A ruined fifth century monastery in Istanbul is to be turned into a mosque next year, local media reported Tuesday, amid a row with Greece over possible similar moves for the ancient Hagia Sophia complex.

The plans for the Monastery of Studios, which was dedicated to St John the Baptist and was considered the most important of Constantinople, were revealed by the Hurriyet Daily News.

Archeologists in Nepal say they have unearthed traces of a timber structure in southern Nepal that they say is the oldest Buddhist shrine.

Kosh Prasad Acharya, who teamed with archaeologists from Durham University in Britain, said Tuesday that a dig inside the sacred Mayadevi Temple in Lumbini recovered the traces of the timber structure. The traces were scientifically tested and confirm dating to the sixth century.

Berlin's historic Zoo Palast cinema re-opens Thursday after a major renovation to restore the sparkle to the former Cold War-era theater, once the star-studded cultural boast of the city.

The Zoo Palast, which owes its name to a nearby city-center zoological garden, was built in the mid-1950s out of the ashes of a silent movie theater.

European judges will on Wednesday hear the case of a 23-year-old French woman who claims the country's highly contentious ban on full-face veils violates her rights.

The Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) will hear arguments in the case brought by a plaintiff known only by her initials SAS, with a ruling expected in early 2014.

A rocking chair used by president John F. Kennedy at the White House and two flags from his office drew more than $500,000 from a collector, Heritage Auctions said Sunday.

They were among some 228 items linked to the former president put under the hammer late Saturday in Dallas, Texas, on the 50th anniversary of JFK's assassination in that city.

Standing next to a newly refurbished bell tower, priest Aristakes Aivazyan says it needed divine intervention to save Armenia's medieval Haghartsin monastery.

But it also took a lot of money from a very unlikely benefactor -- the Muslim ruler of the resource-rich Arab emirate of Sharjah, Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed al-Qasimi.

A bird statuette featured in the classic 1941 detective thriller "The Maltese Falcon" is going on sale in New York City.

The black figurine is being offered on Monday at Bonhams auction house, which did not provide a pre-sale estimate.

An Asian buyer purchased a rare Leica camera, one of only four of its kind in the world, for $620,000 at a Hong Kong auction, auctioneers said Saturday.

The 1932 Leica Luxus II fetched HK$4.84 million ($620,000) late Friday in an auction where about 80 cameras and accessories went under the hammer in the southern Chinese city.

A French veteran made more than 10,000 euros Friday selling four photo albums he took from Adolf Hitler's mountain retreat as "a souvenir" in the final days of World War II.

The albums, which contain pictures and messages of admiration, were presented to Hitler by supporters in the 1930s and early 1940s. Two of them are bound in red leather with the Reich eagle engraved on the cover.

From the heart of France to the foothills of Mount Fuji and the streets of Washington DC, wine-themed fun was the order of the day Thursday as a new vintage of Beaujolais Nouveau was uncorked.

As ever, the reviews were mixed for the purply-pink "primeur" wine that the vignerons of the Beaujolais country in eastern France rush to market within a few weeks of harvest, often having been fermented in only a few days.