Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk on Monday won the 2012 Sonning Prize, Denmark's highest cultural award that honors contributions to European culture.

Orhan Pamuk, 59, was the first Turkish writer to receive the Nobel Literature Prize, in 2006, for his body of work that discusses the clash of Muslim and Western culture in Turkey.

The tropical island chain of Okinawa Tuesday marked 40 years since U.S. occupying forces returned it to Japan, as locals readied to protest against the continued American military presence there.

A ceremony, attended by Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, U.S. ambassador John Roos and a phalanx of local politicians, is due to be held later in the day marking the anniversary.

Leonardo da Vinci's Lady with an Ermine is back on show at a castle in southern Poland's Krakow, after going on tour to Madrid, Berlin and London.

The renown artwork painted by da Vinci between 1488 and 1490 will be on display at Chateau Wawel until renovations are complete at the Princes Czartoryski Museum, which owns the masterpiece, the chateau said.

A massive block of limestone in France contains what scientists believe are the earliest known engravings of wall art dating back some 37,000 years, according to a study published Monday.

The 1.5 metric ton ceiling piece was first discovered in 2007 at Abri Castanet, a well-known archeological site in southwestern France which holds some of the earliest forms of artwork, beads and pierced shells.

A new waxwork of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II in full regalia was unveiled Monday at London's Madame Tussauds museum in honor of the monarch's diamond jubilee.

A team of 20 worked for four months to produce the £150,000 ($241,000; 187,000 euros) model, dressed in a replica of the white silk, satin and lace dress and state crown the queen wears in her official diamond jubilee photographs.

Taking advantage of Egypt's political upheaval, thieves have gone on a treasure hunt with a spree of illegal digging, preying on the country's ancient pharaonic heritage.

Illegal digs near ancient temples and in isolated desert sites have swelled a staggering 100-fold over the past 16 months since a popular uprising toppled Hosni Mubarak's 29-year regime and security fell apart in many areas as police simply stopped doing their jobs. The pillaging comes on top of a wave of break-ins last year at archaeological storehouses — and even at Cairo's famed Egyptian Museum, the country's biggest repository of pharaonic artifacts.

About 10,000 people including Austrian President Heinz Fischer gathered Sunday in Vienna to commemorate the 67th anniversary of the liberation of the Mauthausen concentration camp.

People came from around the world to pay homage to the many tens of thousands of victims of the camp, which the Nazis built in Upper Austria near the city of Linz during World War II.

Queen Elizabeth II is meditating. Swathed in white fur and with her eyes closed, she seems momentarily far from the heavy responsibilities she carries.

This intimate portrait, a hologram by photographer Chris Levine, is one of sixty pictures of the British monarch on show at London's National Portrait Gallery from Thursday to mark her diamond jubilee.

Love-struck teenagers, angry parents, rowing couples: Somali youth tired of seeing their homeland portrayed as a war-torn famine zone have started making films to show a different side to their country.

"The world knows Somalia for war," said Adirahman Ali Suge, a 19-year-old writer and film director, part of a group of refugee Somali film makers in the Kenyan capital Nairobi. "But we have love stories and drama to tell too."

Thousands of Jews from Morocco, Israel and other parts of the world have over the past week carried out an annual pilgrimage to the Islamic nation to honor celebrated rabbis.

Morocco may not be the likeliest of Jewish pilgrim destinations, but the North African nation has for centuries had a vibrant Jewish population and some 1,200 of the faith's pious ancestors are buried in cemeteries there.