Hans Werner Henze, one of Germany's foremost composers, has died at the age of 86, his publisher Schott Music announced on Saturday.

"With the death of Hans Werner Henze we have lost one of the most versatile, important and influential composers of our time," Schott said in a statement on its website, saying the composer died in Dresden on Saturday.

Hundreds of thousands of Muslim pilgrims from all over the world, grouped by nationality, stoned the devil in Saudi Arabia's Mina valley on Saturday, as the hajj reached its final stages.

Men, women and children from 189 countries, many of whom had saved for years to make the trip, hurled pebbles at three vast stone pillars representing Satan, shouting "Allahu akbar (God is Greatest)."

As economic giant China ploughs ahead with modernization and industrialization, small-scale farmers and producers are creating pockets of resistance by going back to their roots.

"China has made incredible steps forward but we're paying the price in terms of our health and are losing traditional ways of farming and eating," Zhou Jinzhang told Agence France Presse at the world's biggest food fair in Turin in northern Italy.

Blending jaw-dropping breakdance moves with everyday scenes, six dancers from different African nations are painting a portrait of their continent through a new show that pulses with energy and combines politics and tradition with street and contemporary dance.

The 90-minute piece leaps between depictions of a street fight, a cockfight, meetings between friends, Congo's "sapeurs" -- dandies who dress up in spectacular suits -- and an enthroned dictator surrounded by common folk.

Saudi King Abdullah on Saturday demanded a U.N. resolution condemning insults on monotheistic religions after a low-budget film produced in the U.S. sparked deadly protests last month.

"I demand a U.N. resolution that condemns any country or group that insults religions and prophets," he said during a meeting at his palace with religious figures and heads of hajj delegations in the Mina valley where pilgrims were performing final rituals of hajj.

Jacques Barzun, a pioneering cultural historian, reigning public intellectual and longtime Ivy League professor who became a best-selling author in his 90s with the acclaimed "From Dawn to Decadence," has died. He was 104.

Barzun, who taught for nearly 50 years at Columbia University, passed away Thursday evening in San Antonio, where he had lived in recent years, his son-in-law Gavin Parfit said.

The United States has returned more than 4,000 artifacts to Mexico, some more than 1,500 years old, that were brought across the border illegally, U.S. customs officials said.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Thursday that the artifacts had been seized at the border and inside the United States in more than a dozen operations in recent years.

It's scratchy, lasts only 78 seconds and features the world's first recorded blooper.

The modern masses can now listen to what experts say is the oldest playable recording of an American voice and the first-ever capturing of a musical performance, thanks to digital advances that allowed the sound to be transferred from flimsy tinfoil to computer.

An archaeologist says a structure that is believed to be the remains of an ancient Hindu temple has been unearthed on Indonesia's resort island of Bali.

Wayan Swantika of the local archaeology agency says workers digging a drainage basin last week in eastern Denpasar, Bali's capital, at first discovered a large stone about 1 meter (3 feet) underground.

Hundreds of thousands of Muslim pilgrims began to stone a pillar representing Satan in the Saudi holy city of Mina on Friday, the first day of the Eid al-Adha holiday.

Worshipers from 189 countries surrounded Jamrat al-Aqaba, the largest of three adjacent pillars, in the rite which they will continue at least until Saturday. The ritual marks the start of the Muslim holidays.