Down a concrete path, between rail tracks that buzz with each approaching train and a river choked by plastic and raw sewage, Asih Binti Arif cradles her baby and reflects on dreams gone dark.

Five years ago, Arif and her husband left impoverished Madura Island, joining the stream of migrants from across the vast Indonesian archipelago seeking a better life in its capital.

Two grandiose elephant tusks guard the doors of a palace built to celebrate the cultural heritage of Africa's Bantu tribes, which gradually settled across much of the continent, but beyond them the huge building is a ruin.

"Welcome to the Ciciba!" a young boy in rags hailed visitors outside, using the French acronym for the International Center of the Bantu Civilizations, built in Gabon's capital Libreville three decades ago.

For more than 5,000 years, numerous civilizations have left their mark on upper Mesopotamia — from Assyrians and Akkadians to Babylonians and Romans. Their ancient, buried cities, palaces and temples packed with monumental art are scattered across what is now northern Iraq and eastern Syria.

Now much of that archaeological wealth is under the control of extremists from the Islamic State group. The militants have demolished some artifacts in their zealotry to uproot what they see as heresy, but they are also profiting from it, hacking relics off palace walls or digging them out to sell on the international black market.

The United Nations agency promoting equality for women is launching a global campaign to get 100,000 men and boys involved in the fight to achieve gender equality.

U.N. Women said the campaign, spurred by the unfulfilled U.N. goal of achieving gender equality by 2015, will begin Saturday when Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon activates an online map to track the progress of countries in promoting equality of the sexes. Ban will be accompanied by British actress Emma Watson, a goodwill ambassador for the agency who played Hermione Granger in the "Harry Potter" films.

When retail mogul Leslie Wexner peers at one of the Picassos, Dubuffets or Giacomettis in the personal art collection he and his wife Abigail have amassed over the years, he feels a range of emotions that often include gratitude, defeat and exhilaration.

"I find it inspiring in a way — that tangible creativity you find in painting or performance," says the philanthropist and chairman of L Brands, the company behind Victoria's Secret, Limited and Henri Bendel.

A collection of letters John F. Kennedy sent to the family of a lost PT-109 crewmate sold for $200,000 at an auction.

RR Auction, a Boston-based auction house, said the sale happened Thursday during a two-day auction at the Omni Parker House that also saw the sale of a collection of letters that Kennedy's younger brother, Robert F. Kennedy, wrote to a classmate at what is now the Portsmouth Abbey School in Rhode Island.

Saudi Arabia has agreed to fund the restoration of Cairo's Al-Azhar mosque in recognition of its role as a "beacon of moderate Islam," the Egyptian president's office said Thursday.

The announcement came after talks between President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and visiting Saudi intelligence chief Prince Khaled bin Bandar bin Abdel Aziz on the coalition Washington is building against the Islamic State group (IS) in Iraq and Syria.

The Université Libano-Française is launching a new branch in Metn. Admissions are currently open, with classes to begin in October.

At the origin of this new Institution is a dream: the dream to create a place where students can learn and grow personally and professionally.

Egypt has recovered fragments from the pyramid of Cheops said to have been stolen by Germans, including part of a stone tablet identifying the pharaoh it was named after, state media reported Wednesday.

The Egyptian foreign ministry handed over "samples stolen in the Cheops pyramid" to the antiquities ministry, said the official MENA news agency.

Algeria will impose more government control on training for the country's imams in a bid to fight Islamic extremism, its religious affairs minister said in comments published in local media on Wednesday.

The former French colony in North Africa has a difficult history with religious fundamentalism, having fought hardline Islamists during a bloody civil war in the 1990s that left some 200,000 people dead.