Pope Francis is studying a possible visit to Bahrain in November and said he is looking to reschedule his trip to South Sudan and Congo for February.

Francis told reporters en route home from Kazakhstan that his strained knee ligaments still hadn't healed and that travelling was "difficult." But the 85-year-old pontiff said he would undertake a next trip — a reference to a three-day visit to Bahrain in early November that is currently under study by the Vatican, spokesman Matteo Bruni said.

Against the backdrop of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Pope Francis told the Russian Orthodox hierarchy and other faith leaders Wednesday that religion must never be used to justify the "evil" of war and that God must never "be held hostage to the human thirst for power."

Francis opened an interfaith conference in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan by challenging delegations to unite in condemning war and religious justifications for it. He cited a Kazakh poet in warning that "he who permits evil and does not oppose it cannot be regarded as a true believer. At best he is a half-hearted believer."

American authorities have returned a rare, 2,000-year-old Jewish coin to Israel nearly two decades after it was looted, smuggled and put up for auction in the United States, Israel's antiquities authority announced Tuesday.

The quarter shekel silver coin, made in the year 69, is one of just two confirmed to exist. The other has been in the British Museum's collection for a century.

Saudi police arrested a Yemeni man this week after he advertised on social media his pilgrimage to Mecca, where he paid tribute to the memory of Queen Elizabeth II.

The pilgrim, who was not identified by name, had posted footage earlier this week that showed him holding a banner honoring the late queen from inside the courtyard of Mecca's Grand Mosque.

Egypt's media regulator demanded Wednesday that Netflix and other steaming services adhere to this majority Muslim county's "societal values" - a veiled reference to programs featuring members of the LGBTQ community.

The statement came a day after Gulf Arab countries asked Netflix to remove "offensive content" on the streaming service, apparently targeting programs that show gays and lesbians.

The shrieks of fear-infused excitement as bulls charge through the streets of many Spanish towns during wildly popular summer festivals echo in sharp contrast to the number of people who have died after being gored this year.

Bull runs may be a beloved spectacle for locals and visitors in thousands of summer festivals across Spain, but this year's macabre, record-tying toll of eight deaths has politicians and animal rights defenders heaping much criticism on the practice.

Two years before the fall of the Soviet Union, its leader Mikhail Gorbachev would receive an unusual letter from the Islamic republic of Iran's founder, inviting him to embrace Islam.

The last leader of the USSR passed away in Moscow on Tuesday at the age of 91, leaving behind a legacy that polarized observers on either side of the Iron Curtain.

Israeli archaeologists recently unearthed the titanic tusk of a prehistoric pachyderm near a kibbutz in southern Israel, a remnant of a behemoth once hunted by early people around half a million years ago.

The Israel Antiquities Authority announced Wednesday that the 2.5-meter (yard) long fossil belonging to the long-extinct straight-tusked elephant was found during a joint excavation with researchers from Tel Aviv University and Ben-Gurion University.

An American court has thrown out a lawsuit against a German museum foundation over a medieval treasure trove that was filed by heirs of Nazi-era Jewish art dealers, saying that the U.S. lacked jurisdiction to hear such a lawsuit.

The foundation that oversees Berlin's museums said in a statement Tuesday that the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia last week granted the foundation's motion to dismiss the 2015 restitution lawsuit that was brought against it, bringing the case to an end in the U.S., absent an appeal by the plaintiff.

Workers caked in plaster are putting the finishing touches to storeys-high statues of the elephant god Ganesha in time for one of India's biggest religious festivals, now jumbo-sized again after Covid.

The 11-day Ganesh Chaturthi festival, which draws tens of thousands of Hindu devotees onto streets across the seaside megacity of Mumbai, begins on Wednesday.