Widely eclipsed by the horror of the Nazi era, World War I seems to have found its way back into the minds of many Germans with a slew of new books ahead of the centenary of the war's outbreak.

Chancellor Angela Merkel commented recently that the 1914-18 war featured more prominently in the collective memories of Britons or the French -- both countries refer to it as the "Great War" -- than in Germany.

The Archbishop of Canterbury met church leaders in Pakistan Tuesday as he began a visit that comes amid concerns about the plight of the country's beleaguered Christian minority.

Justin Welby, the leader of the world's Anglicans, will meet Muslim leaders and senior government officials during his stay, part of a week-long tour that will also take in India and Bangladesh.

A three-months pregnant Pakistani woman was beaten to death with bricks by members of her own family Tuesday for marrying the man of her choice, police said.

Farzana Iqbal, 25, was attacked outside the Lahore High Court by more than two dozen people including her brother and father, senior investigator Rana Akhtar told Agence France Presse.

Myanmar is considering restrictions on religious conversion, according to a draft bill released in state media Tuesday, the first of several controversial proposals stemming from a rising tide of Buddhist nationalism.

The proposed legislation, put forward by the ministry of religion and yet to be debated in parliament, would require people who want to change their faith to get approval from a specially-created local authority.

A group of students discovered a 7,000-year-old mummy during a trip to northern Chile, local media reported Monday.

La Tercera newspaper reported that the find was made by chance Saturday during a visit to the Morro de Arica site by local students.

Russia has refused to permit the release of a film about the mass deportations of entire ethnic groups on Stalin's orders during World War II, calling it anti-Russian and a falsification of history.

The historical drama shot in Chechnya details how the Soviets forcibly deported the whole Chechen nation and the related Ingush group -- half a million people -- from their homeland in the North Caucasus to Central Asia in the winter of 1944, accusing them of lacking loyalty to the state.

A blaze ripped through one of the world's top art schools in the Scottish city of Glasgow on Friday, damaging a historic building designed by the architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

All students and staff were safely evacuated from the Glasgow School of Art, officials said, after the fire sent smoke and flames billowing from one of Scotland's most cherished buildings.

A 100-year-old beggar in a threadbare coat, "Grandpa" Dobri, is already celebrated as a saint in Bulgaria -- a symbol of goodness in a country ravaged by poverty and corruption.

For over 20 years, Dobri Dobrev has been begging on the streets of Sofia, collecting alms worth tens of thousands of euros. And he has given it all to the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. 

Britain's High Court ordered on Friday that king Richard III should be buried in a cathedral in Leicester, the city where his remains were found under a car park two years ago.

Descendants of the infamous ruler, who died in battle in 1485, had fought for his remains to be buried in York Minster, in the northern city that gave its name to Richard's royal house.

One of Brazil's top Catholic bishops has spoken out in favor of legal unions for homosexual couples, an apparent shift in the Church's stance on the country's existing gay-marriage policy.

"There needs to be a dialog on the rights attached to shared life between people of the same sex who decide to live together. They need legal support from society," Leonardo Steiner, the secretary general of the National Confederation of Brazilian Bishops, said in an interview with O Globo newspaper published on its website Thursday.