Hundreds of thousands of Muslim pilgrims took part in the symbolic stoning of the devil ritual for a second day Wednesday in Saudi Arabia's Mina valley, as the annual hajj neared its end.

Men, women and children from 188 countries pelted three huge concrete structures representing the devil with pebbles, in an event that seemed better organized than in previous years.

A Holocaust survivor's family urged New York's highest court Tuesday to let them keep an ancient gold tablet that their late father somehow obtained in Germany after World War II.

Attorney Steven Schlesinger argued that the estate of Riven Flamenbaum has a legal claim, whether the native of Poland bought the relic from a Russian soldier or simply took it to compensate for losing his family at Auschwitz, the concentration camp where he spent several years.

Youth and heft triumphed at Britain's Booker Prize on Tuesday, as 28-year-old New Zealander Eleanor Catton won the fiction award for "The Luminaries," an ambitious 832-page murder mystery set during a 19th-century gold rush.

The choice should give heart to young authors of oversized tales. Catton is the youngest writer and only the second New Zealander to win the prestigious award — and her epic novel is easily the longest Booker champion.

President Michel Suleiman on Tuesday announced that Lebanon will annually commemorate singing legend Wadih al-Safi, who passed away on Friday evening.

"No one can do justice to the late artist. Lebanon has its national anthem but the country of cedars also has several anthems performed by the late legend," Suleiman said, as he offered condolences at the St. George Church on Tuesday afternoon.

Hundreds of thousands of Muslims converged on the Mina valley in Saudi Arabia Tuesday to participate in a symbolic stoning of the devil, the final stage of the annual hajj pilgrimage.

As Muslims around the world celebrated the first day of Eid al-Adha, the feast of sacrifice, the pilgrims, dressed in the ihram, a two-piece seamless white garment, angrily hurled stones at concrete pillars representing the devil.

Pedro Almodóvar, the leading Spanish film director, has accused the government in Madrid of carrying out a rigorous plan to exterminate Spanish cinema, joining an increasingly angry battle between film-makers and the rightwing governing People's party (PP).

In an article published on the website infoLibre, Almodóvar criticized the finance minister, Cristobal Montoro, for a hike in VAT on tickets which has been widely blamed for causing many cinemas to shut, with the loss of hundreds of jobs. Last week, Montoro said the problems faced by the industry, which include cuts to government funding for domestic films, were nothing to do with taxes or funding, but instead to do with the poor quality of the films.

Lebanon bid farewell on Monday afternoon to legendary singer Wadih al-Safi in a popular mass held at St. George Cathedral in downtown Beirut.

Several officials and music figures attended the funeral while Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi presided over the mass.

Pilgrims in their hundreds of thousands thronged Mount Arafat in Saudi Arabia from early Monday for the climax of the annual hajj pilgrimage, arriving on foot, by train or in vehicles.

Officials said they expected around 1.5 million pilgrims to descend on the site, where later in the day they will perform prayers and listen to the annual sermon from Saudi top cleric Sheikh Abdulaziz al-Sheikh.

Split, stolen, even stashed in a salt mine, one of the world's most mythical oils, Flemish masterpiece "The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb", is undergoing its most ambitious clean-up in 600 years.

By Flemish primitive masters Hubert and Jan Van Eyck -- though Hubert remains something of a mystery -- the 24-panel work is also known as the Ghent Altarpiece or Lamb of God, and features the first known nudes in Flemish art, Adam and Eve.

A Malaysian appeals court on Monday upheld a government ban against the use of the word "Allah" to refer to God in non-Muslim faiths, overruling claims by Christians in this Muslim-majority nation that the restriction violates their religious rights.

"Allah" is the Arabic word for God and is commonly used in the Malay language to refer to God. But the Malaysian government insists that "Allah" should be exclusively reserved for Muslims because of concerns its use by others would confuse Muslims and could be used to convert them.