South Korea has awarded one of its highest cultural honors to the rapper Psy for taking the world by storm with his "Gangnam Style" hit.

The culture ministry announced Tuesday that the 34-year-old singer, whose real name is Park Jae-Sang, would receive the Okgwan Order of Cultural Merit, awarded for "outstanding meritorious services" to the arts.

From a giant, bug-eyed Gollum sculpture looming over passengers at Wellington Airport to promotional banners covering the facades of office blocks, the upcoming "The Hobbit" movie is impossible to ignore in New Zealand.

Tourism chiefs, hoping to recreate the surge in visitors inspired by the original "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, have launched a massive marketing campaign around director Peter Jackson's latest Middle Earth three-parter.

He may not be The Boss, but The Kid lent his high-octane rock & roll late Monday to the final rally of Mitt Romney's 18-month campaign, on the eve of the U.S. presidential election.

Kid Rock was the star attraction at an arena in New Hampshire, the state where the Republican nominee's presidential bid began 18 months ago, and several thousand supporters gave him and the Romneys a rousing welcome.

South Korean pop sensation Psy caused a riot in Paris on Monday, drawing up to 20,000 people for a "Gangnam Style" flashmob held opposite the Eiffel Tower.

Alerted on social media by the record label Universal Mercury, together with radio station NRJ, a massive crowd packed the Trocadero square to join the artist in a rendition of his much-imitated horse-riding dance.

Sharon Osbourne has had a double mastectomy after finding out she carries a gene which increases the risk of getting breast cancer, the British television personality said in an interview published on Monday.

Osbourne, 60, a former judge on America's Got Talent who is married to rock legend Ozzy Osbourne, battled colon cancer ten years ago and told Hello magazine she could not endure the ordeal again.

Sting may be celebrating 25 years in music, but the one-time "Police" frontman hates to look back, he told Agence France Presse on the final stretch of a year-long tour that wraps up in Asia in December.

"I'm not a very nostalgic person. It's just not in my nature," the singer said in an email interview, before arriving in France this week for the latest leg in the "Back to Bass" tour, launched in 2011.

Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, have arrived in Australia as part of their two-week tour of the Pacific.

The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall landed in the Outback Queensland town of Longreach on Monday following a visit to Papua New Guinea.

He's got gadgets, girls and a great suit. James Bond turns 50, and as the superspy's latest movie "Skyfall" opens in North America this week Toronto hosts the first global stop for the show "Designing 007 -- Fifty Years of Bond Style."

The exhibit, unveiled in London earlier this year, provides a behind-the-scenes look at the 23 films that have fascinated viewers around the world for decades.

Disney's animated romp "Wreck-It Ralph" rang up a phenomenal weekend at North American box offices, taking in $49.1 million -- almost double the number-two film, figures showed Sunday.

The premiere of Disney's movie, which sees a video game villain try to become a hero, almost doubled the business of another hot premiere, Denzel Washington's "Flight," about a troubled pilot.

Prominent Syrian-born Palestinian actor Mohammed Rafeh, who was believed to be a supporter of President Bashar Assad's regime, was kidnapped and then killed by anti-government gunmen, activists and his family said Sunday. He was 30.

Ahmad Rafeh, Mohammed's father and also a well-known actor, said the family received Mohammed's body Sunday.