Hundreds of visitors have tucked handwritten notes into the enormous stone slab at the new center adjacent to Bogota's main cemetery, which many think of as Colombia's "Wailing Wall."

The structure is the centerpiece of Colombia's new Center for Remembrance, Peace and Reconciliation where visitors can pay their respects to victims of the armed conflict that has torn the country apart for nearly a half-century.

Thousands of Palestinians and tourists were flocking to the West Bank city of Bethlehem on Monday to mark Christmas at the site where many believe Jesus Christ was born.

This year's celebration carries special significance for many Palestinians, coming after 12 months in which their status on the world stage has been significantly upgraded.

The last surviving British-based member of the International Brigades who fought in the Spanish Civil War has died aged 94, The Independent newspaper reported Monday.

David Lomon was a 19-year-old rag-and-bone man in east London when he volunteered to join left-wing forces battling General Francisco Franco's nationalist troops in the 1936-1939 conflict.

Several Kuwaiti liberal civil societies have condemned calls from some organizations and individuals forbidding the celebration of Christmas in the oil-rich Gulf state, a report said Sunday.

The civil societies said in a statement published by Al-Jarida newspaper that every year at this time certain groups declare celebrating Christmas and New Year as forbidden from an Islamic point of view.

Tunisian Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali kicked off viewing on Saturday for an auction of thousands of luxury items once owned by ousted dictator Zine El Abidine Ali and his family.

Jebali inspected 40 luxury cars, thousands of clothing, jewelry items and art works on the eve of the public auction which is being held in the Tunis suburb of Gammarth in a bid to raise millions of euros for government coffers.

In a high-school classroom in western Sydney, teacher Noeleen Lumby is asking her pupils to recall the Aboriginal name for animals that indigenous Wiradjuri people have used for hundreds of years.

As she holds up stuffed toys representing some of Australia's native wildlife, including a kangaroo, an emu and a cockatoo, the class of about 25 -- many from Vietnamese and Cambodian backgrounds -- come to grips with the ancient tongue.

Queen Elizabeth II's chaplain Reverend Rose Hudson-Wilkin, tipped to become one of Britain's first women bishops, said Saturday that the Church of England is struggling with "institutional racism".

Jamaican-born Hudson-Wilkin, a chaplain to the monarch and also to parliament's lower House of Commons, told The Times newspaper that she had been a victim of racism in her ministry.

Pope Benedict XVI on Friday weighed in on a heated debate over gay marriage, criticizing new concepts of the traditional family and warning that in the fight for the family, mankind itself is at stake.

"In the fight for the family, the very notion of being – of what being human really means – is being called into question," Benedict said in Italian during an end of year speech.

Marie, the biggest of all the new bells being made for Paris's Notre Dame Cathedral on its 850th anniversary next year, left its foundry in the Netherlands on Thursday headed for France.

"Marie left the foundry around 2 pm and should arrive in Normandy for final adjustments around 11 am tomorrow," the head of the Eijsbouts royal bell foundry, Joost Eijsbouts, told Agence France Presse.

Canada's top court ruled Thursday that Muslim women wearing the niqab can be forced to remove their veils when testifying, but only if absolutely necessary and after any objections have been considered.

The case, considering a rape victim's request to wear the veil at trial, pitted religious freedoms set out in the constitution against a defendant's right to face an accuser in court, which is deeply entrenched in Canadian law.