The participation of popular Lebanese rock band Mashrou’ Leila in this year’s edition of the Byblos International Festival has sparked a storm of controversy in the country after the young artists were accused of “insulting Christianity” in their songs.

The band’s supporters and opponents are clashing on social networking websites, amid calls for boycotting and banning the concert. Some users, including Free Patriotic Movement official Naji Hayek, have openly threatened to resort to violence to prevent the gig from taking place.

Pope Francis has banned a former U.S. bishop accused of sexual harassment and of financial mismanagement from performing the liturgy, the Vatican News website reported Sunday.

Germany paid tribute Saturday to Claus von Stauffenberg and others who sought to assassinate Adolf Hitler 75 years ago, a plot that was recognised only belatedly but which a resurgent far-right is now seeking to expropriate.

A Bangladeshi lawmaker has been slammed online for calling the police on teenage lovers kissing in a park and posting their photos on social media in the socially conservative country.

French MPs on Tuesday approved a law on the reconstruction of Notre-Dame, three months after flames ravaged the great Paris cathedral, but with the rebuilding process still mired in controversy.

The rabbi of a Pittsburgh synagogue attacked last year by a white supremacist said Tuesday that the wave of hate will only end when racists feel ostracized, as he opened a major U.S. meeting on religious freedom.

The display cases at the royal palaces in Benin's sleepy southern town of Abomey are coated in dust and the exhibition halls plunged in darkness. 

Israeli Education Minister Rafi Peretz has spoken of his belief in therapy to convert gays to heterosexuality and claimed he has engaged in the practice, leading to calls for him to be sacked.

An Israeli city will end a selective closure at one of its parks that Arab citizens said was a racist policy meant to keep them out after a court decision Sunday.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday told unnamed Democratic Congresswomen to "go back" where they came from, prompting senior members of the party to brand him a "racist" and a xenophobe.