Furious Kenyan villagers said they wasted a day waiting for a "witchdoctor" to bring a corpse back to life after he failed because he was too "tired", a report said Friday.

Scores of villagers in Kenya's southeastern Kwale district turned up singing and dancing to see the "miracle", Kenya's The Star newspaper reported.

Depictions of Prophet Mohammed such as the cartoons published by the French satirical magazine reeling from a deadly attack are banned in Islam and mocking him angers many Muslims.

Although images poking fun at the prophet have repeatedly infuriated the Islamic world, Arab and Muslim leaders and clerics were quick to condemn the attack. Sunni Islam's most prestigious center of learning Al-Azhar said "Islam denounces any violence".

Russia has passed a controversial law banning transvestites and transsexuals from driving, prompting sharp criticism from rights activists, including a prominent Kremlin advisor.

The legislation that entered into force this week bans anyone diagnosed with a range of personality and gender identity disorders, including transvestites and transsexuals, from taking the wheel.

More than five million barefoot devotees paraded a centuries-old icon of Jesus Christ through Manila Friday in a loud, heaving paroxysm of religious fervor ahead of Pope Francis's visit to Asia's bastion of Christianity.

In fervent displays of devotion, huge crowds of men, women and children chanted "Viva!" (Long live!) and twirled white handkerchiefs at the Black Nazarene, with some hurling themselves at the supposedly miraculous statue for good luck.

French author Michel Houellebecq has suspended the promotion of his new novel "Submission", a dystopian vision of France under Islamic rule, after this week's massacre at satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, his agent said.

The book was released on Wednesday -- the same day that 12 people were killed when gunmen stormed the magazine's Paris office, including some of France's best known cartoonists.

Students here study math by calculating the benefits of government land takeovers. They practice English by reciting where late President Hugo Chavez was born and learn civics by explaining why the elderly should give him thanks.

Pro-administration messages scattered through the pages of Venezuela's textbooks have become yet another point of conflict in this hyper-polarized country, where Chavez's socialist party won a bare majority in the presidential elections of 2013.

Oil-rich Brunei has banned public celebrations of Christmas for fear of Muslims being led astray, its religious affairs ministry said Thursday, in a country that last year controversially instituted tough Islamic sharia penalties.

The ban, instituted after Christmas last month when local children and adults were seen wearing clothes "that resemble Santa Claus", raises fresh concerns of religious restrictions after last April's announcement of the introduction of a penal code that will eventually include penalties such as the severing of limbs and death by stoning.

A series of sensational claims, including that ancient Hindu sages were the pioneers of aviation and algebra, have triggered a furious debate in Indian academic circles amid warnings that nationalist breast-beating could undermine the country's burgeoning scientific reputation.

A weekend conclave of experts and researchers, whose guests included new Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was intended to highlight some of the latest achievements by India's scientific community.

British-Indian writer Salman Rushdie paid tribute to the work of satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo following a deadly attack on its offices Wednesday, saying religion must be subject to satire.

Rushdie was forced into hiding after Iran issued a death sentence on him for allegedly insulting Islam with his 1988 book "The Satanic Verses."

Chinese censors should pay more attention to public opinion, a state-run newspaper argued Wednesday, after an online backlash over the removal of all cleavage from a TV show about China's only female emperor.

"Empress of China", about the Tang dynasty ruler Wu Zetian, who came to power at the end of the 7th century, was abruptly taken off the air soon after its debut on satellite station Hunan TV late last month, ostensibly for "technical reasons".