Lurid allegations against the head of China's Shaolin temple -- renowned as the birthplace of kung fu -- must be investigated by the government, state media said Monday, after former monks accused him of philandering and corruption.

The abbot, Shi Yongxin, has long been known as the "CEO monk" for transforming the ancient Buddhist temple into a global commercial enterprise. 

Holding the young couple's identity cards in one hand and the Koran in the other, the Palestinian justice of the peace pronounces Thaer and Rawan man and wife.

It's an everyday scene at the Islamic sharia law court in the West Bank city of Ramallah except for one glaring difference -- the justice is a woman, the first in the Palestinian territories licensed to perform Muslim marriages.

A young Ukrainian artist has captured global media attention by creating a striking portrait of Russian President Vladimir Putin out of 5,000 bullet shells collected in the separatist east.

Daria Marchenko's "The Face of War" -- a remarkably realistic and politically tinged depiction of Putin in a dark suit and red tie -- stands more than two meters (nearly seven feet) tall and dominates the artist's studio apartment.

Pompeii is rising from the ashes again -- despite the worst that Italy's mafia, and bureaucracy, could throw at it.

The ancient city, buried during a volcanic eruption in the first century, is undergoing a multi-million euro restoration which will see the preserved bodies of victims go on display at the site.

A cement bust of America's most-wanted whistleblower Edward Snowden, once famously confiscated by police, returned to public display in New York on Friday to kick off a street art festival.

The 100-pound (45-kilo) likeness stands proud on a plinth in Manhattan's tourist-clogged Little Italy neighborhood, to be guarded round the clock until the weekend Lo Man Art Festival closes.

At age 15, Rosie Maruki Kakuuchi became a prisoner in the blink of an eye, in her own country.

Now 88, she recalls the three miserable years she and her family endured in one of the concentration camps the United States set up for Japanese-Americans after Tokyo attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

Palmitas, a hardscrabble neighborhood in the Mexican city of Pachuca, used to have a reputation as a battleground where gangs fought deadly turf wars.

But recently the bloodshed on the hillside slum's narrow streets has fallen dramatically and it has gained a far more welcome kind of attention.

An extraordinary collection of shipwrecked 17th and 18th century Spanish treasure discovered off the coast of Florida has sold in New York for about $2 million, an auction house said Thursday.

U.S. treasure hunter Mel Fisher was most famous for discovering the shipwrecked Spanish galleon Nuestra Senora de Atocha, which went down in a hurricane in 1622, laden with New World riches.

Authorities blocked a colours festival in southern Iraq, using concrete barriers to close off the park where it was to be held, an Agence France Presse journalist reported.

The festival in the port city of Basra would have followed one in Baghdad in which grinning young people dressed in white shirts gathered and covered each other in clouds of coloured powder and engaged in a massive water fight.

In the pre-dawn hours of July 22, 1974, a transport plane full of Greek commandos on a secret mission to Cyprus was shot down by friendly fire.

For more than 40 years, the exact whereabouts of the remains of 19 of the soldiers -- sent to support Greek Cypriot forces against invading Turkish troops -- has been a mystery.