High above the altar in the Vatican's Sistine Chapel, the halo around Jesus Christ's head in Michelangelo's famous frescoes shines with a brighter glow, thanks to a revolutionary new lighting system.

Angels, Sybils and prophets in blues, pinks and golds, once lost in the gloom, are brought into sharp relief by 7,000 LED lamps designed specifically for the prized chapel, where red-hatted cardinals have elected new popes since the 15th century.

Schools in China's mainly Muslim Xinjiang region, where a series of attacks has left hundreds dead in recent months, said they would actively discourage religious practice at home, state-run media reported Wednesday.

Principals at more than 2,000 kindergartens, primary schools and secondary schools in Kashgar, near China's border with Pakistan, signed a pledge to "defend schools against the infiltration of religion", according to a report by the Global Times, which is close to the Communist Party.

Château Kefraya has teamed up with Lebanese artist Mazen Kerbaj, to create a limited edition label to celebrate the launch of the 2012 Les Bretèches, one of Lebanon’s much-loved red wines this year at Vinifest, a press release said on Wednesday.

“This year, we felt like celebrating a mythical wine with Mazen Kerbaj, an authentic, innovating and modern Lebanese artist” said Château Kefraya’s founder and chairman, Michel de Bustros.

If you're waiting for gender equality in the workplace, be prepared to wait a long time.

While women are rapidly closing the gender gap with men in areas like health and education, inequality at work is not expected to be erased until 2095, according to a report published by the World Economic Forum (WEF) Tuesday.

Among the mountains of rubble littering Gaza after a deadly summer war, clay outlines emerge of men, women and children with a story to tell about fear, flight and destruction. 

Though his sculptures, which are made of fibreglass and covered with clay, Iyyad Sabbah relates the pain of those who lived through this latest conflict with Israel during which nearly 2,200 Palestinians were killed, mostly civilians.

The music's thumping, the dance floor's packed and the bar's bustling. Welcome to one of New York's hottest nightclubs and a new generation of clubbers: six-year-olds.

The VIP Room threw open its doors to children aged six to 12 on a Sunday afternoon to give them a taste of the nightclub, electronic music and dance scene in New York's uber trendy Meatpacking District.

The Israeli and Polish presidents on Tuesday hailed a Warsaw museum chronicling the vibrant 1,000-year history of Poland's Jewish community devastated by the Holocaust, as an investment in future ties between their countries.

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin said the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews was "symbolic of our looking to the future", speaking in the Polish capital on his first trip abroad since having taken office in July.

A luxury train filled with Western tourists pulled into Tehran on Monday, after an almost two-week journey from Budapest taking in Iranian cities that reportedly cost up to $31,000 a head.

Around 70 passengers, mostly from Britain and Australia, visited the cities of Isfahan, Shiraz and Yazd before reaching the Iranian capital where the travelers will spend two days before flying home.

A woman has been tortured and beaten to death by her in-laws in central India on suspicion of being a witch and practicing black magic, police said Monday.

Police in the central state of Chhattisgarh said relatives attacked the 55-year-old widow on Sunday after claiming her witchcraft had caused her nephew's ill health.

A non-profit organization dedicated to mobilizing citizens to document the present state of the city using photography, organized the second annual Beirut Photo Marathon last month.

Ninety five photographers took to the streets of the city to produce 12 compelling photos each in 12 hours on 12 themes providing a revealing look into life in Beirut, said the organization FRAME in a press release.