Two top rights groups on Friday slammed the severe restrictions imposed on women and girls by the Taliban in Afghanistan as gender-based persecution, which is a crime against humanity.

In a new report, Amnesty International and the International Commission for Jurists, or ICJ, underscored how the Taliban crackdown on Afghan women's rights, coupled with "imprisonment, enforced disappearance, torture and other ill-treatment," could constitute gender persecution under the International Criminal Court.

Lebanon's gracious Sursock Museum is set to reopen on Friday, more than two years after a catastrophic explosion at Beirut port devastated the architectural gem and its modern and contemporary art collection.

Bestselling Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami has won this year's Princess of Asturias Award for literature, the Spanish foundation that organizes the prizes said Wednesday.

The Princess of Asturias Award jury praised the "uniqueness" of the 72-year-old Kyoto-born writer's essays, short stories and novels, which have been translated into more than 40 languages and sold millions of copies.

British author Salman Rushdie said Tuesday he was back at his writing desk after being repeatedly stabbed at an event last year in the United States.

Pope Francis will travel to Portugal for World Youth Day in the first week of August and include a stop at the popular Marian shrine in Fatima, the Vatican said Monday.

The Aug. 2-6 visit is longer than originally expected and covers almost the entire week of the big Catholic rally that St. John Paul II inaugurated to try to invigorate young people in their faith.

It's not as if Madrid was short on world-ranking galleries with the likes of the Prado Museum, the Thyssen-Bornemisza and the Reina Sofía, among others.

But next month, Spain is set to unveil what is touted as one of Europe's cultural highlights of the year with the opening in the Spanish capital of The Royal Collections Gallery. The swanky new museum will feature master paintings, tapestries, sculptures, decorative art pieces, armory and sumptuous royal furniture collected by Spanish monarchs over five centuries, spanning the empire's Hapsburg and Bourbon dynasties.

Lebanese activists protested Sunday at a beach in the coastal city of Sidon after a woman said she was harassed there over her allegedly indecent bathing suit, an AFP correspondent said.

Defying a municipality ban on their demonstration, dozens of protesters, mostly women, gathered briefly in the Sunni Muslim-majority conservative city, the correspondent said.

On-set scandal may have haunted French director Catherine Corsini's new film, but the movie was well-received by critics in Cannes for its strong acting performances.

"The Homecoming," which premiered late Wednesday, lost some funding over an intimate scene featuring a 15-year-old actress that was ultimately cut from the final take.

On a gentle slope looking out over Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, villagers work their way across pink-dotted terraces, gathering perfumed Damask roses that are used for essential oils, sweets and cosmetics.

The rose harvest "gives you a bit of hope, it makes things beautiful, it calms you down -- it gives you strength to carry on", said Leila al-Dirani, picking the flowers from her family's land in the village of Qsarnaba.

Writer Salman Rushdie has made a public speech, nine months after being stabbed and seriously injured onstage, warning that freedom of expression in the West is under its most severe threat in his lifetime.

Rushdie delivered a video message to the British Book Awards, where he was awarded the Freedom to Publish award on Monday evening. Organizers said the honor "acknowledges the determination of authors, publishers and booksellers who take a stand against intolerance, despite the ongoing threats they face."