France will not tolerate any hate speech or acts against Jews, Muslims or Christians, President Francois Hollande said Tuesday, just days after a comic whose sketches were viewed as anti-Semitic was banned from performing.

Hollande hailed as a "victory" a ban on Dieudonne's sketches initiated by Interior Minister Manuel Valls. The controversial comic has since been forced to cancel a nationwide tour after his attempts to challenge the ban in court failed.

Except for the Americas, religious conflict within countries rose around the world in 2012 to the highest level in six years, according to a study out Tuesday.

One third of 198 countries reviewed saw high or very high levels of internal religious strife, such as sectarian violence, terrorism or bullying in 2012, compared to 29 percent in 2011 and 20 percent in 2010.

Britain is recruiting an army of amateur historians to sift through more than 1.5 million pages of diaries written by World War I army officers, published online for the first time 100 years after the conflict began.

Spanning the whole of the 1914-18 conflict, the diaries are the official record of the war by British army units -- but deeply poignant testimony can be found among the battalions' day-to-day accounts of their movements.

Saudi Arabia has suspended a program that notifies the male guardians of female relatives, who may only travel abroad with their permission, once the women leave the country, a newspaper reported Tuesday.

Since November 2012, Saudi women's male guardians have been sent an SMS message informing them when women under their custody leave, even if they are travelling together.

A jewellery collection owned by former first lady Imelda Marcos was "ill-gotten", a Philippine court has ruled, potentially paving the way for an auction of millions of dollars worth of seized treasures.

The anti-graft Sandiganbayan court decided on Monday that the Malacanang Collection, the smallest of three confiscated from the Marcos estate and worth some $150,000, was rightfully owned by the government.

Rio's National Museum of Fine Arts (MNBA) Monday received 200 paintings and engravings by neo-realist Brazilian painter Candido Portinari, giving the museum the largest public collection of his work.

"We wanted these Portinari works to be on show for the public at large. More than 95 percent of his works are privately-owned", said the artist's son Joao Portinari, during a ceremony to mark the gallery's 77th anniversary.

Two Indian archaeologists are being sent to Kabul to study a "begging bowl" thought to have been used by Buddha in a first step to bringing the artifact back to India, an official said.

The huge stone vessel, weighing nearly 400 kilograms (880 pounds), is currently displayed at the National Museum of Afghanistan and is regarded as important in the Buddhist religion.

Pope Francis has written to the cardinals he is preparing to appoint next month, warning them to steer clear of "worldliness" and "celebrations" and telling them they should retain "a simple and humble heart".

Francis has repeatedly warned clerics against being ambitious and has curtailed the use of honorific "monsignor" titles as part of his plans to revamp the Vatican's scandal-tainted bureaucracy and finances.

Nobel prize-winning German writer Gunter Grass, author of "The Tin Drum" and one of Germany's most influential if controversial intellectual figures, has said he is unlikely to write another novel.

"I'm 86 now. I don't think I will manage another novel," Grass told the regional daily Passauer Neue Presse in a pre-released interview to appear on Monday.

A Renoir painting that was allegedly picked up at a flea market for $7 was stolen from a museum more than 60 years ago and must be returned, a United States federal judge ruled.

Eastern District of Virginia Judge Leonie Brinkema awarded ownership of the disputed 1879 oil painting on linen to the museum in Baltimore, ruling it had been stolen from there in November 1951.