Capitalizing on low water levels in Warsaw's Vistula River, police are teaming up with archaeologists to recover gigantic marble and alabaster treasures that apparently were stolen from royals in Poland by Swedish invaders in the mid-17th century.

A police Mi-8 helicopter hovered over a riverbed on Thursday, lifting ornaments such as the centerpiece of a fountain with water outlets decorated with Satyr-like faces.

Canada and Turkey's foreign ministers unveiled a monument to fallen diplomats Thursday, a week after U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens was killed in Libya.

The monument in Ottawa stands on the very spot where a Turkish diplomat was assassinated on his way to work 30 years ago, allegedly by Armenian gunmen.

Egypt on Thursday reopened the Serapeum of Saqqara, a vast underground necropolis south of Cairo dedicated to the bulls of Apis, after 11 years and complete renovation of the historic pharaonic site.

The Serapeum, whose origin dates back to around 1400 BC, was discovered in 1851 by French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette, founder of the first department of Egyptian antiquities.

Restrictions on religion were growing worldwide by mid-2010, even in Western countries with traditionally few limits on the practice of faith, the Pew Research Center said Thursday.

It said three-quarters of the world's seven billion people lived in countries with either "high government restrictions on religion or high social hostilities involving religion," according to data from July 2009 through June 2010.

When a famous U.S. architect visited Venice's celerated Venini glass works in 1951, he was so entranced by a green and black bowl that turned red in the light he ordered 25 replicas.

But the glaziers never managed to reproduce it and today the bowl has pride of place at an exhibition paying tribute to a golden age of 20th century glassmaking through the experimental work of architect Carlo Scarpa (1906-1978).

A mining giant is showcasing dozens of the world's rarest diamonds in Hong Kong, as it seeks to tap into the booming Chinese jewellery market.

The 75 pink, red and blue diamonds are being shown at a private exhibition by Anglo-Australian mining firm Rio Tinto, which unearthed a huge 12.76-carat pink diamond in Australia in February -- the largest of the precious stones ever found in the country.

Once banned by Christian missionaries as a barbaric, heathen custom, traditional tattooing is making a comeback in the Cook Islands as locals in the Pacific nation reconnect with their cultural roots.

Body art was common in South Pacific nations such as the Cooks, Tonga, Tahiti and Samoa before missionaries arrived in the 19th Century -- so much so that the English word tattoo is derived from the Polynesian terms "tatau" and "tatatau".

The dried blood of the Roman Catholic patron saint of Naples mysteriously turned to liquid Wednesday in a repeat of what residents consider a miracle and good omen, the local church said.

A small crowd at the cathedral in the southern Italian city cheered at the announcement, when city archbishop Crescenzio Sepe brought out a small reliquary with the two vials of San Gennaro's blood.

South Korea has issued a ban on an erotic novel by the 18th-century French nobleman and writer, the Marquis de Sade, for "extreme obscenity," a Seoul official and publisher said Wednesday.

The Korea Publication Ethics Commission, a state review board, told the local publisher of "The 120 Days of Sodom" to recall and destroy all copies currently at stores, senior board official Jang Tag-Hwan told AFP.

Australia's parliament voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to reject gay marriage, after days of heated debate that saw one senator resign from a key role after linking same-sex unions to bestiality.

The House of Representatives voted down the bill to legalise marriage between same sex couples by 98 to 42, with Labor Prime Minister Julia Gillard and opposition conservative leader Tony Abbott both voting against it.