Saudi Arabia advertised vacancies for eight executioners Tuesday after beheading nearly as many people since the start of the year as it did in the whole of 2014.

The civil service ministry said that no qualifications were necessary and that applicants would be exempted from the usual entrance exams.

Former undercover agent Jay Dobyns says people can be forgiven for thinking Sunday's biker bloodbath in Waco, Texas, was a throwback to a bad 1970s movie.

The shootout — which killed nine people and wounded 18 — seemed aberrant because the public image of many motorcycle gangs has been burnished in recent years thanks to the many largely benign bike enthusiasts who've co-opted some of the same clothing and style.

Iranian-American artist Shirin Neshat's dark kohl-lined eyes are immediately recognizable. Now she is bringing their gaze on Iranian and Arab women's resistance to oppression to this most political of cities.

The Hirshhorn Museum's retrospective in Washington, just steps from Congress, coincides with a diplomatic push to seal a nuclear deal with Iran that has revived interest in relations between Tehran and the West.

The explosive growth of mixed martial arts (MMA) in Asia is putting the squeeze on boxing as it attracts millions of young fans and sells out venues across the region.

Just a few years ago, cage fighting was seen as a niche and grisly pursuit but it is moving into the mainstream with major TV and sponsorship deals and a planned $1 billion IPO for Asia's main player.

Giles Peppiatt, from Bonhams in London, had good reason to make the trip to Nigeria's financial capital, Lagos, for the auction house's next sale of African art -- a glut of potential buyers.

On a recent visit, he described Africa as "one of our hottest properties on the art block".

The descendants of famous heiress and art collector Peggy Guggenheim will Tuesday launch a court appeal over her sumptuous collection of works housed in an 18th century palace on Venice's Grand Canal.

At the tender age of 13, Peggy Guggenheim inherited unimaginable wealth when her metal magnate father Benjamin went down on the Titanic, money she used to collect and display contemporary art.

In wine-loving France, owners of fine bottles have ironically adopted a practice started in neighbouring Britain that helps ensure the old French adage, "life is too short to drink bad wine".

Britain's connoisseurs have long entrusted their best tipple to private firms for safe keeping.

Two 19th-century nuns on Sunday became the first Palestinians to gain sainthood during an open-air mass celebrated by Pope Francis in St Peter's Square attended by Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas.

The pontiff urged the faithful to follow the "luminous example" of the two 19th-century sisters and two others, from France and Italy, who were canonized along with them on a sunny spring morning.

Moroccan King Mohammed VI has ordered that laws restricting abortion be loosened, allowing it in the case of rape, incest, danger to the mother's health or fetal malformation.

Debate erupted in this North African kingdom earlier this year over reforming the penal code, which banned abortion except in cases of a threat to the mother's life. The king had his justice minister, religious affairs minister and the head of the state human rights organization study the issue.

About 2.7 million people have visited the September 11 museum in New York since it opened a year ago, museum officials said on its anniversary.

The visitors came from all 50 US states and 150 different countries to tour the National September 11 Memorial Museum in New York, they said.