More than 30 same-sex couples will say "I do" Monday when New Zealand becomes the first Asia-Pacific country and only the 14th in the world to legalize gay marriage.

The move has sparked a raft of competitions to set wedding firsts, but unease amongst the religious community.

Five Picasso murals that survived Anders Behring Breivik's bombing of an Oslo government block in 2011 are now at the heart of a divisive debate in Norway on the buildings' fate.

The murals drawn by the Spanish master in the late 1950s and 1960s -- "The Beach", "The Seagull", "Satyr and Faun" and two versions of "The Fishermen" -- risk being removed from the location for which they were conceived if the damaged buildings are torn down.

A newly declassified CIA document confirms the existence of famed Area 51 in Nevada, but conspiracy theorists will be disappointed the spy agency offers no proof of alien spaceship landings in the desert.

Area 51 has long been fodder for science fiction films and wild UFO tales claiming the U.S. government imposed secrecy over the site northwest of Las Vegas to cover up evidence of extra-terrestrials touching down on Earth.

Judges on TV talent shows always attract controversy for making or breaking the careers of desperate wannabes -- but for Aryana Sayeed, the job is also a fight for Afghanistan's future.

The glamorous 28-year-old singer is a judge on worldwide hit series "The Voice" that launched in Kabul in May, immediately attracting huge audiences and an array of angry critics.

Six thousand Catholic faithful attended an Assumption mass in the Basilica of Saint Pius X in Lourdes Thursday, two months after the church in southwestern France was damaged by floodwaters.

The crowds were only slightly smaller than last year and a spokesman for the town's religious sites said the recovery had been faster than expected thanks to successful fund-raising campaign.

Hungary said Wednesday it will contribute 120,000 euros ($160,000) towards the upkeep of the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz, following criticism that it was stalling on funds.

In May, Piotr Cywinski, the head of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation which maintains the memorial site -- told the French newspaper Le Monde that Hungary was reluctant to help pay for the preservation of the former camp.

A cold, dry spell that lasted hundreds of years may have driven the collapse of Eastern Mediterranean civilizations in the 13th century BC, researchers in France said Wednesday.

In the Late Bronze Age, powerful kingdoms spanned lands that are now Egypt, Greece, Cyprus, Syria, Turkey, Israel and the Palestinian territories, but they collapsed suddenly around 1200 BC.

Neo-Gothic and solidly 19th century, the church of Sainte-Gemmes-d'Andigne in western France stands as a testament to a long-gone village way of life.

The limestone church with its four-bay nave and high stained glass windows towers above the village, now home to just a fraction of the people it was built to serve in 1865 when an earlier one on the same site was deemed too small.

South Korean President Park Geun-Hye Thursday urged Japan to "face history" to mend ties with neighbors, on the same day that top Tokyo officials visited a war shrine seen as a symbol of its imperial past.

Park, in a speech marking the anniversary of Korea's independence from the 1910-45 Japanese occupation, warned that controversies over Japan's colonial rule were "darkening the future of bilateral relations".

The more siblings you have, the less likely you are to get divorced when you grow up, suggests a study presented Tuesday at a major convention of American sociologists.

Doug Downey of Ohio State University said that, in terms of divorce, having no siblings or just one or two doesn't make much of a practical difference.