter as the life-sized Black Nazarene statue was carried through a gauntlet of worshippers.

New copies of Hitler's "Mein Kampf" hit bookstores in Germany Friday for the first time since World War II, unsettling some Jewish community leaders, as the copyright of the anti-Semitic manifesto expires.

Bavaria was handed the copyright of the book in 1945, when the Allies gave it control of the main Nazi publishing house following Hitler's defeat.

A gargantuan gold-painted statue of Communist China's founding father Mao Zedong has suddenly been demolished, apparently for lacking government approval, state media said Friday, days after images of it went viral.

Images of the statue of a seated Mao towering some 37 meters (121 feet) over empty fields in the central province of Henan made worldwide headlines this week.

British school examinations are to be timetabled in order not to disadvantage students from the Muslim minority observing Ramadan, exam boards said Wednesday.

GCSEs, taken by 16-year-olds, and A-Levels, taken by 18-year-olds, in core subjects such as English and mathematics could be set for the beginning of the exam season, before the start of Ramadan, which begins this year in early June.