Islamist extremists occupying northern Mali on Wednesday banned all music except the singing of Koranic verses on private radio stations, in line with sharia, the strict Islamic law they are enforcing.

Whether Madonna, Rihanna or Youssou Ndour, all non-Muslim lyrics have been declared Satanic.

“Nehna wel Amar wel Jiran” is a free, outdoor festival, open to any and everybody, organized by Collectif Kahraba. The festival offers theater, dance, puppetry, storytelling and music taking the form of a guided tour. In 2011, it gathered about 30 artists and more than 1000 spectators from all walks of life, announced Collectif Kahraba in a statement on Wednesday.

And since then, our neighbors keep asking: “Is the party soon?”

An excited friend of a Kuwaiti bridegroom killed him during his wedding with a stray bullet as he charged his gun to fire into the air in celebration, a local daily reported Wednesday.

The man who turned himself in after the incident "fired a bullet by mistake when he was charging his gun," al-Qabas daily said, adding that the bullet hit the groom and killed him.

China's rural inequality is nearing "danger" levels as hundreds of millions of people shun farming for better paid city work, causing a widening wealth gap, a report said.

The state-linked Centre for Chinese Rural Studies said inequality within rural areas was growing given the difference in incomes between those who farmed and those who flocked to cities as migrant workers.

Madrid's iconic Cafe Gijon, whose past clients include Ernest Hemingway and Salvador Dali, has won a last-minute reprieve from near certain closure.

The cafe had warned it would have to draw the curtain on its 120-year history after Madrid's cash-strapped City Hall granted the license to its lucrative terrace to a higher bidder in July.

Nearly 700 descendants of the founder of a village in northern Malaysia gathered in what is believed to be the largest family reunion for the Muslim Eid al-Fitr celebration in the country.

Family head Syeikh Alauddin Syeikh Abu Bakar told Agence France Presse Tuesday the gathering brought together about 683 people from 100 families descended from Kampung Paya Pahlawan's (Warrior's Swamp Village) founder Tok Nai Din.

A Christian girl with Down's Syndrome has been arrested on blasphemy charges in Pakistan, accused of burning pages inscribed with verses from the Koran, police and activists said on Sunday.

Police arrested Rimsha, who is recognized by a single name, on Thursday after she was reported holding in public burnt pages which had Islamic text and Koranic verses on them, a police official told Agence France Presse.

A far-right group displayed a caricature of the Prophet Mohammed outside a Berlin mosque Saturday amid a heavy police presence, while far-leftists and anti-Nazis staged a counter-demonstration.

The protest by some 50 militants of the Pro Deutschland group aimed at Islamist extremists went ahead after a court allowed them to brandish copies of cartoons whose original appearance in Denmark sparked violent reactions across the globe.

In Bosnia, one of a handful of European countries with a Muslim majority population, Smail "Smajo" Krivic keeps a once-banned tradition alive during the holy month of Ramadan.

"He's here!" children cry, crowding around the 59-year-old as he arrives in Sarajevo's old town where he is the official Ramadan gunner who fires a cannon to signal the end of the daily dawn-to-dusk fast.

Small groups of demonstrators from Saudi Arabia's Shiite minority marked an Iranian-inspired annual protest against Israel in the oil-rich east of the Sunni-dominated kingdom on Friday, witnesses said.

Chanting slogans against the Jewish state and its U.S. ally, some of the demonstrators carried pictures of Iran's revolutionary leader, the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who launched the annual Quds (Jerusalem) Day commemorations around the Shiite world and beyond, the witnesses said.