Lebanese intellectual Lokman Slim, found shot dead Thursday at age 58, was an outspoken critic of Iran-backed Hizbullah and an advocate for preserving the memory of his country's civil war.

The son of a prominent lawyer and an Egyptian mother, Slim was an activist, writer, publisher and filmmaker, and a leading secular voice in the Shiite Muslim community.

The United States on Wednesday condemned "rhetoric" against sexual minorities in Turkey after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan blasted the LGBT movement and compared student protesters to "terrorists."

Britain's biggest businesses have very few ethnic minorities in the boardroom -- and no black top executives, according to research published Wednesday.

Thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews defied Israel's coronavirus restrictions to attend a rabbi's funeral on Sunday, prompting Defense Minister Benny Gantz to demand the community's repeated breaking of lockdown rules must end.

Using crutches, Palestinian Mohamed Aliwa leaps from one concrete slab to another, determined that his missing leg won't stop him doing parkour, a sport that brings respite from grim reality in Gaza.    

Napoleon Bonaparte's account of his victory at the Battle of Austerlitz, dictated during his exile on the island of Saint Helena, went on sale Wednesday in Paris for one million euros ($1.2 million).

Pope Francis on Wednesday urged the United States' new president Joe Biden to promote "reconciliation and peace" around the world following his inauguration.

Lebanon handed back two 18th-century religious icons of Jesus and Mary to Greece on Tuesday after they were seized during an auction, a judicial source said.

An Italian woman who worked as a consultant for disgraced Cardinal Angelo Becciu, a former top Vatican official, is facing an "imminent" trial for embezzlement, prosecutors said Monday. 

Saudi Arabia on Monday reported a sharp drop in executions in 2020, as the kingdom seeks to blunt international criticism of its human rights record.