European bookshops are taking a stand against competition from the Internet, boosted by a renaissance in independent stores and their enhanced know-how despite still facing a difficult climate, industry players say.

"The findings are the same everywhere: it's difficult," Mathieu de Montchalin, president of the national trade union of French bookshops, said.

Renowned Lebanese singer Wadih al-Safi passed away on Friday after a battle with illness.

Al-Safi, 92, died at Bellevue Medical Center in al-Metn's neighborhood of al-Mansourieh, al-Jadeed television reported.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons won this year's Nobel Peace Prize on Friday "for its extensive efforts" to rid the world of such arsenals, the Norwegian Nobel Committee said.

"The conventions and the work of the OPCW have defined the use of chemical weapons as a taboo under international law," the committee said. "Recent events in Syria, where chemical weapons have again been put to use, have underlined the need to enhance the efforts to do away with such weapons."

Take a Monet, a Turner and other paintings worth millions of dollars and lend them to schools for a day. It may sound like a looming disaster, but not to British organizers of a project bringing great art to kids.

At Addey and Stanhope, an ethnically-diverse school in south London, 11- and 12-year-old pupils had no idea that the artwork they had been studying was coming to visit them until it turned up this week, accompanied by a white-gloved expert.

Auction houses have sold $700 million-worth of artwork in recent days in Hong Kong and set a series of world records, as Asia's art market heats up anew and competition mounts between Chinese and foreign firms.

Western giants Christie's and Sotheby's are increasingly focused on China but barred from selling the hottest item -- antiques -- by laws aimed at protecting cultural heritage.

Nigeria's Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, author of the bestseller "Half of a Yellow Sun", said writing a novel about the civil war which devastated her home region helped people connect with a past that most no longer discussed.

A month after the film based on "Half of a Yellow Sun" premiered, Adichie, 36, reflected on the impact of the book about Nigeria's 1967-1970 Biafra War, which left more than one million people dead after the writer's home southeastern region tried to secede.

Vincent van Gogh's various versions of some of his well-known paintings are featured in the first major exhibit of his artwork in Washington in 15 years at The Phillips Collection.

"Van Gogh Repetitions" opens Saturday to examine some of the artist's familiar paintings, looking at how he repeated certain compositions during his 10-year career. It was organized with the Cleveland Museum of Art, which will host the exhibit in March.

Canada's Alice Munro won the Nobel Literature Prize on Thursday for her short stories that focus on the frailties of the human condition, just the 13th woman to win the coveted award.

The Swedish Academy described Munro, 82, as a "master of the contemporary short story", a genre that has only rarely been honored with the world's most prestigious literary prize.

The Pakistani Taliban Thursday said teenage activist Malala Yousafzai had done "nothing" to deserve a prestigious EU rights award and vowed to try again to kill her.

The European Parliament awarded the Sakharov human rights prize to the 16-year-old, who has become a global ambassador for the right of all children to go to school since surviving a Taliban murder attempt.

Saudi Arabia's appointed advisory body on Thursday rejected a move by three female members to put the ultra-conservative kingdom's unique ban on women driving up for discussion, state media reported.

Its decision came even as activists hailed increasing reports of women getting behind the wheel in defiance of the ban ahead of a nationwide protest they are planning for later this month.