Prominent Lebanese historian Kamal Salibi died in Beirut on Thursday aged 82, the American University of Beirut at which he taught for more than half a century announced.

Born a Protestant on May 2, 1929 in multi-confessional Lebanon, Salibi gained a reputation as the leading historian on his country, penning "The Modern History of Lebanon" and "A House of Many Mansions: The History of Lebanon Reconsidered."

Archeologists say they have located and excavated the ruins of a massive amphitheater used to train gladiators east of Vienna in what they call a "sensational discovery."

They say that the ruins located through ground radar measurements rival the Colosseum and the Ludus Magnus in Rome in their structure. The Ludus Magnus is the largest of the gladiatorial arenas in the Italian capital, while the Colosseum is the largest amphitheater ever built in the Roman Empire.

Indian-administered Kashmir's first major literature festival has been canceled after local writers and artists said it would give the false impression that basic freedoms are allowed in the troubled region.

The Harud literary festival was scheduled for Sept. 24-26 in Srinagar, Kashmir's largest city and the main hub of opposition to Indian rule.

Many Indonesians found themselves hungry and confused on Tuesday after the government declared the Eid al-Fitr festival that ends the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan would not start there for another day.

The government decided late Monday, after consulting with religious bodies, that the moon was not in the right position for Eid to begin on Tuesday, as it has done for most Muslims around the world. It will start Wednesday instead.

Colombia-born Mexican author Fernando Vallejo was awarded the 2011 prize Monday at the Guadalajara International Book Fair, the biggest Spanish-language literary event, organizers said.

The 68-year-old Vallejo is best known for "Our Lady of the Assassins", which was made into a feature film by French director Barbet Schroeder in 2000.

German poet, playwright and scientist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe has been voted the greatest German of all time in a new poll, beating runners-up chancellor Konrad Adenauer and physicist Albert Einstein.

The author of "The Sorrows of Young Werther" and "Faust", who died in 1832, received the most votes in a poll of 2,000 people for the daily Bild newspaper, said the Forsa institute which conducted the survey.

Organizers said Thursday they were delaying this weekend's long-awaited dedication of a U..S. national memorial to slain civil rights icon Martin Luther King due to impending Hurricane Irene.

The dedication -- slated for Sunday, the 48th anniversary of King's "I Have a Dream" speech -- will instead take place in September or October, said Harry Johnson, head of the memorial project.

Israeli experts are nearing completion of an ambitious restoration of the five-century-old walls of Jerusalem, the holy city's dominant architectural feature and a unique record of its eventful and troubled history.

The $5 million undertaking, which began in 2007, is set to be complete by the end of this year. The first restoration of the walls in nearly a century, it has required decisions about which of the walls' many idiosyncrasies — the falcon nests, for example, the hundreds of machine-gun bullets, the botched restorations of years past — are flaws to be corrected, and which have earned a place in Jerusalem's story and are thus worth preserving.

A mayor is trying to ban Christian churches on streets with Islamic names, the latest attempt to block construction of a new parish in the world's largest Muslim-majority country.

Critics say the proposal — however arbitrary — is another example of growing religious intolerance.

Tourists and Washingtonians were about to get their first up-close look Monday at the memorial to the civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

The site was set to open without fanfare around 11 a.m. to kick off a week of celebrations ahead of Sunday's official dedication.