Police in Pakistan have arrested an imam for inciting violence after a 15-year-old boy who was reported to have been mistakenly accused of blasphemy cut off his own hand.

The cleric, Shabbir Ahmed, last Monday told worshipers at a village mosque that those who love the Prophet Mohammad always say their prayers, before asking who among the crowd had stopped praying, according to local police chief Nausher Ahmed.

A video game allowing players to kill Australian Aboriginals has been removed from mobile stores after more than 50,000 people signed an online petition against the "racist" app.

The app, "Survival Island 3 -- Australia Story", tells users that they have to find ways to stay alive in "one of the most dangerous places in the world", including having to "fight with aboriginals -- you invaded their home!".

Long a symbol of Polish-German reconciliation, Poland's western city of Wroclaw will become a European culture capital this year highlighting its history at the crossroads of political upheaval in central Europe.

Formerly known as Breslau and part of Germany before the end of World War II, Wroclaw will share the limelight with fellow capital of culture San Sebastian on Spain's northern Basque coast.

A town in Germany has banned male asylum seekers from public swimming pools after complaints from women that they were being harassed by migrants, AFP learned Friday.

A spokesman for the local government of Bornheim said the ban on male asylum seekers above the age of 18 came after six people filed complaints "over the sexually offensive behavior of some migrant men at the pool."

Pakistani lawmakers have withdrawn a proposal to impose harsher penalties on those who arrange child marriages after it was scuttled by a religious body who branded it "blasphemous" and against Islam, sources told AFP Friday. 

The proposal, which would also have raised the legal age of marriages for females from 16 to 18, called for "rigorous" punishment up to two years in prison for those who organize child marriages, still common in some parts of Pakistan.

A ancient Egyptian obelisk has become a makeshift memorial for the 10 German tourists killed in this week's suicide bombing in Istanbul, with people laying carnations, messages and even football scarves to remember the victims.

The suicide bomber, a Syrian member of the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group, detonated his charge on Tuesday morning next to the Obelisk of Theodosius in the center of Istanbul's historic district.

Calls for French Jews to leave their skullcaps at home in the wake of a jihadist attack on a kippa-wearing teacher sparked an emotional debate Wednesday pitting security concerns against a desire to uphold Jewish identity.

Parents in the southern city of Marseille, where Monday's attack "in the name of Allah" added to a string of anti-Semitic incidents in recent months, have begun urging their sons to wear a baseball cap instead.

A majority of Arab Muslim youths see the actions of extremists such as the Islamic State group and Al-Qaida as a perversion of Islam's teachings, according to a new poll.

The Zogby Research Services poll of 5,374 young Muslim men and women from the Middle East and North Africa also found that many millennials blame corruption and repressive governments for the rise of jihadist groups.

Thousands of metres above sea level, high on the Tibetan plateau, hundreds of Tibetan Buddhist devotees in brilliant hues of pink and blue gathered for the Gedong festivals.

Lamas young and old mixed with festival-goers wearing traditional garb to watch the religious Cham dances at the Ganden Sumtseling monastery in Shangri-La.

Turkish authorities have detained two people who were caught smuggling a painting which experts suspect is by the 17th century Flemish artist Anthony van Dyck, reports said Sunday. 

The Hurriyet newspaper said authorities had seized the artwork in Istanbul after two businessmen attempted to sell it to undercover Turkish police officers for 14 million lira ($4.6 million, 4.2 million euros).