The Baha’i International Community on Thursday accused Iran of excavating a cemetery where hundreds of its followers are buried, and urged the Tehran government to halt the work.

The grave site in the southern city of Shiraz, some 710 kilometers (440 miles) south of Tehran, has been used by Baha'is for decades.

Bob Dylan's handwritten working manuscript for the lyrics of "Like a Rolling Stone" will be auctioned in June by Sotheby's, the New York Times reported Wednesday.

The lyrics are part of a sheaf of six pages of memorabilia from Dylan that also include the manuscript of "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall".

South Africa on Wednesday accredited over 100 imams as marriage officers, allowing the Muslim clerics to officiate at fully recognized weddings for the first time.

Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe hailed "a new chapter in the story of the Muslim community in South Africa".

A major exhibition of paintings and etchings by James McNeill Whistler opens in Washington this weekend -- but don't expect to see his mother there.

"An American in London: Whistler and the Thames" spotlights the 19th century American artist's many years in the British capital and his fascination with the storied river than runs through it.

An Oscar statuette won in 1939 by a cinematographer who worked on "Citizen Kane" was auctioned for $150,000 Tuesday.

Gregg Toland won the Academy Award, the only Oscar of his career, for his work on another film, "Wuthering Heights" by director William Wyler and starring Sir Laurence Olivier.

A theater center in an off-the-beaten path corner of Tuscany has become a creative hub for thespians from around the world, offering residencies for established drama professionals and courses for aspiring actors.

The Funaro complex in Pistoia includes former blacksmith and carpenter workshops turned into apartments, two 100-seat theaters and a cafeteria which acts as the main social center.

Energy-rich Qatar is gaining a foothold on the global cultural scene by lavishing billions of dollars on renowned artworks, but some could prove controversial in the deeply conservative Gulf monarchy.

Damien Hirst's "Miraculous Journey" -- a group of 14 bronze foetus sculptures -- makes an unlikely addition to the landscape of Doha, installed in front of a medical centre on the outskirts of the capital. Out in the middle of the desert, a large abstract sculpture by American artist Richard Serra rises up from the sand. 

The Sultan of Brunei announced that a controversial new penal code featuring tough Islamic criminal punishments that has been criticized by UN human rights officials would be phased in from Thursday.

"Today... I place my faith in and am grateful to Allah the almighty to announce that tomorrow, Thursday May 1, 2014, will see the enforcement of sharia law phase one, to be followed by the other phases," Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah said in a speech.

The British Library officially opened its newsroom on Monday, where the public can access more than 300 years of newspaper history dating back to the English Civil War for free.

In the new center at the national library in London, visitors can plough through 7.8 million scanned pages of historic newspapers and 4.8 million archived British Internet domain websites, totaling more than a billion individual web pages.

A vast necropolis with some 50 mummies, including pharaonic royalty, has been discovered in Egypt's famed Valley of the Kings near the temple city of Luxor, officials said Monday.

"The immense necropolis contains the remains of mummies that could have been members of the royal family, in particular the sons of the kings Tutmoses III and Tutmoses IV of the 18th dynasty," which ruled from 1550-1292 BC, the antiquities ministry said.