A former radical preacher is the unlikely instigator of a debate on a topic long seen as off-limits in Muslim-majority Morocco: women's inheritance rights.

Ten countries including Russia, Turkey and India have been condemned for censoring, locking up or threatening cartoonists in a new report published Friday.

The executive board of the U.N.'s cultural agency ratified Friday a resolution that identifies Israel as "the occupying power" in Jerusalem and calls on it to rescind any move changing the city's "character and status."

Saudi women no longer need a man's consent to carry out certain activities, local media reported on Friday, but activists said the royal order does not go far enough.

Saudi Arabia has some of the world's tightest restrictions on women, and is the only country where they are not allowed to drive.

Russian artist Pyotr Pavlensky, who once memorably nailed his scrotum to Red Square to denounce state power, has won political asylum in France, his lawyer told AFP on Thursday.

Sunday morning is usually the preserve of Christian pastors in the Nigerian megacity of Lagos but a new form of worship is emerging to challenge the monopoly. 

"Praise Allah!" shouts the imam of the Nasrul-lahi-li Fathi Society of Nigeria (NASFAT) before thousands of his faithful, gathered under tents on the outskirts of the city. 

Istanbul authorities have withdrawn an invitation to Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales to attend a major conference in the city, officials said Tuesday, after Turkey blocked access to the online encyclopedia.

Mohamed Talbi, a prominent Tunisian academic and specialist on Islam, died early Monday aged 95, the country's culture ministry said.

Russian police on Monday detained young activists protesting against the persecution of gay men in Chechnya at a May Day parade in Saint Petersburg, an AFP photographer witnessed. 

Indonesian police have arrested eight men for allegedly holding a "gay party" in the world's most populous Muslim-majority country, police said Monday.