Saudi Arabia's Shura Council, which advises the cabinet, has turned down a proposal to study the issue of women's driving, a Shura member told AFP on Wednesday.

Protesters demanding equal prayer rights for women at one of Judaism's holiest sites scuffled with ultra-Orthodox Jews on Wednesday as they sought to approach Jerusalem's Western Wall, organizers said.

Pope Francis held a public mass on Tuesday for the Catholic minority in Sweden, a Lutheran but secular country where same-sex marriage is allowed even for priests.

French President Francois Hollande on Tuesday said the Louvre could house threatened treasures from Iraq, Syria and other war-torn countries at a secure site in northern France.

Beirut's National Museum has opened its basement of ancient treasures for the first time in four decades to show the public its stunning array of funerary art, including the world's largest collection of anthropoid sarcophogi.

The new exhibition's 520 pieces range from the Paleolithic period to the Ottoman Empire. They include Phoenician stelae and rare medieval Christian mummies along with the anthropoid coffins, which display  a human face on the sarcophogus and were long a standard for the elite.

Oscar-nominated director Andrei Zvyagintsev on Thursday launched a furious attack on the Kremlin over government censorship that he said is strangling the arts.

Israel recalled its ambassador to UNESCO for consultations Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced, after a second resolution accused of denying the Jewish connection to Jerusalem.

The founder of Scandinavia's first female-led mosque is a soft-spoken "imama" who has riled conservatives with her views on marriage but others say her project is not progressive enough.

Israel's national theater company is to perform for the first time in a West Bank settlement with a hardline reputation, drawing praise from the right-wing government and outrage from opponents.

An historic mosque in India agreed Monday to scrap a ban on women entering its inner sanctum, after a bitter legal battle about the restriction in the deeply religious country.

The Haji Ali Dargah trust has since 2011 barred women from the landmark mausoleum off the coast of Mumbai, insisting the presence of women near the tomb of a revered saint is a "grievous sin" in Islam.